Learn to read Gothic
Gothic is the oldest Germanic language we can read at length. It is an extinct cousin of English, German and Swedish, and almost everything we know of it comes from one Bible translation.
Start reading Gothic
No account needed. Your first line takes about three minutes.
What Gothic is like
In the fourth century a bishop called Wulfila translated the Bible into Gothic and designed an alphabet to write it in, largely from Greek letters. Only parts survive, the best of them in a sixth-century manuscript written in silver ink, the Codex Argenteus.
If you speak English or another Germanic language, you will keep spotting relatives, such as hlaifs for loaf and dags for day. It feels like meeting a very old member of the family.
How Urling teaches it
- You start with a real line from a real text, in your first few minutes.
- Each lesson teaches the words that unlock more of a text you want to read.
- Short exercises rebuild real sentences, and words you miss come back later.
- Grammar comes as short notes when you meet it, not as a wall of tables first.
Famous texts to start with
New to the grammar? Read the short guide to Gothic grammar.
The letters
Gothic has its own alphabet of 27 letters. Urling teaches them in a short script course.
Also in the course
The course has 10 texts in all, including:
- Whole Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32)
- "lay not up treasure on earth" (Matthew 6:19-21)
- "consider the lilies of the field" (Matthew 6:28-30)
- Christmas story in Wulfila's Gothic
- Storm on Lake Galilee calmed in Gothic
- Parable of the Sower in Gothic
- Raising of Lazarus from the Gospel of John in Gothic
- Miracle of the loaves and fishes in Gothic
- Institution of the Lord's Supper in Gothic
Start reading Gothic
No account needed. Your first line takes about three minutes.