Middle Dutch
Encyclopedia
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects (whose ancestor was Old Dutch
) which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. There was at that time as yet no overarching standard language
, but they were all mutually intelligible.
In historic literature Diets
and Middle Dutch (Middelnederlands) are used interchangeably to describe this whole of dialects from which later standard Dutch would be derived. Although already at the beginning several Middle-Dutch variations were present, the similarities between the different regional languages were much stronger than their differences, especially for written languages and various literary works of that time today are often very readable for modern Dutch speakers, Dutch being a rather conservative
language. By many non-linguists Middle Dutch is often referred to as Diets.
Within Middle Dutch, five large groups can be distinguished, all believed to be mutually intelligible:
Limburgish and Low Saxon gradated into Middle High German
and Middle Low German
, respectively. These two areas border directly the German language
area in the narrow sense (i.e., today's Germany). The dialect continuum
in this border region was even more fluid in the past than it is today.
Hollandic experienced a slow but steady transition from an Ingvaeonic
variant to true Low Franconian, through the influence of the more prestigious Brabantic and Utrecht dialects. Flemish and Brabantic started to diverge in the late Middle Ages.
> /yː/.
If two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phonemes written in parentheses represent allophone
s and are not independent phonemes. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings.
Notes:
Notes: was the only short vowel to occur in unstressed syllables, except in loanwords borrowed within Middle Dutch. Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding.
Notes:
is uncertain as a distinct diphthong, and may have only occurred in a small number of loanwords from French, such as fruyt/froyt /frʏit/ (Old French pronunciation [frɥit]). It is known that it eventually merged with /yː/ when the latter began to diphthongise.
> /mː/, /ŋɡ/ > /ŋː/. This eliminated the sound /ɡ/ from the language altogether.
has a standard form. Middle Dutch had no such thing as it was not until the middle of the 16th century that efforts were made to standardize the language. As a result, the Dutch speakers of the Middle Ages
had a very free way of writing. In fact in some old books, the same word appears in different spellings on the same page. Then there was the problem with the letters themselves. The Dutch language used the Latin alphabet
which was perfect for writing Latin, but wasn't for the Dutch language. Dutch for instance has far more vowels and consonant sounds which meant people literally ran out of letters. Several adjustments were therefore needed and it took quite a while before the spelling became more standardised. Then there was the matter of personal taste, and many writers thought it was more aesthetic to follow French or Latin practice, leading to sometimes rather unusual spellings.
In general, every writer wrote in his own dialect, and often in a very phonetical
way and different pronunciation
led to different ways of writing. The modern Dutch word maagd ("maiden
") for example was sometimes written as maghet or maegt, but also meget, magt, maget, magd, and mecht.
Some spellings such as magd reflect an early tendency to write the underlying phonemic value. However, by and large, spelling was phonetic, which is logic
al as people in those days read texts out loud.
The letter z in was not used regularly at all in Middle Dutch, with s being used to represent both /z/ and /s/. As a general rule, k and gh were written before e or i, as in kiesen (kiezen, "to choose"), ghedaen (gedaan, "done"). They were written c or g elsewhere, as in ic (ik, "I"), copen (kopen, "to buy") and coninc (koning, "king"). The combination /kw/ was normally written qu, such as in quam (kwam, "came").
And finally, there was no difference between short and long vowels, so that people had to find a solution for that as well. Sometimes they just duplicated the vowels, as in oo, ee, ij (originally a double i). But sometimes an i or e was added, as in ui for /yː/, and oi or oe for /oː/. The vowel /øː/ was variably written eu, ue, o or oe. Modern Dutch
preserves the spellings eu, ui and ij, although the latter two are now diphthongs. Following a sound change in late Old Dutch, in which short vowels were naturally lengthened in open syllables, the practice of writing long vowels single in open syllables was established, although it was applied inconsistently through most of the Middle Dutch period.
