Gothic Alphabet Translator (Wulfila’s Script)
This Gothic alphabet translator writes names and words in the 27-letter script that Bishop Wulfila created in the 4th century to translate the Bible into Gothic. It also reads Gothic letters back into standard transliteration.
How to use the Gothic alphabet translator
- Type a name, word or short phrase. English spelling is fine. Gothic transliteration letters such as þ and ƕ are understood too.
- Keep “By sound” selected to turn th into 𐌸, wh into 𐍈 and ch into 𐍇, the way Gothic itself was spelled.
- Press Convert and copy the Gothic letters. Open the table to see each letter’s name and value.
- To read Gothic text, switch the direction and paste it in. You get the standard scholarly transliteration.
How the conversion works
Gothic is an East Germanic language, now extinct. Almost everything we know of it comes from a 4th-century Bible translation made by Wulfila (also called Ulfilas), a bishop who worked among the Goths north of the Danube. To write it, he created a new alphabet of 27 characters. Most letters are adapted from Greek uncials, a few from Latin, and several (including 𐍈 and 𐌿) are generally thought to come from runes.
Because Gothic has its own alphabet, converting English means matching sounds to letters:
- th → 𐌸 (þiuþ), wh / hw → 𐍈 (ƕair), ch and x → 𐍇 (iggws, the letter Gothic used for Greek χ).
- c → 𐌺 before a, o and u, and 𐍃 before e, i and y. Gothic had no letter c.
- v, w and y → 𐍅 (winja). In Gothic texts winja wrote w, and it also stood for y in Greek names.
- q → 𐌵 (qairþra), which in Gothic was a single kw sound, as in qino, “woman” (related to English “queen”).
Theodoric → th + e + o + d + o + r + i + c → 𐌸𐌴𐍉𐌳𐍉𐍂𐌹𐌺
Gothic also used its letters as numbers, like Greek. Two characters, 𐍁 (90) and 𐍊 (900), were numerals only. They are not part of this converter.
Gothic alphabet chart
| Letter | Name | Sound | Number value |
|---|---|---|---|
| 𐌰 | ahsa | a | 1 |
| 𐌱 | bairkan | b | 2 |
| 𐌲 | giba | g | 3 |
| 𐌳 | dags | d | 4 |
| 𐌴 | aiƕus | e (long ē) | 5 |
| 𐌵 | qairþra | q (kw) | 6 |
| 𐌶 | iuja | z | 7 |
| 𐌷 | hagl | h | 8 |
| 𐌸 | þiuþ | þ (th) | 9 |
| 𐌹 | eis | i | 10 |
| 𐌺 | kusma | k | 20 |
| 𐌻 | lagus | l | 30 |
| 𐌼 | manna | m | 40 |
| 𐌽 | nauþs | n | 50 |
| 𐌾 | jer | j (y) | 60 |
| 𐌿 | urus | u | 70 |
| 𐍀 | pairþra | p | 80 |
| 𐍂 | raida | r | 100 |
| 𐍃 | sauil | s | 200 |
| 𐍄 | teiws | t | 300 |
| 𐍅 | winja | w | 400 |
| 𐍆 | faihu | f | 500 |
| 𐍇 | iggws | x (ch) | 600 |
| 𐍈 | ƕair | ƕ (hw) | 700 |
| 𐍉 | oþal | o (long ō) | 800 |
The letter names are recorded in a 9th-century manuscript in Vienna, the Codex Vindobonensis 795, often in garbled forms. The spellings above are the usual scholarly reconstructions.
Examples
Gothic rulers
Theodoric the Great, the Ostrogothic king of Italy, becomes 𐌸𐌴𐍉𐌳𐍉𐍂𐌹𐌺. Alaric, the Visigoth who sacked Rome in 410, becomes 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌹𐌺. In real Gothic his name was probably Alareiks, “ruler of all”: paste 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌺𐍃 into the reverse direction to see it spelled out.
Wulfila’s own name
The default example, Wulfila, becomes 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌰. The name means “little wolf”.
A word from the Gothic Bible
The Lord’s Prayer in Gothic begins Atta unsar þu in himinam, “Our father, thou in heaven”. Type “atta unsar thu in himinam” to see it in Gothic letters: 𐌰𐍄𐍄𐌰 𐌿𐌽𐍃𐌰𐍂 𐌸𐌿 𐌹𐌽 𐌷𐌹𐌼𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌼. Gothic doubled consonants where it pronounced them long, so leave the double t as it is. The tool keeps double letters for Gothic because the manuscripts write them.
Where Gothic survives
The most famous manuscript is the Codex Argenteus, the “Silver Bible”, written in silver and gold ink on purple parchment in 6th-century Italy. It is kept at Uppsala University Library in Sweden. Gothic was spoken in parts of Crimea until at least the 16th century, when a Flemish diplomat, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, wrote down about 80 words of “Crimean Gothic”. Gothic matters to linguists because it is the earliest Germanic language with substantial texts, centuries older than most Old English or Old Norse writing. See how it fits with the other early alphabets in our guide to the From Phoenician to Latin: How the Alphabet Spread.