oudDutch

Old Dutch, or Oudnederlands, denotes the earliest recorded stage of the Dutch language, a West Germanic language that developed in what is now the Netherlands and adjacent parts of Belgium. It is the direct ancestor of Middle Dutch and, ultimately, Modern Dutch. The period is traditionally dated roughly from the 5th to the 12th centuries, though regional varieties overlapped with the early medieval era.

Old Dutch is attested in a modest corpus of inscriptions, glosses, and religious and legal texts from monasteries and urban centers along the Rhine and Meuse valleys and in the northern Low Countries. The surviving material indicates regional variation, commonly divided into northern and southern branches, with a gradual convergence as Old Dutch gave way to Middle Dutch.

Writing during this period used the Latin script, with spellings reflecting local pronunciation and scribal conventions rather than standardized orthography. Morphology and syntax were richer than in later stages, featuring inflection and verb conjugation that would be simplified over time as the language evolved into Middle Dutch.

Linguistic significance: Old Dutch provides essential evidence for the early Dutch lexicon, phonology, and grammar. It records the roots of core Dutch words and grammatical constructions and documents contact with neighboring languages such as Frisian and Low German. Its study helps illuminate the emergence of Dutch as a distinct language in the Low Countries and tracks the transition from the Old Dutch period to Middle Dutch and eventually Modern Dutch.