. The second-person plural pronoun ghi slowly gained use as a respectful second-person singular form. The original singular pronoun du gradually fell out of use during the Middle Dutch period. After the Middle Dutch period, a new second person plural pronoun was created by contracting gij/jij and lui ('people') forming gullie/jullie (which this literally means 'you people').
has gradually lost an active case system, first in the spoken language, much later in the written language, so it is now mostly limited to fixed expressions. The spelling reform of 1947 removed most remaining parts of the case system, among them the accusative
. However, Middle Dutch and Modern Dutch were very similar, apart from the case system; one of the most prominent differences of contemporary Dutch is that it uses great numbers of prepositions, far more than Middle Dutch, to compensate with the loss of the case system. It has to be noted, though, that even in Middle Dutch the use of prepositions, especially van, was very common. Furthermore, Middle Dutch would often use an accusative form instead of a nominative (e.g. Doe quam den edelen prince daer ("Then the noble prince arrived"), Dezen man sel op zijn hooft hebben een stalen helme ("This man will have a steel helmet on his head")). This is still common in some southern dialects and in the Belgian Tussentaal. Similarly, the -n was sometimes omitted where it would be expected: in levende live (Modern Dutch in levenden lijve), des levende Gods instead of levenden ("of the living God"), van den lopende water instead of lopenden ("of the running water").
Due to the weakening of unstressed syllables, the many different Old Dutch classes of nominal declension merged. The result was a general distinction between strong (original vocalic stem) and weak (n-stem) nouns. Eventually even these started to become confused, with the strong and weak endings slowly beginning to merge into a single declension class by the beginning of the modern Dutch period.
Definite Article
(die, dat = the)
Strong inflection
(adjective clein = small, noun worm = worm, daet = deed/action, broot = bread)
Weak inflection (Nouns ending in "-e")
(adjective clein = small, noun hane = rooster, wonde = wound, beelde = image)
, weak
and preterite-present verbs as the three main inflectional classes. However, due to the weakening of unstressed syllables, the two classes of weak verbs that still existed in Old Dutch merged into one.
The seven classes of strong verb common to the Germanic languages were retained, but over time the older distinction between the singular and plural past was lost, with the singular forms generally adapting the stem of the plural (except in classes 4 and 5, where the distinction was by length rather than vowel timbre). Some weak verbs which had a vowel change in the past because of Rückumlaut eventually became strong, such as senden (with original past tense sande, but later also sand or sond). By analogy some strong verbs were also turned into weak verbs, sometimes only by adding the weak past ending -de. This might have occurred only for poetic reasons, however, such as in Karel ende Elegast where the form begonde (regularly began or begon) is found near the beginning of the text.
The weakening also affected the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive
moods, which had largely been determined by the vowel of the inflectional suffix in Old Dutch. In Middle Dutch, with all unstressed vowels merging into one, the subjunctive became distinguished from the indicative only in the singular, but was identical to it in the plural, and also in the past tense of weak verbs. This led to a gradual decline in the use of the subjunctive, and it has been all but lost entirely in modern Dutch.
Old Dutch
In linguistics, Old Dutch denotes the forms of West Franconian spoken and written in the Netherlands and present-day northern Belgium during the Early Middle Ages. It is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language...
) which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500. There was at that time as yet no overarching standard language
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
, but they were all mutually intelligible.
In historic literature Diets
Dietsch
-Languages:*German *Middle Dutch*Low German including Dutch*Low German excluding Dutch by definition*Low Dietsch, transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian dialects-People:* John Dietsch, author on the subject of fly fishing...
and Middle Dutch (Middelnederlands) are used interchangeably to describe this whole of dialects from which later standard Dutch would be derived. Although already at the beginning several Middle-Dutch variations were present, the similarities between the different regional languages were much stronger than their differences, especially for written languages and various literary works of that time today are often very readable for modern Dutch speakers, Dutch being a rather conservative
Conservative (language)
In linguistics, a conservative form, variety, or modality is one that has changed relatively little over its history, or which is relatively resistant to change...
language. By many non-linguists Middle Dutch is often referred to as Diets.
Unity within Middle Dutch
- WestWest FlemishWest Flemish , , , Fransch vlaemsch in French Flemish) is a group of dialects or regional language related to Dutch spoken in parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France....
