Old Dutch
Encyclopedia
In linguistics, Old Dutch (or Old West Low Franconian) 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. It evolved from Old Frankish
around the 6th century and in turn evolved into Middle Dutch
around the 12th century.
Old Dutch was spoken by the populace which erstwhile occupied present-day Netherlands
, northern Belgium
, parts of northern France, and the Lower Rhine
and Westphalia
regions of Germany. The inhabitants of present-day Dutch provinces—including Groningen
, Friesland
and the coast of North Holland
—spoke Old Frisian
, while those of the east (Achterhoek
, Overijssel
and Drenthe
) exercised Old Saxon
.
(e.g., Ripuarian
and Mosel Franconian
) while having fewer similarities to Old Saxon
than does Old Dutch. While both forms of Low Franconian were instrumental to the framing of Middle Dutch
, Old East Low Franconian did not much contribute to standard Dutch
, which is based on the consolidated dialects of South Holland and Brabant.
In the Middle Ages, a dialect continuum subsisted between Old Low Franconian and Old Saxon; this was only recently interrupted by the simultaneous dissemination of standard languages within each nation and the dissolution of folk-dialects. Despite sharing some particular features, a number of disparities separate Old Saxon, Old English, and Old Dutch; one such difference is the Old Dutch utilization of -a as its plural a-stem noun ending, while Old Saxon and Old English employ -as or -os. Much of the grammatical variation between Old Dutch and Old Saxon is similar to that between Old Dutch and Old High German.
During the Merovingian period, the Middle Franconian dialects were influenced by Old Low Franconian, resulting in certain linguistic loans which yielded a slight overlap of vocabulary, most of which relating to warfare. In addition is the subsumption of the High German consonant shift
, a set of phonological changes beginning around the 5th–6th century CE.
The other languages did not develop a uniform block discrete from Low Franconian as they do modernly. Today, nearly every continental European West Germanic language practices German
as a standard, the only exception being the Dutch
-speaking zone and Frisia
.
Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch, having some distinctions which approximate those found in most medieval West Germanic languages. 1150 CE is often cited as the time of its discontinuation, but the date actually marks the inceptive period of profuse Dutch writing wherein the language is patently different from Old Dutch.
The most notable variance between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction
; while round vowels in word-final syllables are rather frequent in Old Dutch, in Middle Dutch, such are leveled to a schwa
.
Examples:
The following is a translation of Psalm 55:18, taken from the Wachtendonck Psalms; it demonstrates the evolutionary arc of Dutch language—from the original Old Dutch, written ca. 900 CE, to modern Dutch—but so accurately reproduces the Latin word order of the original that there is little information what can be garnered on Old Dutch syntax. In modern Dutch, recasting is necessary to form a coherent sentence.
Old Dutch:
Middle Dutch:
Modern Dutch, using same word order:
Modern Dutch, using contemporary Dutch word order:
English:
Characteristics shared with Old Saxon:
Characteristics shared with Old High German:
Uniquely Old Dutch characteristics:
s and are not independent phonemes. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings.
Notes:
much earlier than Old Saxon and Old High German. In fact, judging from the find at Bergakker
, it would seem that the language already had inherited this characteristic from Old Frankish
, whereas Old Saxon and Old High German are known to have maintained word-final voiced obstruents much later (at least 900).
Examples:
Final devoicing has become systematic in modern Dutch. It is reflected in spelling for f/v (leef-leven), s/z (kaas-kazen) but not for t/d, i.e., woord, "word", is spelled with a /d/ but pronounced with a [t].
Notes:
In unstressed syllables, only three vowels seem to have been reliably distinguished: open, front and back. In the Wachtendonckse Psalmen with unstressed syllables the e and i merge together, as with o and u. This led to variants like dagi and dage ("day", dative singular) and tungon and tungun ("tongue", genitive, dative, accusative singular and nominative, dative, accusative plural). The forms with e and o are generally found later on, showing the gradual reduction of articulatory distinction, eventually merging into a schwa
(/ə/). A short phrase from the gospel book
of Munsterbilzen Abbey
, written around 1130, still shows several unstressed vowels distinguished:
This was a late monument however, as the merging of all unstressed short vowels was already well underway by that time. Most likely the difference was only maintained in spelling traditions, but had been mostly lost in speech. With the introduction of new scribal traditions in the 12th and 13th century, these practices were abandoned, and unstressed vowels are consistently written as e from that time onward.
