Middle Dutch phonology

Differences with Old Dutch
Several phonological changes occurred leading up to the Middle Dutch period.


 * This change did not occur in all dialects; in some, remained syllable-finally or before.
 * >, merging with the phoneme originating from Old Dutch.
 * This change did not occur in all dialects; some instead show merging with . This results in later pairs such as dietsc  versus duitsc.
 * Various dialects also show >, while others retain . Compare southeastern Middle Dutch hiwen  with modern Dutch huwen.
 * In word-initial position, some northern dialects also show a change from a falling to a rising diphthong ( > ) like Old Frisian. Cf. the accusative second-person plural pronoun iu > northern jou  versus southern u.
 * Old Dutch, , merge into a centralising diphthong , spelled $⟨ie⟩$.
 * Likewise, Old Dutch (from Proto-Germanic ) becomes a centralising diphthong, spelled $⟨oe⟩$ or $⟨ou⟩$.
 * Phonemisation of umlaut for back vowels, resulting in a new phoneme (from earlier Old Dutch  before  or ). Unlike most other Germanic languages, umlaut was only phonemicised for short vowels in all but the easternmost areas; long vowels and diphthongs are unaffected.
 * Voiceless fricatives become voiced syllable-initially: >,  >  (merging with  from Proto-Germanic ),  > . (10th or 11th century)
 * Vocal reduction: Vowels in unstressed syllables are weakened and merge into, spelled $⟨e⟩$. (11th or 12th century) Long vowels seem to have remained as such, at least is known to have remained in certain suffixes (such as -kijn ).
 * Dental fricatives become stops: >,  > , merging with existing  and . (around 12th century)
 * The geminate (originating from Germanic *-þj-) develops into : *withtha > wisse, *smiththa > smisse.
 * All remaining >, except in the southeast.
 * Along with the previous change,, >.
 * This occurred only in those words where and  had not developed into  earlier. E.g. būan  > bouwen.
 * The discrepancy in occurrences of resulted in pairs such as modern Dutch duwen  versus douwen, or nu  versus nou.
 * L-vocalisation: and  >  before dentals.
 * Before dentals and  >,  > . E.g. farth  > vaert , ertha  > aerde , wort  > woort.
 * Open syllable lengthening: Short vowels in stressed open syllables become long.
 * In descriptions of Middle Dutch phonology, Old Dutch (original) long vowels are called "sharp-long" and indicated with a circumflex (â, ê, î, ô). Lengthened vowels are "soft-long" and are indicated with a macron (ā, ē, ī, ō).
 * Lengthened vowels initially remained distinct from original long vowels, but â and ā usually merge early, and ī merges into ē. Thus, for Middle Dutch, only the distinction between ê/ô and ē/ō generally remains.
 * lengthens to or  (spelled $⟨o⟩$, $⟨eu⟩$ or $⟨ue⟩$), but this does not result in any new phonemic contrasts until later on.
 * As a result, all stressed syllables in polysyllabic words become heavy. This also introduces many length alternations in grammatical paradigms, e.g. singular dag, plural dag(h)e.
 * lengthens to or  (spelled $⟨ie⟩$, $⟨ee⟩$ or $⟨e⟩$), but this does not result in any new phonemic contrasts until later on.
 * As a result, all stressed syllables in polysyllabic words become heavy. This also introduces many length alternations in grammatical paradigms, e.g. singular dag, plural dag(h)e.

Consonants
The consonants of Middle Dutch differed little from those of Old Dutch. The most prominent change is the loss of dental fricatives. The sound was also phonemicised during this period, judging from loanwords that retain  to this day.

If two phonemes appear in the same box, the first of each pair is voiceless, the second is voiced. Phonemes written in parentheses represent allophones and are not independent phonemes. For descriptions of the sounds and definitions of the terms, follow the links on the headings.

Notes:


 * All obstruents underwent final-obstruent devoicing as in Old and Modern Dutch.
 * During the first part of the Middle Dutch period, geminated varieties of most consonants still occurred.
 * is an allophone of occurring after.
 * is an allophone of occurring before velars ( and ).

Vowels
Most notable in the Middle Dutch vowel system, when compared to Old Dutch, is the appearance of phomenic rounded front vowels, and the merger of all unstressed short vowels.

The rounded back vowels and  only occurred in the Limburgish dialects.

