Linguistic reconstruction is the practice of establishing the features of an unattested ancestor language of one or more given languages. There are two kinds of reconstruction:
85-745: Frankish ( reconstructed endonym: * Frankisk ), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish , was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century. After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul (roughly, present-day France ), its speakers in Picardy and Île-de-France were outnumbered by the local populace who spoke Proto-Romance dialects. However, many modern French words and place names, including
170-470: A root in the proto-language is reconstructed is a reflex . More generally, a reflex is the known derivative of an earlier form, which may be either attested or reconstructed. A reflex that is predictable from the reconstructed history of the language is a 'regular' reflex. Reflexes of the same source are cognates . First, languages that are thought to have arisen from a common proto-language must meet certain criteria in order to be grouped together; this
255-441: A schwa ( /ə/ ). A short phrase from the gospel book of Munsterbilzen Abbey , written around 1130, still shows several unstressed vowels distinguished: That 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 maintained only in spelling traditions, but it had been mostly lost in speech. With the introduction of new scribal traditions in
340-597: A West Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . For a long time, the sentence was commonly but erroneously considered to be the earliest in Dutch. However, it could be considered the oldest Dutch non-religious poetry. The text is usually considered a West Flemish dialect, but certain Ingvaeonic forms might be expected in any of the coastal dialects of Old English, Old Frisian, Old Saxon or Old Dutch. However,
425-436: A distinction in writing: 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: ā . In some texts long vowels were indicated by simply doubling the vowel in question, as in the placename Heembeke and personal name Oodhelmus (both from charters written in 941 and 797 respectively). Old Dutch may have preserved at least four of
510-683: A high degree of mutual intelligibility between these dialects. In fact, it is unclear whether the West Germanic continuum of this time period, or indeed Franconian itself, should still be considered a single language or if it should be considered a collection of similar dialects. In any case, it appears that the Frankish tribes, or the later Franks, fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group, with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards
595-522: A lesser degree) Old Saxon share the application of the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law . Old Dutch was considerably less affected than those other three languages, but a dialect continuum formed/existed between Old Dutch, Old Saxon and Old Frisian. Despite sharing some particular features, a number of disparities separate Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old English and Old Dutch. One such difference is that Old Dutch used -a as its plural a-stem noun ending, while Old Saxon and Old English employed -as or -os . Much of
680-552: A monk of the Abbey of Egmond , and so the manuscript's other name is Egmond Willeram . The text represents an imperfect attempt to translate the original into the local Old Dutch vernacular. The text contains many Old Dutch words as well as mistranslated words since the scribe must have been unfamiliar with some Old High German words in the original. It could nevertheless be regarded as the first book written in Old Dutch. However, since
765-469: A primary record of 5th-century Frankish, though it is debated whether the inscription is written in Frankish, or Old Dutch. Germanic philology and German studies have their origins in the first half of the 19th century when Romanticism and Romantic thought heavily influenced the lexicon of the linguists and philologists of the time, including pivotal figures such as the Brothers Grimm . As
850-632: A result, many contemporary linguists tried to incorporate their findings in an already existing historical framework of " stem duchies " and Altstämme (lit. "old tribes", i.e. the six Germanic tribes then thought to have formed the "German nation" in the traditional German nationalism of the elites) resulting in a taxonomy which spoke of " Bavarian ", " Saxon ", " Frisian ", " Thuringian ", " Swabian " and " Frankish " dialects. While this nomenclature became generally accepted in traditional Germanic philology, it has also been described as "inherently inaccurate" as these ancient ethnic boundaries (as understood in
935-593: A small part of northern France, and the adjoining area in Germany centered on Cologne). The Franks united as a single group under Salian Frank leadership around 500 AD. Politically, the Ripuarian Franks existed as a separate group only until about 500 AD, after which they were subsumed into the Salian Franks. The Franks were united, but the various Frankish groups must have continued to live in
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#17327577345831020-406: Is a process called subgrouping. Since this grouping is based purely on linguistics, manuscripts and other historical documentation should be analyzed to accomplish this step. However, the assumption that the delineations of linguistics always align with those of culture and ethnicity must not be made. One of the criteria is that the grouped languages usually exemplify shared innovation. This means that
1105-427: Is difficult to determine when such a transition occurred, but it is thought to have happened by the end of the 9th century and perhaps earlier. By 900 AD the language spoken was recognizably an early form of Dutch, but that might also have been the case earlier. Old Dutch made the transition to Middle Dutch around 1150. A Dutch-French language boundary came into existence (but this was originally south of where it