Notes:
were mostly Old English and Old High German speakers, Old English and Old High German elements do appear, even though they were never present in the spoken language.
The length of a vowel was generally not represented in writing probably because the monks, who were the ones capable of writing and teaching how to write, tended to base the written language on Latin which also does not make a distinction in writing. For example: dag "day" (short vowel), thahton "they thought" (long vowel). Later on, the long vowels were sometimes marked with a macron
to indicate a long vowel, e.g. ā. In some texts long vowels were indicated by simply doubling the vowel in question, e.g. the placename Heembeke and personal name Oodhelmus (both from charters written in 941 and 797 respectively).
dag "day"
singular:
plural:
During the Old Dutch period, the distinction between the feminine ō-stems and ōn-stems began to disappear, with endings of one being transferred to the other declension and vice versa. This was part of a larger process in which the distinction between the strong and weak inflection was being lost, not only in feminine nouns but also in adjectives. This process is shown in a more advanced stage in Middle Dutch.
. Most of the earliest texts written in the Netherlands were written in Latin
rather than Old Dutch. Some of these Latin texts however contained Old Dutch words interspersed with the Latin text. Also, it is extremely hard to determine whether a text actually is written in Old Dutch as the Germanic dialects spoken at that time were much more closely related.
Arguably, the most famous text containing "Old Dutch" is: Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), dating around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk
in a convent
in Rochester, England
. For a long time this sentence was considered to be the earliest in Dutch. However according to professor Luc de Grauwe the text could equally well be Old English, more specifically Old Kentish. However, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on this matter. It should also be noted that Old (West) Dutch and Old English were very similar.
or a variety of Rhine Franconian
. Very little remains of them. The psalms were named after a manuscript which has not come down to us, but out of which scholars believe the surviving fragments must have been copied. This manuscript was once owned by Canon
Arnold Wachtendonck. The surviving fragments are handwritten copies made by the Renaissance scholar Justus Lipsius
in the sixteenth century. Lipsius made a number of separate copies of apparently the same material and these versions do not always agree. In addition, scholars conclude that the numerous errors and inconsistencies in the fragments point not only to some carelessness or inattentiveness by the Renaissance scholars but also to errors in the now lost manuscript out of which the material was copied. The language of the Psalms suggests that they were originally written in the 10th century. A number of editions exist, among others by the 19th-century Dutch philologist Willem Lodewijk van Helten and, more recently, the diplomatic edition by the American historical linguist Robert L. Kyes (1969) and the critical edition by the Dutch philologist Arend Quak (1981). As might be expected from an interlinear translation, the word order of the Old Franconian text follows that of the Latin original very closely.
by the German abbot Williram
(ultimately by Isidore of Seville
). Until recently, based on its orthography and phonology the text of this manuscript was believed by most scholars to be Middle Franconian, that is Old High German, with some Limburgic or otherwise Franconian admixtures. But in 1974, the German philologist Willy Sanders proved in his study Der Leidener Willeram that the text actually represents an imperfect attempt by a scribe from the northwestern coastal area of the Low Countries to translate the East Franconian original into his local vernacular. The text contains many Old Dutch words not known in Old High German, as well as mistranslated words caused by the scribe's unfamiliarity with some Old High German words in the original he translated, and a confused orthography heavily influenced by the Old High German original. For instance, the grapheme is used after the High German tradition where it represents Germanic t shifted to /ts/. Sanders also proved that the manuscript, now in the University Library of Leiden University
, was written at the end of the 11th century in the Abbey of Egmond
in modern North Holland, whence the manuscript's other name Egmond Willeram.
, near Essen
.
This phrase was used to free a serf
. Apart from this the Lex Salica also contains a number of loose words.
In 1996 an even older (425-450) sentence was discovered on the sword sheath of Bergakker
that is perhaps better described as Old Frankish
than Old Dutch. Given the paucity of the remains of either, the demarcation between the two is hard to make although often a date of 800-900 is given for the transition. In that case both the Lex Salica and the Bergakker find should be considered Old Frankish.
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
. It is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language. It evolved from Old Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
around the 6th century and in turn evolved into Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
around the 12th century.
Old Dutch was spoken by the populace which erstwhile occupied present-day Netherlands
Netherlands
The 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...
, northern Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , 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...
