What was Gothic?

Whatever it was or whatever one might want to call it, the language of Theoderic’s people was a creole, a Germanic base with a heavy admixture of Latin. In that way it resembled English, a language yet to be born, which would become a Germanic language with a heavy admixture of French.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, racism and nationalism pictured the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Lombards — and even the Vandals, can you imagine — as proud, blond Aryan warriors who “conquered Rome.” One can find troublemakers anywhere but, in general, the opposite was the truth. They saw, they came, they settled — and became Romans.

Their numbers were significant but hardly overwhelming. As evidence, Professor O’Donnell points out that “The language spoken in Milan, Rome and Palermo to this day is a direct and astonishingly uncontaminated descendant of Latin.” (p. 120)

Professor O’Donnell also cites Cassiodorus, in the same place, who jokes that he couldn’t tell whether his contemporary Jovinian was Goth or Roman, for he had a Goth’s beard and dressed like a Roman. Cassiodorus also observes that poor Romans imitated the Goths, while rich Goths imitated the Romans. As we like to say, “There is no story so truly bewildering as reality.”