1190-609: Is now archived in the Vatican Codex pal. 577. Sometimes interpreteted as Old Saxon, a number of Dutch scholars have concluded the Baptismal Vow was actually written in the 8th century in Old Dutch. The difficulty in establishing whether the text was written in Old Saxon or Old Franconian is that those languages were very much alike. Irlôsin sol an frithe sêla mîna fan thên thia ginâcont mi, wanda under managon he
1275-497: Is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing whose language is patently different from Old Dutch. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is vowel reduction . Back vowels ( a , o ) in non-stressed syllables are rather frequent in Old Dutch, but in Middle Dutch, they are reduced to a schwa : The following is a translation of Psalm 55 :18, taken from
1360-644: Is on the sword scabbard of Bergakker which is either a direct attestation of the Old Franconian language or the earliest attestation of Old Low Franconian (Old Dutch) language. Another early sentence from the early 6th century AD (that is also described as the earliest sentence in Old Dutch as well) is found in the Lex Salica . This phrase was used to free a serf : These are the earliest sentences yet found of Old Franconian. During this early period,
1445-691: Is relatively difficult for linguists today to determine what features of these dialects are due to Frankish influence, because the latter was in large part obscured, or even overwhelmed, by later developments. Most French words of Germanic origin came from Frankish, often replacing the Latin word which would have been used. It is estimated that modern French took approximately 1000 stem words from Old Franconian. Many of these words were concerned with agriculture (e.g. French : jardin 'garden'), war (e.g. French : guerre 'war') or social organization (e.g. French : baron 'baron'). Old Franconian has introduced
1530-413: Is speculated that these tribes originally spoke a range of related Istvaeonic dialects in the West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. Sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries, it becomes appropriate to speak of Old Franconian rather than an Istvaeonic dialect of Proto-Germanic. Very little is known about what the language was like during this period. One older runic sentence (dating from around 425–450 AD)
1615-423: Is the observation that if a cognate set displays a certain pattern (such as a repeating letter in specific positions within a word), it is likely that this pattern was retained from its mother language. The Most Natural Development Principle states that some alterations in languages, diachronically speaking, are more common than others. There are four key tendencies: The Majority Principle is applied in identifying
1700-619: Is to Dutch , which is traditionally placed in the Low Franconian sub-grouping and with which it was thought to have had a common, tribal origin. In a modern linguistic context, the language of the early Franks is variously called "Old Frankish" or "Old Franconian" and refers to the language of the Franks prior to the advent of the High German consonant shift , which took place between 600 and 700 AD. After this consonant shift
1785-477: Is today). Even though living in the original territory of the Franks, these Franks seem to have broken with the endonym "Frank" around the 9th century. By this time the Frankish identity had changed from an ethnic identity to a national identity, becoming localized and confined to the modern Franconia in Germany and principally to the French province of Île-de-France . The Franks expanded south into Gaul as
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#17327577345831870-482: The -n of the third-person plural hebban , which is absent in both Old English and Frisian, identifies the language as Old Dutch ( Old High German habent uses a different stem). Hagunnan and hi(c) have a prothetic h , which points also to West Flemish in which the h was frequently dropped or, in the written language, added before vowels (compare abent in the Latin version). However, it has been postulated that
1955-542: The Early Middle Ages , from around the 6th or 9th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in the development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of
2040-652: The Leiden Willeram translates as "All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him". The manuscript, now in the library of the Leiden University in the Netherlands, contains an Old Dutch translation of an Old High German (East Franconian) commentary on Song of Solomon , written by the German abbot Williram of Ebersberg . The translation was done by
2125-467: The Lower Rhine regions of Germany. It evolved into Middle Dutch around the 12th century. The inhabitants of northern Dutch provinces, including Groningen , Friesland , and the coast of North Holland , spoke Old Frisian , and some in the east ( Achterhoek , Overijssel , and Drenthe ) spoke Old Saxon . Within the field of historical philology, the terminology for the oldest historical phase of
2210-417: The Salian Franks . It spread from northern Belgium and the southern Netherlands to the coast and evolved into Old Dutch. It has, however, a North sea Germanic substrate . Linguists typically date this transition to around the 5th century. Old Dutch is divided into Old West Low Franconian and Old East Low Franconian ( Limburgian ); however, these varieties are very closely related, the divergence being that
2295-596: The Second Germanic consonant shift and would form part of the modern Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of German and Luxembourgish . The Old Frankish language is poorly attested and mostly reconstructed from Frankish loanwords in Old French , and inherited words in Old Dutch, as recorded in the 9th to 12th centuries. A notable exception is the Bergakker inscription , which may represent