, parts of northern France, and the Lower Rhine
Lower Rhine
The Lower Rhine flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hoek van Holland, Netherlands.Almost immediately after entering the Netherlands, the Rhine splits into many branches. The main branch is called the Waal which flows from Nijmegen to meet the river Meuse; after which it is called Merwede...
and Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
regions of Germany. The inhabitants of present-day Dutch provinces—including Groningen
Groningen (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...
, Friesland
Friesland
Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...
and the coast of North Holland
North Holland
North 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:...
—spoke Old Frisian
Old Frisian
Old 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...
, while those of the east (Achterhoek
Achterhoek
The Achterhoek is a region in the eastern part of the Netherlands, Europe.Its name is geographically appropriate because the area lies in the Eastern-most part of Gelderland, and therefore of the Netherlands, protruding into Germany...
, Overijssel
Overijssel
Overijssel 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...
and Drenthe
Drenthe
Drenthe 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...
) exercised Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
.
Relation with other West Germanic languages
Old Dutch (Old West Low Franconian) and Old East Low Franconian (cf. Limburgian) are very closely related, the divergence being that the latter shares more traits with neighboring Middle FranconianCentral German
Central German is a group of High German dialects spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany.-History:...
(e.g., Ripuarian
Ripuarian
Ripuarian is a German dialect group, part of the West Central German language group....
and Mosel Franconian
Moselle Franconian
Moselle Franconian is a group of West Central German dialects, part of the Central Franconian language area.It is spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the course of the Moselle River, from the Siegerland in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia throughout western Rhineland-Palatinate and...
) while having fewer similarities to Old Saxon
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
than does Old Dutch. While both forms of Low Franconian were instrumental to the framing of Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
, Old East Low Franconian did not much contribute to standard 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...
, which is based on the consolidated dialects of South Holland and Brabant.
In the Middle Ages, a dialect continuum subsisted between Old Low Franconian and Old Saxon; this was only recently interrupted by the simultaneous dissemination of standard languages within each nation and the dissolution of folk-dialects. Despite sharing some particular features, a number of disparities separate Old Saxon, Old English, and Old Dutch; one such difference is the Old Dutch utilization of -a as its plural a-stem noun ending, while Old Saxon and Old English employ -as or -os. Much of the grammatical variation between Old Dutch and Old Saxon is similar to that between Old Dutch and Old High German.
During the Merovingian period, the Middle Franconian dialects were influenced by Old Low Franconian, resulting in certain linguistic loans which yielded a slight overlap of vocabulary, most of which relating to warfare. In addition is the subsumption of the High German consonant shift
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...
, a set of phonological changes beginning around the 5th–6th century CE.
The other languages did not develop a uniform block discrete from Low Franconian as they do modernly. Today, nearly every continental European West Germanic language practices German
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....
as a standard, the only exception being the 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...
-speaking zone and Frisia
Frisia
Frisia is a coastal region along the southeastern corner of the North Sea, i.e. the German Bight. Frisia is the traditional homeland of the Frisians, a Germanic people who speak Frisian, a language group closely related to the English language...
.
Relation to Middle Dutch
The most notable variance between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction
Vowel reduction
In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic quality of vowels, which are related to changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word , and which are perceived as "weakening"...
; while round vowels in word-final syllables are rather frequent in Old Dutch, in Middle Dutch, such are leveled to a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
.
Examples:
- Old Dutch vogala → Middle Dutch vogele 'bird'
- ODu dago/a → MDu daghe 'day'
- ODu brecan → MDu breken 'to break'
- ODu gescrivona → MDu ghescreven 'written' (past participle)
The following is a translation of Psalm 55:18, taken from the Wachtendonck Psalms; it demonstrates the evolutionary arc of Dutch language—from the original Old Dutch, written ca. 900 CE, to modern Dutch—but so accurately reproduces the Latin word order of the original that there is little information what can be garnered on Old Dutch syntax. In modern Dutch, recasting is necessary to form a coherent sentence.
Old Dutch:
Middle Dutch:
Modern Dutch, using same word order:
Modern Dutch, using contemporary Dutch word order:
English:
- "He will deliver my soul in peace from those who attack me, for, amongst many, he was with me."
