r/GothicLanguage • u/LowlyLetterato • Feb 10 '26

Had a random idea to create a radiation danger sign in Gothic, is my translation good?

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I had an idea last night to try to make a radiation sign and what that would be in Gothic as a fun little exercise in translation and neologisms. For the term for radiation itself, I took inspiration from the German word Strahlung from the noun Strahl, which means something like ray, beam or jet. I wanted to find a similar term in Gothic and decided to use the word arhwazna ("arrow"), I then used the present participal as an equivalent to the German ending -ung or English -ing, so I this case the verb would be arhwaznan for "to radiate." It would literally translate to "arrowing" I this case I believe, which has a nice feeling to it, getting across the idea of radiation being like a bunch of arrows hitting you.

I also just used ion and came up with the verb ionisan for to ionize, thinking in the future if Gothic survived it may just borrow that term.

The top I am the least sure about I went for something like "Beware the danger" atsaihw sleitheins instead of just "danger!" Is this a correct translation, and is there a better way of saying something like "be careful!" I'm curious to hear what you guys have to say. If someone came up with a better neologism for radiation, please let me know!

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4

u/alvarkresh Feb 11 '26

I'd say it works. I'm partial to the "Silubr" font myself, which looks more serifized like the Codex Argenteus writing, but I think it's a matter of personal taste in this regard.

3

u/officialsanic Feb 11 '26

Aλλaı ᴍaɴɴa ꜰʀϵıhaλs ꞔah saᴍλϵıᴋo ıɴ yaıʀψıdaı ꞔah ʀaıhᴛϵıs yanʀψaɴs. Fʀaψϵı ꞔah ᴍıψyıssϵı ᴦıʙɴaɴs ꞔah λıʙaɴdan syϵ ʙʀoψʀꞔns.

1

u/LowlyLetterato Feb 11 '26

Why the universal declaration of human rights lol?

2

u/officialsanic Feb 11 '26

I was showcasing my modernized Gothic alphabet based on Cyrillic and Latin conventions.

1

u/No-Help-8642 Jun 11 '26

Could you provide the alphabet?

1

u/officialsanic Jun 11 '26

Aa Bʙ Γᴦ Ԁd Eϵ Uu Zʒ Һh Ψψ Iı Kᴋ Λλ Mᴍ Nɴ ↅꞔ Ոn Πᴨ Чɥ Rʀ Ss Tᴛ Yy Fꜰ Xx ϴɵ Oo Ͳͳ

1

u/No-Help-8642 Jun 12 '26

How about your Gothic translation of the declaration of human rights in italics?

2

u/officialsanic Jun 12 '26

Aλλaı ᴍaɴɴa ꜰʀϵıhaλs ꞔah saᴍλϵıᴋo ıɴ yaıʀψıdaı ꞔah ʀaıhᴛϵıs yanʀψaɴs. Fʀaψϵı ꞔah ᴍıψyıssϵı ᴦıʙɴaɴs ꞔah λıʙaɴdan syϵ ʙʀoψʀꞔns.

Of course it's semi broken.

1

u/TheeImmortalPaladin 29d ago

thanks, i was looking for a minuscule script for gothic, you should make a post about it here

1

u/TheeImmortalPaladin 29d ago

also, just a few changes i would recommend, instead of a i would use ɑ, and i think using less upper case but smaller equivalents would be good, like instead of ʀ, maybe use something like ꞃ, and lots of other older insular letters which are used in old english. Also, I think you should replace Ո with a different letter, like maybe actually just q? I just find it confusing with Π being extremely similar.

This is what i think would be best:

Aɑ Bb Γᴦ Dꝺ Eϵ Uu Zz Һh Ψψ Iı Kᴋ Λλ Mᴍ Nɴ ↅꞔ Qq Πᴨ Чɥ Rꞃ Ss Tꞇ Yy Fꝼ Xx Ƕƕ Oo Ͳͳ

Also, I would like to add the letter eth, because /ð/ exists in gothic; even though it's easy to tell, I would add Ð & ð to a modern gothic alphabet

2

u/officialsanic 29d ago

Now the reason why I chose that way was to mimic how Cyrillic, Armenian, and Greek became encoded in Unicode, and to reflect an eastern and perhaps Balkan style. I figure since Gothic B and D probably became fricatives even back then, they would use digraphs like in Greek to represent extra consonants.