Page "Goths" Paragraph 12

According to the rules of Indo-European ablaut, the full grade ( containing an * e ), * gheud -, might be replaced with the zero-grade ( the * e disappears ), * ghud -, or the o-grade ( the * e changes to an * o ), * ghoud -, accounting for the various forms of the name.

The zero-grade is preserved in modern times in the Lithuanian ethnonym for Belarusians, Gudai ( earlier Baltic Prussian territory before Slavic conquests by about 1200 CE ), and in certain Prussian towns in the territory around the Vistula River in Gothiscandza, today Poland ( Gdynia, Gdansk ).

The use of all three grades suggests that the name derives from an Indo-European stage ; otherwise, it would be from a line descending from one grade.

However, when and where the ancestors of the Goths assigned this name to themselves and whether they used it in Indo-European or proto-Germanic times remain unsolved questions of historical linguistics and prehistoric archaeology.