2380-543: The Wachtendonck Psalms ; it shows the evolution of Dutch, from the original Old Dutch, written c. 900, to modern Dutch, but so accurately copies the Latin word order of the original that there is little information that can be garnered on Old Dutch syntax . In Modern Dutch, recasting is necessary to form a coherent sentence. Old Dutch texts are extremely rare and much more limited than for related languages like Old English and Old High German . Most of
2465-416: The language of the Franks . He subsequently further divided this new grouping into Low , Middle and High Franconian based on the absence or presence of the Second Germanic consonant shift . With the exception of Dutch, modern linguistic research has challenged the direct diachronical connection to Old Frankish for most of the varieties grouped under the broader "Franconian" category. Nevertheless,
2550-488: The "people's language". Urban T. Holmes has proposed that a Germanic language continued to be spoken as a second tongue by public officials in western Austrasia and Neustria as late as the 850s, and that it completely disappeared as a spoken language from these regions only during the 10th century. The Franks also expanded their rule southeast into parts of Germany. Their language had some influence on local dialects, especially for terms relating to warfare. However, since
2635-760: The /w/ or turned it into /v/. Perhaps the best known example is the Franconian * werra ('war' < Old Northern French werre , compare Old High German werre 'quarrel'), which entered modern French as guerre and guerra in Italian , Occitan , Catalan , Spanish and Portuguese . Other examples include gant ('gauntlet', from * want ) and garder ('to guard', from * wardōn ). Franconian words starting with s before another consonant developed it into es - (e.g. Franconian skirm and Old French escremie > Old Italian scrimia > Modern French escrime ). Franconian speech habits are also responsible for
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2720-425: The 12th and 13th century, the practices were abandoned, and unstressed vowels were consistently written as e from that time onward. Notes: Old Dutch was spelt using the Latin alphabet. The length of a vowel was generally not represented in writing probably because the missionaries, who were the ones capable of writing and teaching how to write, tended to base the written language on Latin, which also did not make
2805-499: The 19th century) bore little or limited resemblance to the actual or historical linguistic situation of the Germanic languages. Among other problems, this traditional classification of the continental West Germanic dialects can suggest stronger ties between dialects than is linguistically warranted. The Franconian group is a well known example of this, with East Franconian being much more closely related to Bavarian dialects than it
2890-570: The Central Franconian dialects were influenced by Old Low Franconian (Old Dutch), resulting in certain linguistic loans which yielded a slight overlap of vocabulary, most of which relates to warfare . In addition is the subsumption of the High German consonant shift , a set of phonological changes beginning around the 5th or 6th century that partially influenced Old Dutch, and extensively influenced Central Franconian and other Old High German dialects. Old English , Old Frisian and (to
2975-546: The Dutch language traditionally includes both Old Dutch as well as Old Low Franconian . In English linguistic publications, Old Netherlandic is occasionally used in addition to the aforementioned terms. Old Low Franconian , derives from the linguistic category first devised by the German linguist Wilhelm Braune (1850–1926), who used the term Franconian as a wastebasket taxon for the early West Germanic texts that he could not readily classify as belonging to either Saxon , Alemannic or Bavarian and assumed to derive from
3060-408: The Frankish dialect diverges, with the dialects which would become modern Low Franconian not undergoing the consonantal shift, while all others did so to varying degrees . As a result, the distinction between Old Dutch and Old Frankish is largely negligible, with Old Dutch (also called Old Low Franconian ) being the term used to differentiate between the affected and non-affected variants following
3145-575: The Franks remaining in the north and the rulers far to the south. Franks continued to reside in their original territories and to speak their original dialects and languages. It is not known what they called their language, but it is possible that they always called it " Diets " (i.e. "the people's language") or something similar. The word Diets is cognate with the Old English word þēodisc which, likewise, meant both nation and speech. Philologists think of Old Dutch and Old West Low Franconian as being
3230-709: The Franks were divided politically and geographically into two groups: the Salian Franks and the Ripuarian Franks . The language (or set of dialects) spoken by the Salian Franks during this period is sometimes referred to as early "Old Low Franconian", and consisted of two groups: "Old West Low Franconian" and "Old East Low Franconian". The language (or set of dialects) spoken by the Ripuarian Franks are referred to just as Old Franconian dialects (or, by some, as Old Frankish dialects). However, as already stated above, it may be more accurate to think of these dialects not as early Old Franconian but as Istvaeonic dialects in
3315-494: The Franks who had settled more to the south of this area in northern Gaul started adopting the common Latin of the local population. This Colloquial Latin language acquired the name of the people who came to speak it (Frankish or Français ); north of the French-Dutch language boundary, the language was no longer referred to as "Frankish" (if it ever was referred to as such) but rather came to be referred to as " Diets ", i.e.
