# Are books still being written in the "dead language" Gothic ?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 24, 2000, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066 "2000-12-24T04:44:07Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![jcgmoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9adbd/32.png) [@jcgmoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jcgmoi)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066/21 "2000-12-30T17:50:34Z")

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SpinneZiege asked:

> [@](#):
>
> Can we get a cite on that one?

[This one](http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,38240+1+37488,00.html) looks to be barstow’s source. You can take a look at the alphabet [here](http://shadowdrake.tripod.com/gothic.html), although I count only 25 letters. OK, this is better, [the full 27](http://tied.narod.ru/project/script/gothi.html) (tab Gothic Script under Images).

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**Author:** ![SpinneZiege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@SpinneZiege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpinneZiege)\
**Post date:** [December 30, 2000, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066/22 "2000-12-30T22:32:44Z")

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Thanks. Looks like an interesting language. I don’t think I’ll learn it anytime soon. I’m working on Esperanto right now; one useless language at a time!

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**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2001, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066/23 "2001-01-01T18:14:19Z")

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The following URL is an excellent resource for studying Tolkien’s languages:

[http://www.elvish.org/resources.html](http://www.elvish.org/resources.html)

Note that it indicates that Jim Allan’s _An Introduction to Elvish_ and Nancy Martsch’s _Basic Quenya_ are good books to learn the languages from, while Ruth Noel’s book isn’t recommended.

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**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2001, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-books-still-being-written-in-the-dead-language-gothic/47066/24 "2001-01-01T18:33:02Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Jomo Mojo \*  
> \*\*Only one person in modern times was fluent enough in the ancient Gothic language to actually write new literature in it.  
> His name was J. R. R. Tolkien. \*\*

My favorite quote from Tolkien:

NOT ALL WHO WANDER ARE LOST.

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