Early sound developments
Phonologically, Old Dutch stands in between Old Saxon and Old High German, sharing some innovations with the latter, and others with the former. Generally, it is less conservative than either, rarely preserving older phonological stages not shared by one of the others. This may also be a result of its late attestation, however.Characteristics shared with Old Saxon:
- The Old Germanic diphthongs ai and au become the long vowels 'ē and ō. Examples: hēm, slōt. There are however several examples which show that a diphthong ei remained in some cases, showing that the change was not quite complete as it was in Old Saxon.
Characteristics shared with Old High German:
- The West Germanic ō (/oː/) and ē (/eː/, from Proto-Germanic ē2) become diphthongs uo and ie. Old Dutch fluot versus Old Saxon flōd, Old Dutch hier versus Old Saxon hēr.
- The h-sound in consonant clusters at the beginning of a word disappears around the 9th century, while it is retained in the northern languages. Examples include Old Dutch ringis ("ring", genitive), Old High German ring versus Old Saxon and Old English hring, or ros ("steed") versus Old English hros ("horse").
- j is lost when following two consonants, with -jan becoming -en. This is most prominent in ja- and jō-stem nouns and adjectives, and in verbs of the first weak class.
Uniquely Old Dutch characteristics:
- h disappears between vowels. Old Dutch thion, Old English þēon versus Old High German dîhan, or Old Dutch (ge)sian, Old English sēon versus Old High German sehan.
- The sound combination hs (chs) becomes a geminated ss. Example: Old Dutch vusso < West Germanic fuhs (fuxs).
Consonants
The table below lists the consonants of Old Dutch. If two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phonemes written in parentheses represent allophoneAllophone
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... |
Dental Interdental consonant Interdental consonants are produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors... |
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 | θ (ð) | 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:
- Most consonants could be 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....
. Notably, geminated /v/ gave /bb/, and geminated /ɣ/ probably gave /ɡɡ/. Geminated /h/ resulted in /xx/. - In the course of the Old Dutch period the voiceless spirants /f/, /θ/ and /s/ gain voiced allophones [v], [ð] and [z] when positioned at the beginning of a syllable. This change is only faithfully reflected for [v], the other two allophones continued to be written as before. In the Wachtendonckse Psalmen this feature is very rare, while much later it can be seen in the spelling of Dutch toponyms which indicate the sound change was taking place during the 10th and 11th century. also occurred word-medially as an independent phoneme, developed from Proto-Germanic [β], the fricative allophone of /b/. is an allophone of /ɣ/ occurring after /n/. is an allophone of /n/ occurring before velars (/k/ and /ɡ/). is an allophone of /h/ occurring after vowels. was velarised as [ɫ] between a back vowel and /t/ or /d/. It might have also been velarised in other environments (as in modern Dutch today).
Final obstruent devoicing
Old Dutch experienced final obstruent devoicingFinal obstruent devoicing
Final obstruent devoicing or terminal devoicing is a systematic phonological process occurring in languages such as German, Dutch, Polish, and Russian, among others...
much earlier than Old Saxon and Old High German. In fact, judging from the find at Bergakker
Bergakker inscription
The Bergakker inscription was found in 1996 near the town of Bergakker, near Tiel.It is a 5th-century Elder Futhark inscription on a metal mount for a sword scabbard....
, it would seem that the language already had inherited this characteristic from Old Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
, whereas Old Saxon and Old High German are known to have maintained word-final voiced obstruents much later (at least 900).
Examples:
- wort ("word", nominative) versus wordes (genitive)
- gif ("give!", imperative) versus geuon ("to give", infinitive)
- weh [wex] ("way", accusative) versus wege ("way", dative)
Final devoicing has become systematic in modern Dutch. It is reflected in spelling for f/v (leef-leven), s/z (kaas-kazen) but not for t/d, i.e., woord, "word", is spelled with a /d/ but pronounced with a [t].
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... |
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... |
i y | u | iː | 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... |
e ø | o | eː | 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:
- Phonetic realisation of /uː/ differed by area. In most areas it was probably realised phonetically as [ʉː], or [ʉw] before a vowel. But it was probably [uː] or [ʊw] in others. While there is no direct evidence for this in Old Dutch, it can be inferred by later developments in Middle Dutch.
