Dutch is one of the most closely related languages to English, and the study of it leads to many insights about the history and formation of our own language. Today, we will look at a brief historical tour of the Dutch language, analyzing major events historically and linguistically, that shaped the language into what it is today. 

Historic Influences on Dutch (c. 200 BC – 700 AD)

Around the second century BC, Germanic tribes began settle in what is now called the Netherlands. The first written record to document their presence is Julius Caesar’s De bello gallico ["On the Gallic Wars"], which details the Roman wars with the Gauls, and eventually their conquest of the peoples of the Netherlands. The occupation of the Romans gave the indigenous people much affiliation with the Latin language, but the languages also strongly divided the Germanic-speaking natives from the Roman oppressors. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the conquest of Gaul by the Germans, the Netherlands became part of the Merovingian and subsequently, part of Charlamagne empires. During this time Latin was still spoken in administrative and educated circles, but a gradual language boundary evolved as those north of the Rhine began to speak Germanic in the vernacular and those south of the Rhine adopted Old French. Between 800 and 1100 AD, the strength of the Holy Roman Empire gradually shifted out of the hands of the Franks into the eastern lands, and the Common Germanic language grew in status, eventually becoming one of the predominant languages of Europe.

Below is a chart tracing the roots of Dutch back to Proto-Indo European (Chart 1), and also a chart portraying similar words in the Germanic family (Chart 2). Chart 3 is a comparison of the Lord’s Prayer in Gothic, Dutch, English and German. 

Chart 1 ¹

Chart 2 ²
 
 

Dutch	vader	vier	voll	house	brún	út	mus
German	Vater	vier	full	hus	brun	ut	mus
English	father	four	fol	hus	brun	ud	mus
Frisian	-	fjouwer	full	hus	brun	ut	mus
Swedish	fader	fyra	fuld	hus	brúnn	út	mús
Danish	fader	fire	full	hús	uit	muis
Norwegian	far	fire	fullur	bruin	aus	Maus
Icelandic	fair	fjórir	huis	braun	out	mouse
		vol	Haus	brown

Chart 3
 
 
 

Gothic	Dutch	English	German
Atta unsar zu in himinam	Vader onze gij in (de) hemelen,	Father ours thou in heaven	Vater unser Ihr in (den) Himmeln,
weihnai namo þein.	geheiligd worde naam uw.	be hallowed name thine	geheiligt werde Name Euer.
	kome koninkrijk uw.		komme Königreich Euer.
qimai þiudinassus þeins.	worde wil uw,	come kingdom thine	werde Wille Euer,
wairþai wilja þeins,	zoals in (de) hemel ook	occur will thine	wie in (dem) Himmel
swe in himina jah ana airþai.	op (de) aarde.	as in heaven also on earth.	auch auf (der) Erde.
hlaif unsarana þana sinteinan	brood ons het dagelijkse	bread ours the daily	Brot unser das tägliche
gif uns himma daga.
jah aflet uns þatei	geef ons deze dag.	give us this day.	gib uns diesen Tag.
skulans sijaima,	en vergeef ons dat	and forgive us that	und vergib uns daß
swaswe jah weis afletam	schuldenaars wij zijn,	sinners we are	Schuldner wir sind,
þaim skulam unsaraim	zoals ook wij vergeven	as also we forgive	sowie auch wir vergeben
jah ni	de schuldenaars onze.	the sinners ours.	den Schuldnern unseren.
briggais uns	en niet moge gij	and not	und nicht möget Ihr
in fraistubnjai,	brengen ons	bring us	bringen uns
ak lausei uns af þamma	in verzoeking,	in testing	in Versuchung,
ubilin	maar verlos ons van het	but deliver us from the	sondern erlöse und von
	boze	wicked one.	dem Bösen.

