# Talk:Bagme Bloma

Should the only one ever written in the Gothic language be instead "the only one he [Tolkien] ever wrote in the Gothic language"? —Tamfang (talk) 00:54, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

No-one else has written one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:28, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
I edited out "the only one ever written in the Gothic language" because it seemed clearly incorrect, but User:Chiswick Chap has restored it noting that Verlyn Flieger appears to support the claim. However, I think it should still be removed, for a couple of reasons. First, what Flieger actually says is that Bagme Bloma is "the only poem extant in that dead and buried language by any hand" (p. 243, my emphasis), apprently based on Tom Shippey's statement that "The only extant Gothic poem is by Tolkien"([1]). This does not rule out that poems were composed in Gothic when it was a living langugage but are not extant today. Some scholars believe that Gothic oral poetry existed – Vittoria Dolcetti Corazza writes, "we have no written record in Gothic of the poetic heritage common to the Germanic peoples—and therefore also shared by the Goths—which was passed down orally from generation to generation" ("Gothic Literature", in The Oxford Handbook of the Literatures of the Roman Empire) – and even if it can somehow be known that no such poems were ever written down, Flieger and Shippey are not taking a position on that. Second, even the weaker claim that there is no other extant poetry in Gothic is wrong: Wikipedia at Gothic language#Others cites multiple examples, including by Hans Ferdinand Massmann from the 19th century. EmphasisMine (talk) 18:40, 30 November 2024 (UTC)
I wondered if Shippey meant "the only Gothic poem in the collection". The phrasing doesn't quite exclude that reading, which is certainly true. I suggest we simply add that wording, which the sources at least support, whatever Massmann may have written without the scholars' knowledge. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:48, 30 November 2024 (UTC)