- Long vowels were rare in unstressed syllables and mostly occurred due to suffixation or compounding. and /ø/ were originally 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...
allophones of /u/ and /o/ before /i/ or /j/ in the following syllable. They were however partly phonemicised when the conditioning sounds were gradually lost over time. Sometimes the fronting was reverted later, other times it remained. Regardless of phonemic distinction, they were still written as u and o. and /o/ (as well as their umlauted allophones) were articulatorily close, as they eventually merged into one sound at the end of the Old Dutch period. and /e/ were also similar in articulation, but did not merge except in some small and frequently used monosyllables (such as bin > ben, 'I am'). They did however merge consistently when they were later lengthened in open syllables. probably had a rounded allophone [ɒ] before velarised [ɫ]. It eventually merged with /o/ in this position, as in Low Saxon, but in Dutch the velar [ɫ] vocalised, creating a diphthong.
In unstressed syllables, only three vowels seem to have been reliably distinguished: open, front and back. In the Wachtendonckse Psalmen with unstressed syllables the e and i merge together, as with o and u. This led to variants like dagi and dage ("day", dative singular) and tungon and tungun ("tongue", genitive, dative, accusative singular and nominative, dative, accusative plural). The forms with e and o are generally found later on, showing the gradual reduction of articulatory distinction, eventually merging into a schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
(/ə/). A short phrase from the gospel book
Gospel Book
The Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament...
of Munsterbilzen Abbey
Munsterbilzen Abbey
Munsterbilzen Abbey was an abbey of Benedictine nuns in Munsterbilzen, Limburg, Belgium, founded in around 670 by Saint Landrada. It was plundered by Vikings in 881 but restored. From the 9th century it was dedicated to Saint Amor....
, written around 1130, still shows several unstressed vowels distinguished:
- Tesi samanunga was edele unde scona
- This community was noble and pure
This was a late monument however, as the merging of all unstressed short vowels was already well underway by that time. Most likely the difference was only maintained in spelling traditions, but had been mostly lost in speech. With the introduction of new scribal traditions in the 12th and 13th century, these practices were abandoned, and unstressed vowels are consistently written as e from that time onward.
| 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 | ie (ia io) | uo |
| Height-harmonic | iu | |
| Closing | ei | (ou) |
Notes:
- The closing diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ only occurred systematically in the southeastern dialects, having merged with /eː/ and /oː/ elsewhere. The other dialects retained only /ei/, in words where earlier /ai/ had been affected by umlaut (which prevented it from becoming /eː/ in many Old Dutch dialects, but not in Old Saxon).
- The situation for the front opening diphthongs is somewhat unclear, but seems similar to the situation for unstressed short vowels. Words written with io in Old High GermanOld High GermanThe term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
are often found written variably with ia or even ie in Old Dutch. They had likely merged with each other already during the Old Dutch period. - Similarly /iu/ eventually merged with the other opening diphthongs in some dialects. In the others it merged with /uː/ in most cases (after having passed through an intermediate stage such as [yu]).
- There also existed 'long' diphthongs /aːu/ and /eːu/. These were however treated as two-syllable sequences of a long vowel followed by a short one, not proper diphthongs.
Spelling conventions
Old Dutch was spelled using the Latin alphabet. However, since early missionaries in the Low CountriesLow Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
were mostly Old English and Old High German speakers, Old English and Old High German elements do appear, even though they were never present in the spoken language.
The length of a vowel was generally not represented in writing probably because the monks, who were the ones capable of writing and teaching how to write, tended to base the written language on Latin which also does not make a distinction in writing. For example: dag "day" (short vowel), thahton "they thought" (long vowel). Later on, the long vowels were sometimes marked with a macron
Macron
A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...
to indicate a long vowel, e.g. ā. In some texts long vowels were indicated by simply doubling the vowel in question, e.g. the placename Heembeke and personal name Oodhelmus (both from charters written in 941 and 797 respectively).
- c is used for [k] when it is followed by u, o or a: cuning [kuniŋk] 'king' (modern koning). In front of i or e, the earlier texts (especially names in Latin deeds and charters) used ch. By the later tenth century, the newer letter k (which was rarely used in Latin) was starting to replace this spelling. Example: kēron [keːron] 'to turn around' (mod. keren).
- It is not exactly clear how c was pronounced before i or e in Old Dutch. In the Latin orthography of the time, c before front vowels stood for an affricate [t͡s]; it is quite likely that early Dutch spelling followed this pronunciation.
- g represented [ɣ] or its allophone [ɡ]: brengan [breŋɡan] 'to bring', segghan [seɡɡan] 'to say', wege [weɣe] 'way' (dative).