3400-567: The Netherlands and Belgium. Old Frisian was one of these dialects, and elements of it survived through the Frisian language , spoken in the province of Friesland in the North of the Netherlands. In the rest of the coastal region, these dialects were mostly displaced following the withdrawal to England of the migrating Angles , Saxons and Jutes , who gave rise to Old English. It was largely replaced by Weser–Rhine Germanic dialects, spoken by
3485-573: The Netherlands before Old Dutch was spoken have been found, and they are sometimes called Oudnederlands (English: "Old Netherlandic" or "Old Dutch") in a geographic sense. The oldest known example, wad 'mudflat', is already mentioned c. 107–108 AD in Tacitus ' Histories (Book 5), in Latinised form as vadam (acc. sg.), as the name of a village, Vada , probably reflecting Early Germanic *wada . The word exclusively referred to
Frankish language - Misplaced Pages Continue
3570-517: The Old Dutch period, the distinction between the feminine ō -stems and ōn -stems began to disappear, when endings of one were transferred to the other declension and vice versa, as 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. The process is shown in a more advanced stage in Middle Dutch. Old Dutch reflects an intermediate form between Old Saxon and Old High German. Like Old High German, it preserved
3655-691: The Rhinelandic Rhyming Bible (Dutch: Rijnlandse Rijmbijbel ; German: Rheinische Reimbibel ). The verse translation of biblical histories is attested only in a series of fragments from different writers. It contains Old Dutch (Low Franconian), Low German (Low Saxon) and High German (Rhine-Franconian) elements. It was likely composed in the northwest of Germany in the early 12th century, possibly in Werden Abbey , near Essen . Phonologically, Old Dutch stands in between Old Saxon and Old High German , sharing some innovations with
3740-513: The Salic law code (the Malberg glosses ) contain several Old Dutch words and this full sentence written in the early 6th century, which is likely the earliest in the language. It translates as "I tell you: I am setting you free, serve". The phrase was used to free a serf . A lito (English: half-free ) was a form of serf in the feudal system , a half-free farmer, who was connected to the land of
3825-495: The Wachtendonck Psalms, the e and i merged in unstressed syllables, as did o and u . That 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 the articulatory distinction, eventually merging into
3910-472: The West Germanic branch of Proto-Germanic. At around the 5th century, the Franks probably spoke a range of related dialects and languages rather than a single uniform dialect or language. The language of both government and the Church was Latin. During the expansion into France and Germany, many Frankish people remained in the original core Frankish territories in the north (i.e. southern Netherlands, Flanders,
3995-478: The Western Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century. Although the Franks would eventually conquer almost all of Gaul, speakers of Old Franconian expanded only into northern Gaul in numbers sufficient to have a linguistic effect. For several centuries, northern Gaul was a bilingual territory ( Latin and Franconian). The language used in writing, in government and by the Church was Latin. Eventually,
4080-532: The aforementioned Second Germanic consonant shift. The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West , East and North Germanic. Their exact relation is difficult to determine, and they remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period , rendering some individual varieties difficult to classify. The language spoken by the Franks was part of the West Germanic language group, which had features from Proto-Germanic in
4165-417: The ancestor of the modern Dutch verb root gun , through the addition of the prefix ge- . (An English cognate probably survives in to own (up) in the sense of 'to acknowledge, concede'.) Its modern meaning is roughly "to think someone deserves something, to derive satisfaction from someone else's success", and it is commonly translated as "grant" or "bestow". Maltho thi afrio lito Glosses to
4250-455: The assimilation of an unattested coastal dialect showing North Sea Germanic -features by West Frankish during the closing of the 9th century , or a combination of both. Some linguists use the terms Old Low Franconian or West Frankish to specifically refer to the (very sparsely attested) varieties of Old Dutch spoken prior its assimilation of the coastal dialect. Old Dutch itself is further divided into Old West Dutch and Old East Dutch, with
4335-422: The book never left the abbey, it cannot be regarded as the start of a Dutch literature and did not influence later works. Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan hinase hic enda thu, uuat unbidan uue nu. Arguably the most famous text containing Old Dutch, the fragment is translated as "All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for?" The text is dated from around 1100 and written by
