The Influence of Latin and French on Middle Dutch

[SuuT]

Under Charlemagne the area which is now the Netherlands and Belgium was part of a larger multilingual region. (see also the historical background of the Netherlands of that time)

On one side of the region Germanic dialects were being spoken which were still very similar to each other, so that people could still understand each other; on the other side a sort of Latin was being used. This had the consequence that everybody who carried out business or was in the service of the (local) authorities, or who was a clerk or cleric, had to be bilingual.

In France, from the 9th century onwards, Latin was accompanied by a vernacular, known as Old French, which had arisen from Latin in the course of the centuries. "Standard Latin" continued to be important for centuries as a "lingua franca" for Christian Europe, run as it was from Rome. Throughout Europe teaching was carried out in Latin in universities and the so-called Latin schools.

Although there continued to be great interest in Latin right up to the Enlightenment, people in most countries gradually started using the vernacular for administrative purposes. In the Netherlands this started in the 13th century.

However, the influence of Latin on vernacular languages was quite strong. In the Netherlands words were borrowed even before 1150, still in the Old Dutch period, from classical Latin (especially for physical objects and the new Christian religion), and from vulgar Latin, influenced by Celtic languages, or Old French (especially for physical objects and emotions).

This means that in Middle Dutch we meet words like strate (< "via strata" ["street"]), wal (< "vallum" ["wall"]), wijn (< "vinum" ["wine"]) of munte (< "moneta" ["coin, money"]). These expressions for things acquired from Roman civilisation were borrowed from Latin at an early stage (4th/5th century).

Alongside direct borrowings from Latin or French, Dutch also introduced loan translations ("omni-potens" > al-machtig ["almighty"]), and there are also instances of semantic extension (dopen for "to baptise", originally just "immerse") or replacement of a native word by a loan word (camp < Latin "campus" instead of wijch ["camp, settlement"]).

From the 12th century onwards the influence of Old and Middle French on vocabulary was especially strong, particularly in border regions, trade centres and aristocratic circles (as is testified by 13th century texts with large numbers of French loan words).

Both influences, French and Latin, are in any case present before the beginning of written sources, so that it is often now impossible to establish whether a word, at the time of its borrowing, was still Vulgar Latin or the newly developed Old French, and exactly when the borrowing occurred.

Sometimes it is possible, with the help of the sound laws and analysis of the accent or spelling, to track down the time of borrowing: the word "altare" in Middle Dutch is (amongst other forms) also found as outaer - it had clearly already been taken from Latin in the Old Dutch period as it has taken part in the development alt > olt > out.

Furthermore French probably also exercised some influence on the grammar and spelling of Middle Dutch.

There is, for example, debate amongst linguists as to whether the Dutch plural using -s arose from French influence. On one side this plural form also exists in German and English but not in the Scandinavian languages, which makes an origin in Common Germanic improbable (ie strengthens the argument for a borrowing from French). On the other hand the plural with -s is already found in the very earliest texts, which argues against the "loan theory". (see also Plural formation in Middle Dutch)

The spelling in Middle Dutch was in any case strongly influenced by French writers. In old texts we can, for example, often find -ghe- or -ghi- instead of the modern -ge- or -gi- This means that the letter <g> must have been pronounced [x] as in modern Dutch (ie like the <ch> in Scottish "loch"), and not like the French <g> which had changed to voiced <zj> in front of /e/ and /i/ (as in the English word "leisure").

Moreover French loan words often brought with them French suffixes, such as -ier, -ie or -age. Some of these suffixes are still active in word formation.

It also occurred that a borrowing which had already taken place in the Old or Middle Dutch stage was "reborrowed" later, as in the example of the Latin "solarium", which already existed in Middle Dutch as solre (> "zolder" ["loft"]) and recently joined the language again via English "solarium" to indicate a technical apparatus. Another example is the word "altare" which, after the borrowing into Old Dutch mentioned above was taken over again into Middle Dutch, this time as altaar.


http://s2.ned.univie.ac.at/Publicati...nllateinfl.htm

[Albion]

What percentage of Dutch vocabulary is Romance?

[The Lawspeaker]

I will look that up for you when I have some more time.

[Albion]

I've heard it has quite a bit of French whereas Flemish doesn't, it sounds a bit strange to me.

[Winterwolf]

I've heard it has quite a bit of French whereas Flemish doesn't, it sounds a bit strange to me.

The Flemish always claim, that they speak the better and more pure Dutch. At least that's what I witnessed. I can only deduce it like this:
Most likely the Flemish historically felt threatened in their identity by the Walloons and French and therefore they took more care of their traditions, habits and language. The Dutch weren't threatened, so they were more liberal concerning loan-words etc. So today the Flemish speak a more pure Dutch than the Netherlanders.