, East FlemishEast FlemishEast Flemish is a group of dialects of the Dutch language, which is a Low Franconian language. It is spoken in the province of East Flanders in Belgium, but also spoken in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen in the Netherlands.-Brabantic Expansion:...
and Zealandic, was spoken in the modern region of West and East FlandersEast FlandersEast Flanders is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and in Belgium on the provinces of Antwerp, Flemish Brabant , of Hainaut and of West Flanders...
and ZeelandZeelandZeeland , also called Zealand in English, is the westernmost province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg. With a population of about 380,000, its area is about...
and also in the Département du Nord of what is now FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
but was then part of the County of FlandersCounty of FlandersThe County of Flanders was one of the territories constituting the Low Countries. The county existed from 862 to 1795. It was one of the original secular fiefs of France and for centuries was one of the most affluent regions in Europe....
; - BrabantianBrabantianBrabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic , is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant which corresponded mainly to the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, as well as the institutional Region of...
was the language of the area covered by the modern DutchNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
province of North BrabantNorth BrabantNorth Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...
and the south of GelderlandGelderlandGelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
; and the BelgianBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
provinces of Flemish BrabantFlemish BrabantFlemish Brabant is a province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. It borders on the Belgian provinces of Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Walloon Brabant, Hainaut and East Flanders. Flemish Brabant also completely surrounds the Brussels-Capital Region. Its capital is Leuven...
and AntwerpAntwerp (province)Antwerp is the northernmost province both of the Flemish Region, also called Flanders, and of Belgium. It borders on the Netherlands and the Belgian provinces of Limburg, Flemish Brabant and East Flanders. Its capital is Antwerp which comprises the Port of Antwerp...
as well as the BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
capital region; - HollandicHollandicHollandic or Hollandish is, together with Brabantian, the most frequently used dialect of the Dutch language. Other important Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the same area are Zeelandic, East Flemish, West Flemish and Limburgish....
was mainly used in the present provinces of NorthNorth HollandNorth Holland |West Frisian]]: Noard-Holland) is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
and South HollandSouth HollandSouth Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the western part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is The Hague and its largest city is Rotterdam.South Holland is one of the most densely populated and industrialised areas in the world...
and parts of UtrechtUtrecht (province)Utrecht is the smallest province of the Netherlands in terms of area, and is located in the centre of the country. It is bordered by the Eemmeer in the north, Gelderland in the east, the river Rhine in the south, South Holland in the west, and North Holland in the northwest...
; - LimburgishLimburgish languageLimburgish, also called Limburgian or Limburgic is a group of East Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border...
, spoken by the people in the provinces of modern DutchLimburg (Netherlands)Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...
and Belgian LimburgLimburg (Belgium)Limburg is the easternmost province of modern Flanders, which is one of the three main political and cultural sub-divisions of modern Belgium. It is located west of the river Meuse . It borders on the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg and the Belgian provinces of Liège, Flemish Brabant...
; - Low SaxonDutch Low SaxonDutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
, spoken in the area of the modern provinces of GelderlandGelderlandGelderland is the largest province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. The capital city is Arnhem. The two other major cities, Nijmegen and Apeldoorn have more inhabitants. Other major regional centers in Gelderland are Ede, Doetinchem, Zutphen, Tiel, Wijchen,...
, OverijsselOverijsselOverijssel is a province of the Netherlands in the central eastern part of the country. The region has a NUTS classification of NL21. The province's name means "Lands across river IJssel". The capital city of Overijssel is Zwolle and the largest city is Enschede...
, DrentheDrentheDrenthe is a province of the Netherlands, located in the north-east of the country. The capital city is Assen. It is bordered by Overijssel to the south, Friesland to the west, Groningen to the north, and Germany to the east.-History:Drenthe, unlike many other parts of the Netherlands, has been a...
and parts of GroningenGroningen (province)Groningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...
.
Limburgish and Low Saxon gradated into Middle High German
Middle High German
Middle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
and Middle Low German
Middle Low German
Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
, respectively. These two areas border directly the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
area in the narrow sense (i.e., today's Germany). The dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
in this border region was even more fluid in the past than it is today.
Hollandic experienced a slow but steady transition from an Ingvaeonic
Ingvaeonic
Ingvaeonic , also known as North Sea Germanic, is a postulated grouping of the West Germanic languages that comprises Old Frisian, Old English and Old Saxon....
variant to true Low Franconian, through the influence of the more prestigious Brabantic and Utrecht dialects. Flemish and Brabantic started to diverge in the late Middle Ages.
