TEI header: An electronic edition of the Gothic Bible and minor fragments, based on Wilhelm Streitberg's edition

1. File description

Title statement

Title	An electronic edition of the Gothic Bible and minor fragments, based on Wilhelm Streitberg's edition
Author	Wilhelm Streitberg
Funder	University of Antwerp
Principal researcher	Tom De Herdt
Responsibility [1]	Original data entry and proofreading (1997–1998): Robert Tannert, David Landau & Tom De Herdt
Responsibility [2]	Conversion to TEI markup: Tom De Herdt

Edition statement

Edition

Preliminary document containing the revised and tokenized base text. A linguistically annotated version is being prepared.

Extent

Size	67406 words

Publication statement

Authority	Project Wulfila (https://www.wulfila.be), University of Antwerp
Publication place	Antwerpen
Availability	`status` = free This file is freely available for non-commercial use, provided that a source description and reference to the project is included with any copy distributed. It is expected that use of the edition will be acknowledged appropriately, in accordance with normal scholarly etiquette. The latest version can be found at https://www.wulfila.be.
Date	March 2004; February 2026

Notes

[1]

This TEI edition was developed as part of a research project granted by the Special Research Fund (BOF) of the University of Antwerp: Een gelemmatiseerd, diachroon, elektronisch tekstcorpus van de Germaanse talen, inzonderheid het Nederlands, under the direction of Prof. J. Van Loon (New Research Initiative, March 2002 to April 2004). Text entry, however, dates back to volunteer efforts by different persons in 1997-1998.

Source description

Streitberg, Wilhelm. Die gotische Bibel. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Streitberg. Erster Teil: Der gotische Text und seine griechische Vorlage. Mit Einleitung, Lesarten und Quellennachweisen sowie den kleineren Denkmälern als Anhang. Zweite, verbesserte Auflage. Carl Winter, Heidelberg, 1919. (Germanische Bibliothek, 2. Abteilung, 3. Band)

2. Encoding

Project description

See https://www.wulfila.be/project for a description of the project.

Sampling declaration

This file contains a complete transcription of the Gothic text found in Streitberg's edition. It does not include the preface, introduction, Greek text, commentary or information on the minor fragments, nor is it intended to reproduce the appearance of the original work. There are currently no plans to digitize the book as a whole; the project's primary goal is a linguistically annotated text based on Streitberg's readings, not a reproduction of the actual edition. We do, however, plan to digitize the critical apparatus, possibly with some annotations and references to newer readings (e.g. emendations in Snædal, Magnús: A Concordance to Biblical Gothic, Reykjavík, 1998).

Editorial declarations

Corrections	`status` = high, `method` = silent The text has been thoroughly checked and proofread. An automated collation (May 2002) with the online edition provided by the TITUS project (Thesaurus Indogermanischer Text- und Sprachmaterialien) revealed some transcription errors (on both sides). As both transcriptions were independently produced with different methods, the chance that an identical error occurs at the same location is relatively small. We feel confident that the current edition is an accurate transcription of Streitberg's text. A small number of obvious printing errors in the source text have been corrected. They are not marked in the text but listed in the front matter of this edition (see Deviations from Streitberg's 1919 edition).
Normalization	`source` = Streitberg, `method` = silent No normalization beyond that performed by Streitberg. Orthographische Fehler sind nur dann im Text verbessert, wenn sie für die Erkenntnis der Aussprache bedeutungslos sind (Streitberg 1919, Erläuterungen p. XLVII).
Segmentation	In order to link the text to facsimile editions of the manuscript, `pb` milestones have been inserted into the Codex Argenteus readings, based on Uppström's diplomatic edition (1854) and visual inspection of an online reproduction of the 1927 facsimile of Codex Argenteus. These are not present in Streitberg's edition.
Quotations	`marks` = none, `form` = unknown The use of double quotation marks in the source text is limited to Skeireins, where they indicate citations from the Gospels. This edition uses the `quote` element to mark up these citations, without quotation marks. Three instances of words in single quotes have been marked up with `q`.
Punctuation	Streitberg's punctuation is followed; it does not reflect original punctuation in the manuscripts. All punctuation marks are marked up with `pc`.
Hyphenation	`eol` = none Soft hyphens have been silently removed. Hyphens used by Streitberg to indicate clitics (e.g. ga-u-laubjats) or assimilation (e.g. jas-so) have been replaced with the symbol "~" (i.e. ga~u~laubjats).