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#17327577345834420-472: The cognate with the stop [k] is older than the cognate with the fricative [ʃ] and so the former is most likely to more closely resemble the original pronunciation. Old Dutch In linguistics, Old Dutch ( Modern Dutch : Oudnederlands ) or Old Low Franconian (Modern Dutch: Oudnederfrankisch ) is the set of dialects that evolved from Frankish spoken in the Low Countries during
4505-433: The deeds and words of the devil, Thunear, Wōden and Saxnōt, and all those fiends that are their companions". It mentions three Germanic pagan gods of the early Saxons which the reader is to forsake: Uuôden (" Woden "), Thunaer and Saxnōt . Scholar Rudolf Simek comments that the vow is of particular interest because it is the sole instance of the god Saxnōt mentioned in a religious context. One of many baptismal vows, it
4590-410: The descendants of Old West Dutch forming the dominant basis of the Middle Dutch literary language and Old East Dutch forming a noticeable substrate within the easternmost Dutch dialects, such as Limburgish . Before the advent of Old Dutch or any of the Germanic languages, Germanic dialects were mutually intelligible . The North Sea Germanic dialects were spoken in the whole of the coastal parts of
4675-487: The earliest texts written in the Netherlands were written in Latin , rather than Old Dutch. Some of the Latin texts, however, contained Old Dutch words interspersed with the Latin text. Also, it is hard to determine whether a text actually was written in Old Dutch, as the Germanic languages spoken at that time were not standardised and were much more similar to one another. Several words that are known to have developed in
4760-579: The eventual country's name, "France", have a Frankish (i.e. Germanic ) origin. France itself is still known in some languages by terms literally meaning the " Frankish Realm ". Between the 5th and 9th centuries, Frankish spoken in Northeastern France, present-day Belgium, and the Netherlands is subsequently referred to as Old Dutch , whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic dialects and
4845-563: The grammatical variation between Old Dutch and Old Saxon is similar to that between Old Dutch and Old High German. It is also found that Old Dutch had lost the dual number for its pronouns, unlike Old English, which used wit to refer to "the two of us". Old Dutch would have used we both to refer to that and to refer to many more people in the "us" group, much like Modern Dutch and English. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch with some distinctions that approximate those found in most medieval West Germanic languages. The year 1150
4930-416: The language of both the administration and the Church was Latin, this unification did not lead to the development of a supra-regional variety of Franconian nor a standardized German language. At the same time that the Franks were expanding southeast into what is now southern Germany, there were linguistic changes taking place in the region. The High German consonant shift (or second Germanic consonant shift )
5015-411: The languages must show common changes made throughout history. In addition, most grouped languages have shared retention. This is similar to the first criterion, but instead of changes, they are features that have stayed the same in both languages. Because linguistics, as in other scientific areas, seeks to reflect simplicity, an important principle in the linguistic reconstruction process is to generate
5100-470: The late Jastorf culture (c. 1st century BC). The West Germanic group is characterized by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North and East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of the time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). While each had its own distinct characteristics, there certainly must have still been
5185-464: The latter shares more traits with neighboring historical forms of Central Franconian dialects such as Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian . While both forms of Low Franconian were instrumental to the framing of Middle Dutch , Old East Low Franconian did not contribute much to Standard Dutch , which is based on the consolidated dialects of Holland and Brabant . During the Merovingian period,
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#17327577345835270-437: The latter, and others with the former. The table below lists the consonantal phonemes of Old Dutch. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings. Notes: Final-obstruent devoicing of Proto-Germanic [β] to [f] occurred across the West Germanic languages, and thus also in Old Dutch. Old Dutch spelling also reveals final devoicing of other consonants, namely: Final devoicing