Differences with Old Dutch
Several phonological changes occurred leading up to the Middle Dutch period.> /yː/.
-
- This change did not occur in all dialects; in some, /uː/ remained syllable-finally or before /w/. > /yː/, merging with the phoneme originating from Old Dutch /uː/.
- This change did not occur in all dialects; some instead show /iu/ merging with /io/. This results in later pairs such as dietsc /diətsk/ versus duitsc /dyːtsk/.
- Various dialects also show /iw/ > /yw/, while others retain /iw/. Compare southeastern Middle Dutch hiwen /hiwən/ with modern Dutch huwen /hywən/.
- In word-initial position, some northern dialects also show a change from a falling to a rising diphthong (/iu/ > /ju/) like Old FrisianOld FrisianOld Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland also spoke Old Frisian but no medieval texts of this area are known...
. Cf. the accusative second-person plural pronoun iu /iu/ > northern jou /jɔu/ versus southern u /yː/.
- Old Dutch /ie/, /ia/, /io/ merge into a centralising diphthong /iə/, spelled
. - Likewise, Old Dutch /uo/ (from Proto-Germanic /oː/) becomes a centralising diphthong /uə/, spelled
or . - Phonemisation of umlautGermanic umlautIn linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...
for back vowels, resulting in a new phoneme /ʏ/ (from earlier Old Dutch /u/ before /i/ or /j/). Unlike most other Germanic languages, umlaut was only phonemicised for short vowels in all but the easternmost areas; long vowels and diphthongs are unaffected. - Voiceless fricatives become voiced syllable-initially: /s/ > /z/, /f/ > /v/ (merging with /v/ from Proto-Germanic /b/), /θ/ > /ð/. (10th or 11th century)
- Vocal reduction: Vowels in unstressed syllables are weakened and merge into /ə/, spelled
. (11th or 12th century) Long vowels seem to have remained as such, at least /iː/ is known to have remained in certain suffixes (such as -kijn /kiːn/). > /xt/ - Dental fricatives become stops: /ð/ > /d/, /θ/ > /t/, merging with existing /t/ and /d/. (around 12th century)
- All remaining /u/ > /o/, except in the southeast.
- Along with the previous change, /uː/, /uw/ > /ɔu/.
- This occurred only in those words where /uː/ and /iu/ had not developed into /yː/ earlier. E.g. būan /buːan/ > bouwen /bɔu(w)ən/.
- The discrepancy in occurrences of /uː/ resulted in pairs such as modern Dutch duwen /dywən/ versus douwen /dɔu(w)ən/, or nu /ny/ versus nou /nɔu/.
- L-vocalisation: /ol/ and /al/ > /ɔu/ before dentals.
- Before dentals /ar/ and /er/ > /aːr/, /or/ > /oːr/. E.g. farth /farθ/ > vaert /vaːrt/, ertha /erθa/ > aerde /aːrdə/, wort /wort/ > woort /woːrt/.
- Open syllable lengtheningOpen syllable lengtheningIn linguistics, open syllable lengthening is the process by which short vowels become long when in an open syllable. It occurs in many languages at a phonetic or allophonic level, where no meaningful distinction in length is made...
: Short vowels in stressed open syllables become long.- /ɪ/ lengthens to /eː/, /ʏ/ to /øː/ (spelled
or ). - As a result, all stressed syllables in polysyllabic words become heavySyllable weightIn linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line....
. This also introduces many length alternations in grammatical paradigms, e.g. singular dag /dax/, plural dag(h)e /daːɣə/.
- /ɪ/ lengthens to /eː/, /ʏ/ to /øː/ (spelled
Consonants
The consonants of Middle Dutch differed little from those of Old Dutch. The most prominent change is the loss of dental fricatives. The sound [z] was also phonemicised during this period, judging from loanwords that retain [s] to this day.If two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phonemes written in parentheses represent allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s and are not independent phonemes. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings.
