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listing the Germanic root as "witu" or "wit" is erroneous and should be corrected, as these are later German cognates of the roots. the roots are long vowel "wid-" (wide, vast, unlimited), and the short-vowel "widu" (wood, with the u-stem causing breaking, umlaut and lengthening in English). In dithematic (compounded) names you can expect to see a difference between names written e.g. Widbald (long i) and Widubald (short i) [generally one-syllable roots with a short vowel are compounded without a connecting vowel, and short-vowel protothemes will gain a connecting vowel from the oblique case. The -u of Widu is a remnant of the declension, not the root). Since the surviving names preserve a long i (an EE sound), we can assume the root is "wid-" (wide), rather than the short vowel widu (wood). The final -o of Wido is an old suffix root forming names from nouns and adjectives. Old High German is relatively late, recorded in the 9th C, primarily in a very few monasteries (and a different dialect region than modern Standard German). Proto-Germanic we can assume represents a hypothetical core dating to before the 2nd century. By the 2nd Century we already have clear divisions between the Eastern and Western branches, and by the 4th we can see regional/tribal variations. Aside from a few inscriptions, the majority of the Germanic languages were not recorded until quite late, as the "Germanic" rulers of continental Europe considered themselves inheritors of the Roman empire and most documents were in Latin, even if the vernacular, domestic language was Burgundian, Gothic, Vandal, Frankish, Lombard, Alemannic, Saxon etc..

This message was edited 6/25/2019, 7:50 AM