Mark Williamson wrote:
When did I say parents *will* teach their children
Gothic as a first
language? Plenty already have.
What's important to remember is that while in Western Europe, Gothic
died quite some time ago, in the Crimea, Gothic died perhaps around
the same time as Cornish did, or maybe even later, in Cornwall. And we
have a Cornish Wikipedia...
According to our article on the Gothic language, Crimean Gothic is a
different language to the older Gothic language known from the Codex
Argenteus. I assumed we were talking about creating an encyclopedia
based on the ancient language. Again according to our article on the
subject, all that is known about the language comes from a single 16th
century letter, giving a vocabulary of about 80 words. I fail to see how
parents can teach their children a language of which only 80 words are
known.
All that is known about Ancient Gothic comes from a bible translation
plus a few fragments, which at least gives you enough to work with that
you might plausibly consider writing an encyclopedia in it.
Can you please provide a reference for your statement that 400 children
are currently being raised in Gothic? I couldn't find anything with a
quick web search. Which variety of Gothic are they taught?
-- Tim Starling