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive Stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &... |
p b | t d | k (ɡ) | ||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
f v | s z | x ɣ | h | |
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | (ŋ) | ||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | ||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
j | w | |||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l |
Notes:
- All obstruents underwent final obstruent devoicingFinal obstruent devoicingFinal obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, among others...
as in Old and Modern Dutch. - During the first part of the Middle Dutch period, geminatedGeminationIn phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....
varieties of most consonants still occurred. is an allophone of /ɣ/ occurring after /n/. is an allophone of /n/ occurring before velars (/k/ and /ɡ/).
Vowels
Most notable in the Middle Dutch vowel system, when compared to Old Dutch, is the appearance of phomenic rounded front vowels, and the merger of all unstressed short vowels.| Short Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in... |
Long | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
Front | Back | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
ɪ ʏ | (ʊ) | iː yː | (uː) | |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ɛ | ə | ɔ | eː øː | oː |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a | aː | |||
Notes: was the only short vowel to occur in unstressed syllables, except in loanwords borrowed within Middle Dutch. Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding.
- The rounded back vowels /ʊ/ and /uː/ only occurred in the southeastern dialects.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| Opening | iə | uə |
| Closing | ɛi (ʏi) | ɔu |
Notes:
is uncertain as a distinct diphthong, and may have only occurred in a small number of loanwords from French, such as fruyt/froyt /frʏit/ (Old French pronunciation [frɥit]). It is known that it eventually merged with /yː/ when the latter began to diphthongise.
Changes during the Middle Dutch period
Phonological changes that occurred during Middle Dutch:> /mː/, /ŋɡ/ > /ŋː/. This eliminated the sound /ɡ/ from the language altogether.
-
- /p/ and /k/ originating from /b/ and /ɡ/ through final devoicingFinal obstruent devoicingFinal obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, among others...
were not affected. This therefore resulted in alternations such as singular coninc /koːniŋk/ versus plural coninghe /koːniŋːə/, singular lamp /lamp/ versus plural lammere /lamː(ə)rə/. > /sx/ (spelledor later ). > /ɛi/ before /n/ plus another consonant, merging with original Old Dutch /ɛi/ (< Proto-Germanic /ɑi/). E.g. ende > einde, pensen > peinsen (from Old French penser).
- /p/ and /k/ originating from /b/ and /ɡ/ through final devoicing
- Epenthesis of /d/ in various clusters of sonorants. E.g. donre > donder, solre > solder, bunre > bunder. In modern Dutch, this change has become grammaticalised for the -er (comparative, agent noun) suffix when attached to a word ending in -r.
- Shortening of geminate consonants, e.g. for bidden /bɪdːən/ > /bɪdən/, which reintroduces stressed light syllables in polysyllabic words.
- Early diphthonisation of long high vowels: /iː/ > /ɪi/ and /yː/ > /ʏy/ except before /r/, probably beginning around the 14th century.
- The diphthongal quality of these vowels became stronger over time, and eventually the former merged with /ɛi/ ei. But the diphthongal pronunciation was still perceived as unrefined and 'southern' by educated speakers in the sixteenth century, showing that the change had not yet spread to all areas and layers of Dutch society by that time.
- Following the previous change, monophthongisation of opening diphthongs: /iə/ > /iː/, /uə/ > /uː/. The result might have also been a short vowel (as in most Dutch dialects today), but they are known to have remained long at least before /r/.
- Beginning in late Middle Dutch and continuing into the early Modern Dutch period, schwa /ə/ was slowly lost word-finally and in some other unstressed syllables: vrouwe > vrouw, hevet > heeft. This did not apply consistently however, and sometimes both forms continued to exist side by side, such as mate and maat.
- Word-final schwa was not lost in the past singular of weak verbs, to avoid homophony with the present third-person singular because of word-final devoicing. However, it was lost in all irregular weak verbs, in which this homophony was not an issue: irregular dachte > dacht (present tense denkt), but regular opende did not become *opend /oːpənt/ because it would become indistinguishable from opent.
- During the 15th century at the earliest, /d/ begins to disappear between vowels.
- The actual outcome of this change differed between dialects. In the more northern varieties and in Holland, the /d/ was simply lost, along with any schwa that followed it: luyden > lui, lade > la, mede > mee. In the southeast, intervocalic /d/ instead often became /j/: mede > meej.