5355-495: The least possible number of phonemes that correspond to available data. This principle is again reflected when choosing the sound quality of phonemes, as the one which results in the fewest changes (with respect to the data) is preferred. Comparative Reconstruction makes use of two rather general principles: The Majority Principle and the Most Natural Development Principle. The Majority Principle
5440-484: The lord for whom he worked but not owned by that lord. In contrast, a slave was fully owned by the lord. The Old Dutch word and the Modern Dutch counterpart laat are both etymologically and in meaning undoubtedly related to the verb root laat (English: 'let go', 'release'), which may indicate the fairly free status of such person in relation to that a slave. The Old Dutch word lito is particularly recognisable in
5525-505: The modern French word for the nation, France ( Francia ), meaning 'land of the Franks'. According to one hypothesis, the name for the Paris region, Île-de-France , was also given by the Franks. The influence of Franconian on French is decisive for the birth of the early langues d'oïl compared to the other Romance languages , that appeared later such as Occitan , Romanian , Portuguese , Spanish , Italian , etc., because its influence
5610-402: The most likely pronunciation of the predicted etymon, the original word from which the cognates originated. The Most Natural Development Principle describes the general directions in which languages appear to change and so one can search for those indicators. For example, from the words cantar (Spanish) and chanter (French), one may argue that because phonetic stops generally become fricatives,
5695-507: The most part did not experience the shift. The set of dialects of the Franks who continued to live in their original territory in Germany eventually developed in three different ways and eventually formed three modern branches of Franconian languages . The Frankish Empire later extended throughout neighboring France and Germany. The language of the Franks had some influence on the local languages (especially in France), but did not develop into
5780-494: The northwest (still seen in modern Dutch), and more Irminonic (High German) influences towards the southeast. The scholarly consensus concerning the Migration Period is that the Frankish identity emerged during the first half of the 3rd century out of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups, including the Salii , Sicambri , Chamavi , Bructeri , Chatti , Chattuarii , Ampsivarii , Tencteri , Ubii , Batavi , and Tungri . It
5865-468: The psalms. They were named after a manuscript that has not survived but was the source from which scholars believe the surviving fragments must have been copied. The 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 what appeared to be
5950-457: The region and ground type that is now known as the Wadden Sea . However, since the word existed long before Old Dutch did (and even before its parent language, Frankish ), it cannot be considered part of the vocabulary of Old Dutch but rather of Proto-Germanic . Haþuþȳwas. Ann kusjam logūns. This sentence has been interpreted as "Haþuþyw's. I/He grant(s) a flame (i.e. brand, sword) to
6035-1090: The replacement of Latin cum ("with") with od ← apud "at", then with avuec ← apud hoc "at it" ≠ Italian, Spanish con ) in Old French (Modern French avec ), and for the preservation of Latin nominative homo "man" as an impersonal pronoun: cf. homme ← hominem "man (accusative)" and Old French hum, hom, om → modern on , " one " (compare Dutch man "man" and men , "one"). Middle English also adopted many words with Franconian roots from Old French; e.g. random (via Old French randon , Old French verb randir , from *rant "a running"), standard (via Old French estandart , from *standhard "stand firm"), scabbard (via Anglo-French * escauberc , from * skar-berg ), grape , stale , march (via Old French marche , from * marka ) among others. Language reconstruction Texts discussing linguistic reconstruction commonly preface reconstructed forms with an asterisk (*) to distinguish them from attested forms. An attested word from which
6120-507: The same areas that they had lived in before unification, and to speak the same dialects as before. There must have been a close relationship between the various Franconian dialects. There was also a close relationship between Old Low Franconian (i.e. Old Dutch) and its neighboring Old Saxon and Old Frisian languages and dialects to the north and northeast, as well as the related Old English (Anglo-Saxon) dialects spoken in southern and eastern Britain. A widening cultural divide grew between
6205-444: The same language. However, sometimes reference is made to a transition from the language spoken by the Salian Franks to Old Dutch . The language spoken by the Salian Franks must have developed significantly during the seven centuries from 200 to 900 AD. At some point, the language spoken by the Franks must have become identifiably Dutch. Because Franconian texts are almost non-existent and Old Dutch texts scarce and fragmentary, it
