| History Of The Dutch Language |
Index for History Of |
Website Links For History |
Information AboutHistory Of The Dutch Language |
|
The history of the Dutch Language as separate from common West Germanic begins in the 6th century AD with the High German Consonant Shift and growing social and political power of the Franks .The 17th and 18th Century saw the rise of Standard Dutch but dialectal variety started decreasing in the 20th Century . Proto Indo-European The Proto-Indo-European Language ('''PIE''') is the hypothetical common ancestor of the Indo-European Languages . The existence of such a language is generally accepted by Linguist s, though there has been debate about many specific details.
The Kurgan hypothesis See Also: Kurgan hypothesis Marija Gimbutas originally suggested the Kurgan hypothesis in the 1950s . According to the Kurgan hypothesis, Chalcolithic steppe cultures of the 5th Millennium BC between the Black Sea and the Volga spoke early PIE. Kurgan hypothesis timeline:
A strength of the Kurgan hypothesis is that part of its proposed mode of spread (military conquest by horsemen) agrees with historical reports about the spread of early Greek and early Indo-Aryan. Proto Germanic ( 1500 till 100 BC ) culture(s) associated with Proto-Germanic, ca 500 BC - 50 BC . The area south of Scandinavia is the Jastorf Culture ]] Proto-Germanic, the common ancestor ( Proto-language ) of Proto-Norse , Anglo-Frisian , Old High German , Old Frankish and Gothic , and the contemporary Germanic Languages . There are no known documents in Proto-Germanic, which was unwritten, and virtually all our knowledge of this extinct language has been obtained by application of the Comparative Method . There are a few surviving inscriptions in a Runic Script from Scandinavia dated to c. 200 which many feel represent a stage of Proto-Norse immediately after the "Proto-Germanic" stage, if not exactly identical. Proto-Germanic is itself descended from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), which is also the distant ancestor of a great many other languages in Europe and Asia. West Germanic (ca. 100 BC ) From the time of their earliest attestation, the Germanic dialects were divided into three groups, West , East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period , so that some individual dialects are difficult to classify. The Western group would have formed as a dialect of Proto-Germanic in the late Jastorf Culture (ca. 1st Century BC ). During the Early Middle Ages , the West Germanic languages were separated by the insular development of Middle English and related Frisian on one hand, and by the Second Germanic Sound Shift on the continent on the other.It is this variant of West Germanic , the form which experienced the Second Germanic Sound Shift The West Germanic Dialect s can be divided according to tribe ( Frisian , Saxon , Franconian , Bavarian and Swabian ), and according to the extent of their participation in the High German Consonant Shift ( Low Germanic against High Germanic ). The present Dutch Standard Language is almost completely derived from Low Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries that must have reached a separate identity no later than about AD 600. An early Dutch recorded writing 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, but since its discovery even older fragments were found, such as ''"Visc flot aftar themo uuatare"'' ("A fish was swimming in the water") and ''"Gelobistu in got alamehtigan fadaer"'' ("Do you believe in God the almighty father"). The latter fragment was written as early as 900 . The Frankish language ( 200 - 600 AD ) The Frankish language, also Old Frankish was the language of the Franks. Classified as a West Germanic language, it was spoken in areas covering modern France, Germany, and the Low Countries in Merovingian times, preceding the 6th/7th century. The Franks originally inhabited the Netherlands and Flanders before they started to fight their way south. The language had a significant impact on Old French. It evolved into Old Low Franconian in the north and it was replaced by French in the south, Old Frankish is not directly attested and is reconstructed from loanwords in Old French, and from Old Low Franconian. Low Germanic After the Second Germanic Consonant Shift Continental West Germanic was split in a Low and an High Germanic group.The Low Germanic Languages are distinguished from the High Germanic languages principally in that the latter underwent a consonant shift in the 700s and 800s. In High German, /k/, /p/, /t/ became /(k)x/ (only in some dialects), /pf/, /ts/ in initial positions and /x/, /f/, /s/ in medial and final positions. In Low Germanic languages (as well as English and Frisian), the old /k/, /p/, /t/ are still there, as in English "better", Dutch "beter" but German "besser". Low Franconian Low Franconian is any of several West Germanic Language s spoken in the Netherlands , northern Belgium , and South Africa , descended from medieval Old Franconian . Low-Franconian dialects were also spoken in the German area along the Rhine between Cologne and the border between Germany and the Netherlands. During the 19th and 20th centuries these dialects have been replaced by Standard German influenced by the previous or present low Franconian dialects. Together with the Low German subgroup, it forms the Low Germanic Languages . The modern Low Franconian languages and dialects are: Standard languages Old Low Frankish / Old Dutch ( 550 - 1150 AD ) Old Low Frankish, also Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch,is the language ancestral to the Low Franconian languages, including Dutch. It was spoken between the 6th and 11th centuries, continuing the earlier Old Frankish language.It was divided into two main dialects, Old West Low Franconian (or Old Dutch proper) and Old East Low Franconian. The earliest fragments of the language are preserved in the Lex Salica , interspersed in the Latin text.The Salic Law contains one of the first examples of Old Dutch. Mainly loose words (''Malbergse glossen'') but even a full sentence appears what is to be Old Dutch: Maltho thi afrio lito :I tell you: I free you, half free. This phrase was used to free a Serf . Middle Dutch ( 1150 - 1550 ) Linguistically speaking, Middle Dutch was no more than a collective name for closely related languages or dialects which were spoken and written between about 1150 and 1550 in the present-day Dutch -speaking region. 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 the proto-language Modern Dutch would evolve. Although almost from the beginning, several middle-dutch variations emerged, the similarities between the different regional languages were much stronger than their differences, especially for written languages and various literary works of that time.Middle Dutch is often referred to as Diets . Within Middle Dutch we can distinguish five large groups: # Flemish , (sometimes subdivided into West and East Flemish ), 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 Belgian provinces of Walloon Brabant , 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 district 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 dialects mentioned above show features, respectively, of Middle High German and Middle Low German , since these two areas border directly onto the areas of Middle Low and High German, as can be seen from a historical map of the regions of that time. Standardization of the Dutch language / Modern Dutch ( 1550 - Present ) A process of was created that people from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used elements from various dialects, but the spoken form was mostly based on the urban dialects from the province of Holland .A linguistic saying therefore is that ''"The Dutch language was born in Flanders , grew up in Brabant and reached maturity in Holland ."'' Linguist ically speaking, Dutch has evolved little since the late 16th Century , differences in speech are considered to be neglectable especially when comparing the older form with modern regional accents. Grammar has been somewhat simplified though, but a great deal of the grammar lost in comptemporary Dutch is preserved in many and much used Expression s dating back to or before that time. |