- The change was not applied consistently, and even in modern Dutch today many words have been retained in both forms. In some cases the forms with lost /d/ were perceived as uneducated and disappeared again, such as in Nederland and neer, both from neder (the form Neerland does exist, but is rather uncommon in modern Dutch).
Orthography
Contemporary DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
has a standard form. Middle Dutch had no such thing as it was not until the middle of the 16th century that efforts were made to standardize the language. As a result, the Dutch speakers of the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
had a very free way of writing. In fact in some old books, the same word appears in different spellings on the same page. Then there was the problem with the letters themselves. The Dutch language used the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
which was perfect for writing Latin, but wasn't for the Dutch language. Dutch for instance has far more vowels and consonant sounds which meant people literally ran out of letters. Several adjustments were therefore needed and it took quite a while before the spelling became more standardised. Then there was the matter of personal taste, and many writers thought it was more aesthetic to follow French or Latin practice, leading to sometimes rather unusual spellings.
In general, every writer wrote in his own dialect, and often in a very phonetical
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
way and different pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
led to different ways of writing. The modern Dutch word maagd ("maiden
Maiden
Maiden or Maidens may refer to:* A female virgin; see virginity* Maiden name, the family name carried by a woman before marriage; see married and maiden names* Maiden, the first of the three aspects of the Triple Goddess...
") for example was sometimes written as maghet or maegt, but also meget, magt, maget, magd, and mecht.
Some spellings such as magd reflect an early tendency to write the underlying phonemic value. However, by and large, spelling was phonetic, which is logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
al as people in those days read texts out loud.
The letter z in was not used regularly at all in Middle Dutch, with s being used to represent both /z/ and /s/. As a general rule, k and gh were written before e or i, as in kiesen (kiezen, "to choose"), ghedaen (gedaan, "done"). They were written c or g elsewhere, as in ic (ik, "I"), copen (kopen, "to buy") and coninc (koning, "king"). The combination /kw/ was normally written qu, such as in quam (kwam, "came").
And finally, there was no difference between short and long vowels, so that people had to find a solution for that as well. Sometimes they just duplicated the vowels, as in oo, ee, ij (originally a double i). But sometimes an i or e was added, as in ui for /yː/, and oi or oe for /oː/. The vowel /øː/ was variably written eu, ue, o or oe. Modern Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
preserves the spellings eu, ui and ij, although the latter two are now diphthongs. Following a sound change in late Old Dutch, in which short vowels were naturally lengthened in open syllables, the practice of writing long vowels single in open syllables was established, although it was applied inconsistently through most of the Middle Dutch period.
Pronouns
Middle Dutch pronouns differ little from their modern counterparts. The main differences are in the second person with the development of a T-V distinctionT-V distinction
In sociolinguistics, a T–V distinction is a contrast, within one language, between second-person pronouns that are specialized for varying levels of politeness, social distance, courtesy, familiarity, or insult toward the addressee....
. The second-person plural pronoun ghi slowly gained use as a respectful second-person singular form. The original singular pronoun du gradually fell out of use during the Middle Dutch period. After the Middle Dutch period, a new second person plural pronoun was created by contracting gij/jij and lui ('people') forming gullie/jullie (which this literally means 'you people').
| Singular | Plural | |||||||
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | |||
| Masc. | Fem. | Neut. | ||||||
| Nominative | ic | du | hi | si | het | wi | ghi | si |
| Accusative | mi | di | hem/hen/'n | haer/se | het/'t | ons | u | hem/hen/'n |
| Dative | haer | hem | ||||||
| Genitive | mijns | dijns | sijns | harer | 'es | onser | uwer | haer/'re |
Middle Dutch case system
Middle Dutch had a case system. Since the Middle Ages DutchDutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
has gradually lost an active case system, first in the spoken language, much later in the written language, so it is now mostly limited to fixed expressions. The spelling reform of 1947 removed most remaining parts of the case system, among them the accusative
Accusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
. However, Middle Dutch and Modern Dutch were very similar, apart from the case system; one of the most prominent differences of contemporary Dutch is that it uses great numbers of prepositions, far more than Middle Dutch, to compensate with the loss of the case system. It has to be noted, though, that even in Middle Dutch the use of prepositions, especially van, was very common. Furthermore, Middle Dutch would often use an accusative form instead of a nominative (e.g. Doe quam den edelen prince daer ("Then the noble prince arrived"), Dezen man sel op zijn hooft hebben een stalen helme ("This man will have a steel helmet on his head")). This is still common in some southern dialects and in the Belgian Tussentaal. Similarly, the -n was sometimes omitted where it would be expected: in levende live (Modern Dutch in levenden lijve), des levende Gods instead of levenden ("of the living God"), van den lopende water instead of lopenden ("of the running water").