Out of Common Germanic came Old Dutch. Because of the lack of surviving text, it is difficult to see the changes that occurred that set Old Dutch apart from its father language. One of the only existing documents that help us to understand what was spoken as Common Germanic was the Gothic translation fo the Bible by bishop Wulfila (or Ulfilas c. 350 AD). From analyzing this text, we can begin to piece together the main linguistic changes that caused Dutch to break away from Common Germanic and become its own language. It is also difficult to reconstruct the actual feature of Old Dutch because of the fact that the majority of all written language up to the 13th century was done in Latin. There are, however, bits and pieces of this language which have served to help scholar understand at least some of the changes which were taking place in the shift in Gothic, (Common Germanic), on its way to becoming Middle Dutch. The following are some of the major changes that occurred:

The consonant cluster -ft- became Old Dutch -cht-: 

In -chs- an assimilation took place, becoming -ss-:

The Old Dutch cluster -ol+ d/t- was diphthongised to -ou + d/t-: 

The lengthening of short vowels in open syllables bearing the stress led to a vowel difference between singular and plural which is still present in Modern Dutch: 

The Germanic diphthongs ai and au turned into monphthongs in Old Dutch ³

Middle Dutch (c. 1150 – 1500) 

What is now commonly referred to as Middle Dutch is really a conglomeration of five major dialects, which have now coalesced into what is now Dutch. Flemish, Brabants, Hollands, Limburgs, and East Middle Dutch are the major dialects that are used to describe Middle Dutch. The Limburgs and East Middle Dutch dialects show much connection with Middle Low and Middle High German, assumedly based on the fact that these areas shared common borders with peoples who spoke these languages. Latin and French also strongly influenced the language at this point in time, with Latin being the language of government up until the 14th century. As urbanization and mobilization increased, and different dialects began to have more contact with each other, the need for a common language arose. The invention of the printing press also hastened to standardize the different dialects into what is now the Dutch language. During this time, the stress on a words mostly shifted to the first syllable, which led to the weakening of the unstressed syllable into a schwa sound. (see Chart 4)
 

Chart 4
 
 

Old Dutch	Middle Dutch	"have"
hebban	hebben	"wait for" (no longer current:
unbidan	ontbiden	compare “abide”)
vogala	vogele	"Birds"
singit	singet	"sing"

Dutch in the 16th and 17th century, and today

From the time Maximilian was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1486, the Netherlands had become an economic center. This economic prowess inevitably led to conflict. Wars and plague racked the country, and linguistically, Middle Dutch experienced a diphthongisation, evolving the vowel sounds into what is spoken in the Netherlands today. 

                                                                                  Middle Dutch    Modern Dutch

It is speculated ⁴ that the change was a sociolinguistic change, with the poorer class changing to the pronunciation of the more well to do. At this time period infinitive and accusative constructions were borrowed from Latin, which are still in use today. 

This time period also saw the most unification of the Dutch language. During the 17th century many Chambers of Rhetoric were established, with the purpose of writing poetry and drama. They eventually led to the writing of the first Dutch dictionary (1546), and the first Dutch grammar (1584). In 1637 the Protestants decided that a Dutch bible was needed that was translated from the original Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic. This work, named the States Bible, was the first collaboration of the different dialects to come together and agree upon some standards in grammar, spelling and syntax.

These developments did not eliminate dialects, which still exist today, but it brought the different groups closer together. Because of the geographic nature of the Netherlands, it is presumable that there will always be different dialects, while the people of the south and east draw from their French and German speaking neighbors. We can, however, see how Dutch evolved from its Germanic roots, and also see many of the similarities that it has shared, and that it still shares with English today. 

1. McMahon, April. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge University Press 1994. (3)

2. Bree, C. Van. Historische taalkunde. Tweede druk. Leuven, Amersfoort: Acco. (1996),

3. Vekeman, H. / Ecke, A. History of the Dutch Language. Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt, 1993.

4. Kloeke, G.G., The Holland Expansion in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century and its Effects on the Dutch Language. Gravenhage, 1927.