Middle Low German, sometimes Middle Low Saxon, is a developmental stage of Low German. It developed from the Old Saxon language in the Middle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225–34 (). During the Hanseatic period (from about 1300 to about 1600), Middle Low German was the leading written language in the north of Central Europe and served as a lingua franca in the northern half of Europe. It was used parallel to medieval Latin also for purposes of diplomacy and for deeds.
Terminology While Middle Low German (MLG) is a scholarly term developed in hindsight, speakers in their time referred to the language mainly as (Saxon) or (the Saxon language). In contrast to Latin as the primary written language, speakers also referred to discourse in Saxon as speaking/writing , i.e. 'clearly, intelligibly'. This contains the same root as 'German' (cf., High German: , Dutch (archaically N(i)ederduytsche to mean the contemporary version of the Dutch language) both from Proto-Germanic "of the people"; 'popular, vernacular') which could also be used for Low German if the context was clear. Compare also the modern colloquial term (from 'plain, simple') denoting Low (or West Central) German dialects in contrast to the written standard.
Another medieval term is (lit. 'East-ish') which was at first applied to the Hanseatic cities of the Baltic Sea (the 'East Sea'), their territory being called ('East-land'), their inhabitants ('Eastlings'). This appellation was later expanded to other German Hanseatic cities and it was a general name for Hanseatic merchants in the Netherlands, e.g. in Bruges where they had their (office; see Kontor).
In the 16th century, the term (lit. 'Lowland-ish, Netherlandish') gained ground, contrasting Saxon with the German dialects in the uplands to the south. It became dominant in the High German dialects (as ENHG , which could also refer to the modern Netherlands), while remained the most widespread term within MLG. The equivalent of 'Low German' (NHG ) seems to have been introduced later on by High German speakers and at first applied especially to Netherlanders.
Middle Low German is a modern term used with varying degrees of inclusivity. It is distinguished from Middle High German (MHG), spoken to the south, which was later replaced by Early New High German. Though Middle Dutch is today usually excluded from MLG (although very closely related), it is sometimes, especially in older literature, included in MLG, which then encompasses the dialect continuum of all high-medieval Continental Germanic dialects outside MHG, from Flanders in the West to the eastern Baltic.
Extent
Middle Low German covered a wider area than the Old Saxon language of the preceding period, due to expansion to the East and, to a lesser degree, to the North.
In the East, the MLG-speaking area expanded greatly as part of the Ostsiedlung (settlement of the East) in the 12th to 14th century and came to include Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Pomerania and (Old) Prussia, which were hitherto dominated by Slavic and Baltic tribes. Some pockets of these native peoples persisted for quite some time, e.g. the Wends along the lower Elbe until about 1700 or the Kashubians of Eastern Pomerania up to modern times.
In the North, the Frisian-speaking areas along the North Sea diminished in favour of Saxon, esp. in East Frisia which largely switched to MLG since the mid-14th century. North of the Elbe, MLG advanced slowly into Sleswick, against Danish and North Frisian, although the whole region was ruled by Denmark. MLG exerted a huge influence upon Scandinavia (see ), even if native speakers of Low German were mostly confined to the cities where they formed colonies of merchants and craftsmen. It was an official language of Old Livonia, whose population consisted mostly of Baltic and Finnic tribes.
In the West, at the Zuiderzee, the forests of the Veluwe and close to the Lower Rhine, MLG bordered on closely related Low Franconian dialects whose written language was mainly Middle Dutch. In earlier times, these were sometimes included in the modern definition of MLG (see ).
In the South, MLG bordered on High German dialects roughly along the northern borders of Hesse and Thuringia. The language border then ran eastwards across the plain of the middle Elbe until it met the (then more extensive) Sorb-speaking area along the upper Spree that separated it from High German. The border was never a sharp one, rather a continuum. The modern convention is to use the pronunciation of northern maken vs. southern machen ('to make') for determining an exact border. Along the middle Elbe and lower Saale rivers, Low German began to retreat in favour of High German dialects already during Late Medieval times (cf. Wittenberg whose name is Low German but whose inhabitants already spoke mostly/exclusively High German when the Reformation set in).
History
Sub-periods of Middle Low German are:
Early Middle Low German (Standard High German: ): 1200–1350, or 1200–1370 Classical Middle Low German (): 1350–1500, or 1370–1530 Late Middle Low German (): 1500–1600, or 1530–1650
Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, spoken all around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. It used to be thought that the language of Lübeck was dominant enough to become a normative standard (the so-called ) for an emergent spoken and written standard, but more recent work has established that there is no evidence for this and that Middle Low German was non-standardised.
Middle Low German provided a large number of loanwords to languages spoken around the Baltic Sea as a result of the activities of Hanseatic traders. Its traces can be seen in the Scandinavian, Finnic, and Baltic languages, as well as Standard High German and English. It is considered the largest single source of loanwords in Danish, Estonian, Latvian, Norwegian and Swedish.
