Old Dutch - Spelling Conventions

Spelling Conventions

Old Dutch was spelled using the Latin alphabet. However, since early missionaries in the Low Countries were mostly Old English and Old High German speakers, Old English and Old High German elements do appear, even though they were never present in the spoken language.

The length of a vowel was generally not represented in writing probably because the monks, who were the ones capable of writing and teaching how to write, tended to base the written language on Latin which also does not make a distinction in writing. For example: dag "day" (short vowel), thahton "they thought" (long vowel). Later on, the long vowels were sometimes marked with a macron to indicate a long vowel, e.g. ā. In some texts long vowels were indicated by simply doubling the vowel in question, e.g. the placename Heembeke and personal name Oodhelmus (both from charters written in 941 and 797 respectively).

• c is used for when it is followed by u, o or a: cuning 'king' (modern koning). In front of i or e, the earlier texts (especially names in Latin deeds and charters) used ch. By the later tenth century, the newer letter k (which was rarely used in Latin) was starting to replace this spelling. Example: kēron 'to turn around' (mod. keren).
• It is not exactly clear how c was pronounced before i or e in Old Dutch. In the Latin orthography of the time, c before front vowels stood for an affricate ; it is quite likely that early Dutch spelling followed this pronunciation.
• g represented or its allophone : brengan 'to bring', segghan 'to say', wege 'way' (dative).
• h represents and its allophone : holto 'wood' (mod. hout), naht 'night' (mod. nacht).
• i is used for both the vowels and and the consonant : ik 'I' (mod. ik), iār 'year' (mod. jaar).
• qu always represents : quāmon 'they came' (mod. kwamen).
• s represented the consonant and later also .
• th is used to indicate : thāhton 'they thought' (mod. dachten). Occasionally dh is used for .
• u represented the vowels and or the consonant : uusso 'foxes' (genitive plural).
• uu was normally used to represent, as the letter w didn't exist yet.
• z rarely appears and when it does, it's pronounced : quezzodos 'you hurt' (past tense, mod. kwetste).