6290-600: The same material, but the 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. Thes naghtes an minemo beddo vortheroda ich minen wino. Ich vortheroda hine ande ne vand sin niet. This example sentence taken from
6375-401: The same ones. Below is a non-exhaustive list of French words of Frankish origin. An asterisk prefixing a term indicates a reconstructed form of the Frankish word. Most Franconian words with the phoneme w changed it to gu when entering Old French and other Romance languages ; however, the northern langues d'oil such as Picard, Norman, Walloon, Burgundian, Champenois an Lorrain retained
6460-507: The select". It was discovered on a sword sheath mounting , excavated in 1996 in the Dutch village of Bergakker and is perhaps better described as Frankish than Old Dutch (Frankish was the direct parent language of Old Dutch). The text however, shows the beginning of Old Dutch morphology. The word ann , found in the partially-translated inscription is coined as the oldest Dutch by linguists Nicoline van der Sijs and Tanneke Schoonheim from Genootschap Onze Taal . They attribute that word to
6545-494: The six cases of Proto-Germanic: nominative , accusative , genitive and dative . A fifth case, the instrumental , could have also existed. The -s ending in the masculine plural was preserved in the coastal dialects, as can be seen in the Hebban Olla Vogala text where nestas is used instead of nesta . Later on, the -s ending entered Hollandic dialects and became part of the modern standard language. During
6630-549: The standard language or lingua franca . The Franks conquered adjoining territories of Germany (including the territory of the Allemanni ). The Frankish legacy survives in these areas, for example, in the names of the city of Frankfurt and the area of Franconia . The Franks brought their language with them from their original territory and, as in France, it must have had an effect on the local dialects and languages. However, it
6715-429: The text could equally well be Old English , more specifically Old Kentish . nu saget mir einen kuning other greven, the an uren got wille gelouven, that se sagent, that ist gelogen, thes ist thaz arme volc bedrogen. Translated as "Mention one king or earl who wants to believe in their god, what they say is a lie, that's how the people are being deceived", this fragment comes from an important source for Old Dutch:
6800-510: The traditional terminology of the West Germanic varieties along assumed Late Classical tribal lines, typical of 19th and early 20th century Germanic linguistics, remains common. Within historical linguistics Old Low Franconian is synonymous with Old Dutch . Depending on the author, the temporal boundary between Old Dutch and Old Frankish is either defined by the onset of the Second Germanic consonant shift in Eastern Frankish,
6885-427: The verb's past tense lieten . End ec forsacho allum dioboles uuercum and uuordum, Thunær ende Uuôden ende Saxnôte ende allum thêm unholdum thê hira genôtas sint. The Utrecht Baptismal Vow , or Old Saxon Baptismal Vow , is a 9th-century baptismal vow that was found in a monastery library in the German city of Mainz but was written in the Dutch city of Utrecht . The sentence translates as "And I renounce all
6970-479: Was a phonological development ( sound change ) 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 complete before the earliest written records in the High German language were made in the 9th century. The resulting language, Old High German , can be neatly contrasted with Low Franconian , which for
7055-608: Was countered by the syllable-initial voicing of voiceless fricatives, which made [v] and [f] allophones of each other. Final devoicing appears much earlier in Old Dutch than it does Old Saxon and Old High German. In fact, by 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). Notes: In unstressed syllables, only three vowels seem to have been reliably distinguished: open, front and back. In
7140-656: Was greater than the respective influence of Visigothic and Lombardic (both Germanic languages ) on Occitan, the Romance languages of Iberia, and Italian . Not all of these loanwords have been retained in modern French. French has also passed on words of Franconian origin to other Romance languages, and to English. Old Franconian has also left many etyma in the different northern langues d'oïl such as Burgundian , Champenois , Lorrain , Norman , Picard and Walloon , more than in Standard French, and not always
7225-418: Was mit mi The Wachtendonck Psalms are a collection of Latin psalms , with a translation in an eastern variety of Old Dutch (Old East Low Franconian) which contains a number of Old High German elements. The example sentence above translates as "He will deliver my soul in peace from those who attack me, for, amongst many, he was with me." Probably based on a Central Franconian original, very little remains of
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