History of Dutch - Middle Dutch

Linguistically speaking, Middle Dutch is a collective name for closely related dialects which were spoken and written between about 1150 and 1550 in the present-day Dutch-speaking region. There was at that time as yet no overarching standard language, but they were all highly mutually intelligible.

In historic literature Diets and Middle Dutch (Middelnederlands) are used interchangeably to describe the ancestor of Modern Dutch. Although almost from the beginning, several Middle Dutch variations emerged, the similarities between the different regional languages were much stronger than their differences, especially for written languages and various literary works of that time.

Within Middle Dutch we can distinguish five large groups:

1. Flemish, (sometimes subdivided into West and East Flemish), was spoken in the modern region of West and East Flanders;
2. Brabantian was the language of the area covered by the modern Dutch province of North Brabant and the Belgian provinces of Walloon Brabant, Flemish Brabant and Antwerp as well as the Brussels capital region;
3. Hollandic was mainly used in the present provinces of North and South Holland and parts of Utrecht;
4. Limburgish, spoken by the people in the district of modern Limburg and Belgian Limburg;
5. Low Saxon, spoken in the area of the modern provinces of Gelderland, Overijssel, Drenthe and parts of Groningen.

The last two of the Middle Dutch dialects mentioned above show features, respectively, of Middle High German and Middle Low German, since these two areas border directly onto the areas of Middle Low and High German, as can be seen from a historical map of the regions of that time.