Beginning in the 15th century, Middle Low German fell out of favour compared to Early Modern High German, which was first used by elites as a written and, later, a spoken language. Reasons for this loss of prestige include the decline of the Hanseatic League, followed by political heteronomy of northern Germany and the cultural predominance of central and southern Germany during the Protestant Reformation and Luther's translation of the Bible.
Phonology and orthography The description is based on Lasch (1914) which continues to be the authoritative comprehensive grammar of the language but is not necessarily up-to-date in every detail.
Consonants LabialAlveolarPost-alv.PalatalVelarGlottalNasal Stop Affricate () Fricative [] [] () [] [] Approximant Lateral Square brackets indicate allophones. Round brackets indicate phonemes that do not have phoneme status in the whole language area or are marginal in the phonological system.
It is not rare to find the same word in MLG affected by one of the following phonological processes in one text and unaffected by it in another text because the lack of a written standard, the dialectal variation and ongoing linguistic change during the Middle Low German (MLG) era.
General notes Final devoicing: Voiced obstruents in the syllable coda are devoiced, e.g. geven (to give) but gift (gift). The change took place early in MLG but is not always represented in writing. Proclitic words like mid (with) might remain voiced before a vowel because they are perceived as one phonological unit with the following word. Also, as can already be seen in Old Saxon, lenited is devoiced to before syllabic nasals or liquids, e.g. gaffel (fork) from PG *gabalō. Grammatischer Wechsel: Because of sound changes in Proto-Germanic (cf. Verner's law), some words had different sounds in different grammatical forms. In MLG, there were only fossilised remnants of the "grammatischer wechsel" (grammatical change), namely for and , e.g. kêsen (to choose) but koren ((they) chose), and for and , e.g. vân < PG *fanhaną (to take hold, to catch) but gevangen < PG *fanganaz (taken hold of, caught). Assimilation: A sound becoming more similar to a (usually) neighbouring sound, usually in place or manner of articulation, is very common across all languages. Early MLG did mark assimilation much more often in writing than later periods, e.g. vamme instead of van deme (of the). Dissimilation: In MLG, it frequently happened with vs. or vs. , e.g. balbêrer < barbêrer (barber), or knuflôk < kluflôk (garlic). Both forms frequently co-existed. The complete loss of a sound in proximity to an identical sound can also be explained in such a way, e.g. the loss of in Willem (William) < Wilhelm. Metathesis: Some sounds tended to switch their places, especially the "liquids" and . Both forms may co-exist, e.g. brennen vs. (metathesised) bernen (to burn). Gemination: In MLG, geminate consonants, which came into being by assimilation or syncope, were no longer pronounced as such. Instead, geminate spelling marks the preceding vowel as short. Many variants exist, like combinations of voiced and voiceless consonants (e.g. letters, Sundays). Late MLG tended to use clusters of similar consonants after short as well as long vowels for no apparent reason, e.g. for (time). h spellings: A mute h appeared sporadically after consonants already in Old Saxon. Its use greatly increased in MLG, first at the end of a word, when it often marked the preceding vowel as long, but it later appears largely randomly. In very late times, the use of h directly after the vowel is sometimes adopted from Modern High German as a sign of vowel length.
Specific notes on nasals (Indented notes refer to orthography.)
had a tendency to shift to in the coda, e.g. dem > den (the (dat.sg.m.)). Intervocalic is sometimes spelled mb whether or not it developed from Old Saxon . assimilated to before velars and . Final often dropped out in unstressed position before consonants, e.g., (we have), cf. Modern Dutch for a similar process. Similarly, it often dropped from -clusters after unstressed vowels, especially in Westphalian, e.g. jârlix (annually) < jârlings. Furthermore, had been deleted in certain coda positions several centuries earlier (the so-called Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law), but there were many exceptions and restorations through analogy: the shifted form gôs (goose < PG *gans) with an unshifted plural gense (geese) was quite common. Non-shifted forms have been common in the more innovative Eastern dialects.
Specific notes on stops and fricatives as a stop is always word-initially (blôme flower, bloom), at the onset of stressed syllables (barbêrer barber) and (historically) geminated (ebbe ebb, low tide). Its allophones in other cases are word-internal and word-final (e.g. drêven to drive, vs. drêf drive (n.)). Voiceless usually appeared word-initially (e.g. vader father), word-finally (merged with historical , see above), otherwise between short vowels and nasals/liquids (also from historical , e.g. gaffel fork) and in loans (e.g. straffen to tighten, from High German). It was mostly written v in the syllable onset, in the coda. Exceptions include loans (figûre), some proper names (Frederik), cases like gaffel as mentioned earlier and sporadically before u (where v would be too similar graphically) and before l and r. Sometimes, w is used for v, and ph for f. In MLG (like in other medieval) texts, there is usually no clear graphic distinction between v and u. The distinction between both (consonant value as v, vocalic value as u) is used in modern dictionaries, in grammars and in this article simply for better readability. Thus, in the manuscripts, e.g. auer is aver (but). was originally an approximant but seems to have later shifted towards a fricative. Its exact articulation likely differed from dialect to dialect, and many of them merged word-internally with , an allophone of .