Due to the weakening of unstressed syllables, the many different Old Dutch classes of nominal declension merged. The result was a general distinction between strong (original vocalic stem) and weak (n-stem) nouns. Eventually even these started to become confused, with the strong and weak endings slowly beginning to merge into a single declension class by the beginning of the modern Dutch period.
Definite Article
(die, dat = the)
| Grammatical Case | Male | Female | Neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
|||
| Nominative | die | die | dat |
| Accusative | den | ||
| Dative | der | den | |
| Genitive | des | des | |
| Plural Plural In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one... |
|||
| Nominative | die | ||
| Accusative | |||
| Dative | den | ||
| Genitive | der | ||
Strong inflection
(adjective clein = small, noun worm = worm, daet = deed/action, broot = bread)
| Grammatical Case | Male | Female | Neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
|||
| Nominative | die cleine worm | die cleine daet | dat cleine broot |
| Accusative | den cleinen worm | ||
| Dative | den cleinen worme | der cleiner daet | den cleinen brode |
| Genitive | des cleins worms | des cleins broots | |
| Plural Plural In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one... |
|||
| Nominative | die cleine worme | die cleine dade | die cleine brode |
| Accusative | |||
| Dative | den cleinen wormen | den cleinen daden | den cleinen broden |
| Genitive | der cleiner worme | der cleiner dade | der cleiner brode |
Weak inflection (Nouns ending in "-e")
(adjective clein = small, noun hane = rooster, wonde = wound, beelde = image)
| Grammatical Case | Male | Female | Neuter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singular Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
|||
| Nominative | die cleine hane | die cleine wonde | dat cleine beelde |
| Accusative | den cleinen hane | ||
| Dative | der cleiner wonden | den cleinen beelde | |
| Genitive | des cleins hanen | des cleins beelden | |
| Plural Plural In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one... |
|||
| Nominative | die cleine hanen | die cleine wonden | die cleine beelden |
| Accusative | |||
| Dative | den cleinen hanen | den cleinen wonden | den cleinen beelden |
| Genitive | der cleiner hanen | der cleiner wonden | der cleiner beelden |
Verbs
Middle Dutch mostly retained the Old Dutch verb system. Like all Germanic languages, it distinguished strongGermanic strong verb
In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung...
, weak
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
and preterite-present verbs as the three main inflectional classes. However, due to the weakening of unstressed syllables, the two classes of weak verbs that still existed in Old Dutch merged into one.
The seven classes of strong verb common to the Germanic languages were retained, but over time the older distinction between the singular and plural past was lost, with the singular forms generally adapting the stem of the plural (except in classes 4 and 5, where the distinction was by length rather than vowel timbre). Some weak verbs which had a vowel change in the past because of Rückumlaut eventually became strong, such as senden (with original past tense sande, but later also sand or sond). By analogy some strong verbs were also turned into weak verbs, sometimes only by adding the weak past ending -de. This might have occurred only for poetic reasons, however, such as in Karel ende Elegast where the form begonde (regularly began or begon) is found near the beginning of the text.
The weakening also affected the distinction between the indicative and subjunctive
Subjunctive mood
In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb mood typically used in subordinate clauses to express various states of irreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred....
moods, which had largely been determined by the vowel of the inflectional suffix in Old Dutch. In Middle Dutch, with all unstressed vowels merging into one, the subjunctive became distinguished from the indicative only in the singular, but was identical to it in the plural, and also in the past tense of weak verbs. This led to a gradual decline in the use of the subjunctive, and it has been all but lost entirely in modern Dutch.