- h represents [h] and its allophone [x]: holto [hoɫto] 'wood' (mod. hout), naht 'night' (mod. nacht).
- i is used for both the vowels [i] and [iː] and the consonant [j]: ik [ik] 'I' (mod. ik), iār [jaːr] 'year' (mod. jaar).
- qu always represents [kw]: quāmon [kwaːmon] 'they came' (mod. kwamen).
- s represented the consonant [s] and later also [z].
- th is used to indicate [θ]: thāhton [θaːxton] 'they thought' (mod. dachten). Occasionally dh is used for [ð].
- u represented the vowels [u] and [uː] or the consonant [v]: uusso [vusso] 'foxes' (genitive plural).
- uu was normally used to represent [w], as the letter w didn't exist yet.
- z rarely appears and when it does, it's pronounced [ts]: quezzodos [kwetsodos] 'you hurt' (past tense, mod. kwetste).
Nouns
A clear characteristic is the survival of the Germanic four-case system, which by Middle Dutch had started to become less distinct as a result of the collapse of full vowels in final position.dag "day"
singular:
- dag (nominative)
- dages, -is (genitive)
- dage (dative)
- dag (accusative)
plural:
- daga (nominative)
- dago (genitive)
- dagon (dative)
- daga (accusative)
During the Old Dutch period, the distinction between the feminine ō-stems and ōn-stems began to disappear, with endings of one being transferred to the other declension and vice versa. This was part of a larger process in which the distinction between the strong and weak inflection was being lost, not only in feminine nouns but also in adjectives. This process is shown in a more advanced stage in Middle Dutch.
Verbs
In its verb inflection Old Dutch reflects an intermediate stage between Old Saxon and Old High German. Like Old High German, it preserved the three different verb endings in the plural: -on, -et and -unt, while the more northern languages have the same verb ending in all three persons. However, like Old Saxon, it had only two classes of weak verb, with only a few relic verbs of the third weak class, while the third class had still largely been preserved in Old High German.Surviving texts
Old Dutch texts are extremely rare, and much more limited when compared to related languages like Old English and Old High GermanOld High German
The term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
. Most of the earliest texts written in the Netherlands were written in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
rather than Old Dutch. Some of these Latin texts however contained Old Dutch words interspersed with the Latin text. Also, it is extremely hard to determine whether a text actually is written in Old Dutch as the Germanic dialects spoken at that time were much more closely related.
The most famous sentence
Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic
enda thu uuat unbidan uue nu.
Arguably, the most famous text containing "Old Dutch" is: Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), dating around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
in a convent
Convent
A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, or nuns, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion...
in Rochester, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. For a long time this sentence was considered to be the earliest in Dutch. However according to professor Luc de Grauwe the text could equally well be Old English, more specifically Old Kentish. However, there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on this matter. It should also be noted that Old (West) Dutch and Old English were very similar.
The Wachtendonck Psalms
The Wachtendonck Psalms are a number of psalms written in Latin and an eastern variety of Old Franconian. It is unclear whether the dialect is Old LimburgishLimburgish language
Limburgish, 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...
or a variety of Rhine Franconian
Rhine Franconian
Rhine Franconian , or Rhenish Franconian, is a dialect family of West Central German. It comprises the German dialects spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Hesse in Germany...
. Very little remains of them. The psalms were named after a manuscript which has not come down to us, but out of which scholars believe the surviving fragments must have been copied. This manuscript was once owned by Canon
Canon (priest)
A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....
Arnold Wachtendonck. The surviving fragments are handwritten copies made by the Renaissance scholar Justus Lipsius
Justus Lipsius
Justus Lipsius was a Southern-Netherlandish philologist and humanist. Lipsius wrote a series of works designed to revive ancient Stoicism in a form that would be compatible with Christianity. The most famous of these is De Constantia...
in the sixteenth century. Lipsius made a number of separate copies of apparently the same material and these versions do not always agree. In addition, scholars conclude that the numerous errors and inconsistencies in the fragments point not only to some carelessness or inattentiveness by the Renaissance scholars but also to errors in the now lost manuscript out of which the material was copied. The language of the Psalms suggests that they were originally written in the 10th century. A number of editions exist, among others by the 19th-century Dutch philologist Willem Lodewijk van Helten and, more recently, the diplomatic edition by the American historical linguist Robert L. Kyes (1969) and the critical edition by the Dutch philologist Arend Quak (1981). As might be expected from an interlinear translation, the word order of the Old Franconian text follows that of the Latin original very closely.
