ProtoGothic

ProtoGothic is a term used in historical linguistics to denote the proposed, reconstructed ancestor of the Gothic language, preceding the attested Gothic texts from the 3rd–4th centuries CE. It is not an independently attested language; rather, it functions as a theoretical stage in the lineage from the broader Proto-Germanic language to the East Germanic branch that would later produce Gothic. Because Gothic is the oldest Germanic language with extensive surviving texts, ProtoGothic cannot be directly documented and is inferred through the comparative method by relating Gothic to other East Germanic languages and to Proto-Germanic.

Scholars disagree on the precise status of ProtoGothic. Some treat it as a narrow, transitional phase between Proto-Germanic and Gothic, preserving more archaic morphology and sound correspondences. Others consider ProtoGothic to be a convenient label for the late Proto-Germanic stage specifically on the path to Gothic, with East Germanic innovations beginning to appear. Commonly cited areas of reconstruction include phonology, morphology, and basic word stock consistent with East Germanic features, though specific forms are debated and not directly attested.

Evidence for ProtoGothic comes primarily from internal reconstruction and cross-language comparisons, including Gothic’s own data, alongside related East Germanic languages like Burgundian or Vandalic. The term remains a topic of methodological discussion rather than a fixed linguistic category, and some scholars prefer to describe Gothic as directly descended from Proto-Germanic without an explicit ProtoGothic stage.

See also Gothic language, Proto-Germanic, East Germanic languages.