The lengthening of vowels in open syllables, and often before, created a contrast between originally long ("sharp-long" â, ê, ô) and lengthened ("soft-long" ā, ē, ō) vowels. These have all merged in modern standard Dutch, but they were still distinct in Middle Dutch, and developed differently in different dialects, although the spelling does not normally reveal this. The following points can be noted:
 * For â and ā:
 * In Limburg and other eastern dialects, originally-long â is backed to and later rounded to  or  (spelled ao in modern Limburgish), while lengthened ā is contrastively a front vowel.
 * In West Flanders, originally-long â was fronted to (through Ingvaeonic influence) and also remained distinct from ā for a time.
 * In all other dialects, particularly Brabant and Holland, â and ā merged. The phonetic realisation ranged from back (in Brabant) to front  ~  (in Holland).
 * For ê and ē:
 * These two sounds remained distinct in all Middle Dutch dialects, but were realised differently.
 * In Brabant, Gelderland and some other areas, the distinction was likely one of vowel height alone, with ê closed and ē more open.
 * In Flanders, Zeeland and parts of Holland, ê had the character of an opening diphthong (, or the like), and is occasionally found spelled $⟨ei⟩$ or $⟨ei⟩$ (even in open syllables) to reflect this in Middle Dutch texts from those areas. The lengthened ē is generally spelled with a single $⟨oe⟩$ in open syllables, although $⟨ou⟩$ is also found occasionally in some areas of Flanders, indicating a closing diphthongal realisation (,  or similar).
 * In Limburg, many instances of ê appear as a diphthong $⟨ie⟩$, as the old Germanic diphthong *ai never became a long monophthong there, just like in High German.
 * For ô and ō:
 * The distinction between these two vowels paralleled that between ê and ē, but it was apparently not as strong or clear, as many texts allow words with ô to rhyme with words with ō. It's possible that the two vowels merged under some conditions, while remaining distinct in other cases.
 * In many areas, ô was probably relatively closed and/or an opening diphthong. In Brabant, it is occasionally found to rhyme with the vowel spelled $⟨oe⟩$, reflecting this.
 * In Limburg and other eastern dialects, ō was relatively open and tended to be confused with â, so it was likely or . ô was often retained as $⟨ie⟩$ in Limburg, reflecting the original Germanic *au which failed to monophthongise there.

only occurred in a small number of loanwords from French, such as fruyt/froyt (Old French pronunciation ). It is known that it eventually merged with when the latter began to diphthongise.

The diphthongal character of and  (spelled $⟨ij⟩$ and $⟨sc⟩$ in most texts) is not clear.
 * The coastal areas (Flanders, Holland), probably had a long close-mid vowel, which was not clearly distinguished from other o-like vowels.
 * Further east towards western Brabant, the pronunciation seems to tended to close.
 * For eastern Brabant, and all of Limburg, the pronunciation was certainly diphthongal, at least in earlier Middle Dutch.

Despite unclear pronunciation, $⟨sch⟩$ clearly never merged with the long vowel  $⟨sc⟩$. The two sounds were never allowed to rhyme, and developed differently into early modern Dutch. Thus, it is necessary that there was some contrast between the vowels, whether between opening diphthong and monophthong (in earlier Middle Dutch) or between monophthong and slight closing diphthong (in later Middle Dutch).

Changes during the Middle Dutch period
Phonological changes that occurred during Middle Dutch:


 * >, > . This eliminated the sound  from the language altogether.
 * and originating from  and  through final devoicing were not affected. This therefore resulted in alternations such as singular coninc  versus plural coninghe, singular lamp  versus plural lammere.
 * > (spelled $⟨sch⟩$ or later ⇭⇭⇭). It's unclear when this change happened, as the spelling doesn't seem to differentiate the two sounds (that is, ⇭⇭⇭ and ⇭⇭⇭ could both represent either sound).
 * > before  plus another consonant, merging with original Old Dutch  (< Proto-Germanic ). E.g. ende > einde, pensen > peinsen (from Old French penser). This change is found sporadically in Old Dutch already, but becomes more frequent in some Middle Dutch areas.
 * Epenthesis of in various clusters of sonorants. E.g. donre > donder, solre > solder, bunre > bunder. In modern Dutch, this change has become grammaticalised for the -er (comparative, agent noun) suffix when attached to a word ending in -r.
 * Shortening of geminate consonants, e.g. for bidden >, which reintroduces stressed light syllables in polysyllabic words.
 * Early diphthonisation of long high vowels: >  and  >  except before, probably beginning around the 14th century.
 * The diphthongal quality of these vowels became stronger over time, and eventually the former merged with ei. But the diphthongal pronunciation was still perceived as unrefined and 'southern' by educated speakers in the sixteenth century, showing that the change had not yet spread to all areas and layers of Dutch society by that time.
 * Following the previous change, monophthongisation of opening diphthongs: >,  > . The result might have also been a short vowel (as in most Dutch dialects today), but they are known to have remained long at least before.
 * Beginning in late Middle Dutch and continuing into the early Modern Dutch period, schwa was slowly lost word-finally and in some other unstressed syllables: vrouwe > vrouw, hevet > heeft. This did not apply consistently however, and sometimes both forms continued to exist side by side, such as mate and maat.
 * Word-final schwa was not lost in the past singular of weak verbs, to avoid homophony with the present third-person singular because of word-final devoicing. However, it was lost in all irregular weak verbs, in which this homophony was not an issue: irregular dachte > dacht (present tense denkt), but regular opende did not become *opend because it would become indistinguishable from opent.
 * During the 15th century at the earliest, begins to disappear when between a non-short vowel and another vowel.
 * The actual outcome of this change differed between dialects. In the more northern varieties and in Holland, the was simply lost, along with any schwa that followed it: luyden > lui, lade > la, mede > mee. In the southeast, intervocalic  instead often became : mede > meej.
 * The change was not applied consistently, and even in modern Dutch today many words have been retained in both forms. In some cases the forms with lost were perceived as uneducated and disappeared again, such as in Nederland and neer, both from neder (the form Neerland does exist, but is rather archaic in modern Dutch).