Gothic is the oldest attested Germanic language, the Gothic translation of parts of the Bible being dated to the 4th century, and the first instances of Old English, Old High German, Saxon, or Norse not coming until at least 4 centuries later. Because Gothic is relatively close to the original primitive Germanic language, it is of great interest to linguists.

Gothic differs from its Germanic cousins in many ways. It is the only Germanic language to retain (in some cases) the Indo-European –s ending for masculine nouns and adjectives: compare Gothic hunds ‘dog/hound’ with its cognates, Latin canis and Greek kunos. (Notice how the Indo-European k got softened to an h in Germanic.) Gothic is also the only Germanic language that didn’t change any of its inherited s’s or z’s into r’s. Compare:

‘teach’: Gothic laísjan, Old High German lêren, Old English læren (‘lore/learn’).
‘hoard’: Gothic huzd, Old High German hort, Old English hord.

Here are three sound files for Gothic: The first is the Lord's Prayer, recorded by yours truly. I've recorded the same prayer in each of the old Germanic languages to make comparison easier.