Tagging declaration

`<unclear>`	Marks characters or words that could not be identified with complete certainty: Kursivsatz im Antiquatext, Antiquasatz im Kursivtext deuten an, daß der handschriftliche Text nicht mehr oder doch nicht mit Sicherheit lesbar ist (Streitberg 1919, Erläuterungen p. XLVII).
`<add>`	Marks additions by Streitberg, delimited with <...> in the copy text.
`<del>`	Marks deletions by Streitberg, delimited with [...] in the copy text.
`<pb>`	Marks manuscript page beginnings for Codex Argenteus. The `n` attribute contains a page number in the 1927 facsimile by von Friesen and Grape, followed by the (incorrect) Benzelius folio number in parentheses, e.g. `125 (fol. 113r)`. The page number should be considered a foreign key to the table in the introduction of the facsimile (p. 20–30).

Reference system declaration

The text follows the biblical canonical reference system and is divided into books (div type="book"), chapters (div type="chapter") and verses (ab type="verse"). For technical reasons, the minor fragments have been segmented – somewhat artificially – using the same three-level structure. The type attribute specifies the nature of each segment, e.g. div type="leaf" for Skeireins.

Variant encoding

Method	parallel-segmentation
Location	internal

Additional notes

In accordance with Streitberg's decision to transcribe the full text of all witnesses, this edition uses the parallel segmentation method to record all readings in extenso, even when they are identical. There are at most two parallel witnesses. Differences between both versions are marked up with a seg element with type set to diff, a pragmatic solution geared towards generating web pages for the project. It may be revised in a future version, once a (much needed) critical apparatus is encoded.

Differences between segments are subdivided in these categories, encoded as a number in the subtype attribute:

0 = None. There is no parallel version for the selected token(s).
1 = Identical. The selected token(s) has (have) an identical parallel version in another manuscript.
2 = Different word. The selected token(s) has (have) a lexically different parallel version, e.g. ‘runa’ and ‘garuni’.
3 = Different spelling. The selected token(s) has (have) an orthographically different parallel version, e.g. ‘sium’ and ‘sijum’.
4 = Different form. The selected token(s) has (have) a grammatically different parallel version, e.g. ‘uns’ and ‘unsis’.
5 = Missing (text). The selected token(s) is (are) missing in the parallel text (different language).
6 = Missing (manuscript). The selected token(s) is (are) missing in the parallel text (missing folio).
7 = Different punctuation. Streitberg has different punctuation in parallel text (probably a misprint).
8 = Different word order. The selected tokens have a parallel version with different word order, e.g. ‘Xristaus Iesuis’ and ‘Iesuis Xristaus’.
9 = Assimilation or enclisis. Assimilation or enclisis of two or more tokens in parallel text, e.g. ‘jah liban’ and ‘jal~liban’.
10 = Different reading. The selected token(s) has (have) a parallel version with different reading, emended by Streitberg, e.g. ‘mahte[de]deina’ and ‘mahtedeina’.
11 = Different numerical notation. The selected token(s) has (have) a parallel version with different numerical notation, e.g. ‘fidwortaihun’ and ‘·id·’.
12 = Problematic. Unclassified variation in parallel text (e.g. combination of the variations above).

3. Text profile

Creation

Knowledge of the Gothic language is derived primarily from the remains of a Bible translation made in the 4th century CE by the Visigothic bishop Wulfila (Ulfilas). The surviving manuscripts are not originals but much later copies thought to have been written in northern Italy during the period of Ostrogothic rule (first half of the 6th century CE).

Language

[got] Gothic
[grc] Ancient Greek
[de] German
[la] Latin

4. Revision history

Major revisions in boldface.

2004-03-01	Conversion to TEI P4.
2004-03-17	Completed information in the TEI header.
2004-06-06	Words in single quotes (three instances) have been marked up with `q`.
2004-12-26	Corrected a typo in the transcription: Matthew 9:15 atgagggand (with triple ‘g’: Codex Argenteus and Streitberg) had been accidentally normalised to atgaggand.
2005-02-22	Corrected a typo in the transcription: Skeireins 1:5 waldufnuja changed to waldufnja.
2005-09-26	Corrected a typo in the transcription: Luke 5:10 sind changed to siud.
2025-02-13	Updated link to external TEI P4 DTD.
2026-02-05	Conversion to TEI P5 (version 4.10.2). Updated header information and improved mark-up in places. Substituted element `w` for `seg` to mark up tokens; fixed unwanted indentation in tokens that contain `del`, `add` or `unclear`.
2026-02-17	Resolved and removed internal entities; replaced punctuation marker `c type="punct"` with `pc`; replaced three-letter ISO 639-2 codes with two-letter ISO 639-1 code where possible (`ger` → `de`, `dut` → `nl`, `lat` → `la`).
2026-02-18	Inserted `pb` milestone elements into the Codex Argenteus readings to mark the start of manuscript pages, by inspecting Uppström 1854 and an online copy of the 1927 facsimile. Updated TEI header and added list of subtypes for `seg` with type `diff`.

TEI Header