The Leiden Willeram
The Leiden Willeram is the name given to a manuscript containing a Low Franconian version of the Old High German commentary on Song of SolomonSong of Solomon
The Song of Songs of Solomon, commonly referred to as Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible—one of the megillot —found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim...
by the German abbot Williram
Williram
Williram was a German scholar of Christian scripture from near Worms. He is best known for having translated and paraphrased the Song of Songs....
(ultimately by Isidore of Seville
Isidore of Seville
Saint Isidore of Seville served as Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered, as the historian Montalembert put it in an oft-quoted phrase, "le dernier savant du monde ancien"...
). Until recently, based on its orthography and phonology the text of this manuscript was believed by most scholars to be Middle Franconian, that is Old High German, with some Limburgic or otherwise Franconian admixtures. But in 1974, the German philologist Willy Sanders proved in his study Der Leidener Willeram that the text actually represents an imperfect attempt by a scribe from the northwestern coastal area of the Low Countries to translate the East Franconian original into his local vernacular. The text contains many Old Dutch words not known in Old High German, as well as mistranslated words caused by the scribe's unfamiliarity with some Old High German words in the original he translated, and a confused orthography heavily influenced by the Old High German original. For instance, the grapheme
Leiden University
Leiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
, was written at the end of the 11th century in the Abbey of Egmond
Egmond
Egmond is a former municipality in the north-western Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. In 2001, it was merged with the municipalities of Schoorl and Bergen to form the municipality of Bergen. The three main villages in the former municipality are Egmond aan den Hoef, Egmond aan Zee...
in modern North Holland, whence the manuscript's other name Egmond Willeram.
The Rhinelandic Rhyming Bible
Another important source for Old Dutch is the so-called Rhinelandic Rhyming Bible (Dutch: Rijnlandse Rijmbijbel and German: Rheinische Reimbibel). This is a verse translation of biblical histories, attested only in a series of fragments, which was composed in a mixed dialect containing Low German, Old Dutch and High German (Rhine-Franconian) elements. It was likely composed in north-west Germany in the early 12th century, possibly in Werden AbbeyWerden Abbey
Werden Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Essen-Werden , situated on the Ruhr.- The foundation of the abbey :Near Essen Saint Ludger founded a monastery in 799 and became its first abbot. The little church which Saint Ludger built here in honor of Saint Stephen was completed in 804 and dedicated...
, near Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
.
Older Sentences
An earlier sentence of what could be considered Old Dutch comes from the "Lex salica", written in the early 6th century:- "Maltho thi afrio lito"
This phrase was used to free a serf
Serfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
. Apart from this the Lex Salica also contains a number of loose words.
In 1996 an even older (425-450) sentence was discovered on the sword sheath of Bergakker
Bergakker inscription
The Bergakker inscription was found in 1996 near the town of Bergakker, near Tiel.It is a 5th-century Elder Futhark inscription on a metal mount for a sword scabbard....
that is perhaps better described as Old Frankish
Old Frankish
Old Frankish is an extinct West Germanic language, once spoken by the Franks. It is the parent language of the Franconian languages, of which Dutch and Afrikaans are the most known descendants...
than Old Dutch. Given the paucity of the remains of either, the demarcation between the two is hard to make although often a date of 800-900 is given for the transition. In that case both the Lex Salica and the Bergakker find should be considered Old Frankish.
Sources
- A. Quak en J.M. van der Horst, Inleiding Oudnederlands. Leuven: Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2002).
- Maurits Gysseling m.m.v Willy Pijnenburg, Corpus van Middelnederlandse teksten (tot en met het jaar 1300) reeks II (literaire handschriften), deel 1: Fragmenten. 's-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980.
- M. Gysseling, "Prae-Nederlands, Oudnederlands, Vroegmiddelnederlands", in: Vierde Colloquium van hoogleraren en lectoren in de neerlandistiek aan buitenlandse universiteiten. Gent, 1970, pp. 78–89.
- M.C. van den Toorn, W.J.J. Pijnenburg, J.A. van Leuvensteijn, e.a., Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1997.
- Willy Sanders, Der Leidener Willeram. Untersuchungen zu Handschrift, Text und Sprachform. München: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 1974.