Middle Dutch
Linguistically speaking,
Middle Dutch is no more than a collective name for a number of closely related
West Germanic languages/dialects which were spoken and written between
1150 and
1500 in the present-day
Dutch-speaking area. There was at that time as yet no overarching
standard language, but they were all more or less mutually intelligible. By convention
mediaeval Frisian is not included.
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.
Unity within Middle Dutch
Within Middle Dutch we can distinguish five large groups, all believed to be mutually intelligible:#
West,
East Flemish and
Zealandic, was spoken in the modern region of
West and
East Flanders;#
Brabantian was the language of the area covered by the modern
Dutch province of
North Brabant and the south of
Gelderland; and the
Belgian provinces of
Flemish Brabant and
Antwerp as well as the
Brussels capital region;#
Hollandic was mainly used in the present provinces of
North and
South Holland and parts of
Utrecht;#
Limburgian, spoken by the people in the provinces of modern Dutch and Belgian
Limburg;#
Low Saxon, spoken in the area of the modern provinces of
Gelderland,
Overijssel,
Drenthe and parts of
Groningen.
The last two of the Middle Dutch dialect groups mentioned above gradated into, respectively,
Middle High German and
Middle Saxon, since these two areas border directly onto the
German language-area in the narrow sense (i.e. that area where
today German is the standard language). At the time there was still a
dialect continuum.
Orthography
Contemporary Dutch, like the majority of languages on earth today, has a standard form. Middle Dutch had not 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. Another difference was that every writer wrote in his own dialects, 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".Another important difference is that a medieval Dutch speaker tried to write down far more different sounds than the contemporary speaker, which is
logical as people in those days read texts out loud.
Then there was the problem with the letters themselves. The Dutch language used the
Latin alphabet which is 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 letters
"j",
"ij",
"k",
"w" and
"v" made it into Dutch spelling. Then there was the matter of personal taste, many writers thought it was more esthetical to use a
"c" (like Latin) instead of
"k". Examples include ic (ik, I) copen (kopen, to buy) and coninc (koning, king).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, but more often they added an
"i" or
"e" at the end. Both forms are still present in
modern Dutch, although the first is more common than the latter.
Pronouns
Middle Dutch pronouns differ little from their modern counterparts. The main differences are in the second person. Second person singular is
"du" the plural in this case was
"ghi" which later evolved into second person singular
"gij/jij" and
"ge/je". This was because middle Dutch also used
"ghi" for a polite form and this in time replaced the informal
"du", and thus became singular instead of plural.
| 2 sing. | 3 sing. masc. | 3 sing. fem. | 3 sing. neut. | 1 pl. | 2 pl. | 3 pl. | | nominative | ic | du | hi | si | het | wi | ghi | si |
|---|
| genitive | mijns | dijns | sijns | harer | 'es | onser | uwer | haer/'re |
|---|
| dative | mi | di | hem/hen/'n | haer | hem | ons | u | hem/hen/'n |
|---|
| accusative | mi | di | hem/hen/'n | haer/se | het/'t | ons | u | hem/hen/'n |
|---|
Middle Dutch case system
Middle Dutch had a
case system, somewhat similar to modern written
German. Since the Middle Ages
Dutch 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 vast amounts of
prepositions, far more than Middle Dutch, to compensate with the loss of the case system.
Strong inflection| Grammatical Case | Male | Female | Neuter | | Nominative (sing) | die cleine worm | die cleine daet | dat cleine broot |
| Genitive (sing) | des cleins worms | der cleiner daet | des cleins broots |
| Dative (sing) | den cleinen worme | der cleiner daet | den cleinen brode |
| Accusative (sing) | den cleinen worm | die cleine daet | dat cleine broot |
| Nominative (pl) | die cleine worme | die cleine dade | die cleine brode |
| Genitive (pl) | der cleiner worme | der cleiner dade | der cleiner brode |
| Dative (pl) | den cleinen wormen | den cleinen daden | den cleinen broden |
| Accusative (pl) | die clene worme | die cleine dade | die cleine brode |
|
Weak inflection (
Nouns ending in "-e")
| Grammatical Case | Male | Female | Neuter | | Nominative (sing) | die cleine hane | die cleine wonde | dat cleine beelde |
| Genitive (sing) | des cleins hanen | der cleiner wonden | des cleins beelden |
| Dative (sing) | den cleinen hane | der cleiner wonden | den cleinen beelde |
| Accusative (sing) | den cleinen hane | die cleine wonde | dat cleine beelde |
| Nominative (pl) | die cleine hanen | die cleine wonden | die cleine beelden |
| Genitive (pl) | der cleiner hanen | der cleiner wonden | der cleiner beelden |
| Dative (pl) | den cleinen hanen | den cleinen wonden | den cleinen beelden |
| Accusative (pl) | die clene hanen | die cleine wonden | die cleine beelden |
|
*
Diets*
Dutch language*
Germanic languages*
Middle Dutch text database (TITUS)
*
Grammatical information on Middle Dutch (in Dutch)
