Contents

• Thematic overview

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1. Pre-history: from Indo-European to Dutch
• Historical background: The Netherlands between the Romans and the year 1000
• Characterisation of the Germanic language family
2. Gothic
• The Gothic Bible translation
• Principal features of Gothic
• Text example: Atta unsar - Our Father
3. Old Dutch (before 1150)
• The surviving texts
• Main features of Old Dutch
4. Middle Dutch (c. 1150-1500)
• Historical background: The Low Countries in the Middle Ages
• The influence of Latin and French on Middle Dutch
• The dictionaries of the Middle Ages
• The surviving texts
• Diversity of Middle Dutch (Middle Dutch dialects)
• Spelling and pronunciation in Middle Dutch
• The Middle Dutch case system
• The verb
• Word order
• Negation
5. The 16th and 17th century
• Historical background: The Netherlands in the 16th and 17th century
• Diphthongisation and the 'Holland Expansion'
• Latin-style constructions (Accusative + Infinitive, participles)
• The Rhetoricians ('rederijkers') and their influence on Dutch
• Language Purification / Purism
• The Dictionaries of the 16th - 18th century
• Twe-Spraack - the fist grammar of Dutch
• Development of a standard language
• The "States Bible" - the bible translation of 1637
6. The 19th and 20th century
• The grammars of the 19th and 20th century
• Dictionaries in the 19th and 20th century
• Dialects
• Sociolects
• Dutch in Flanders
• Dutch in Brussels
• Language change in the 19th and 20th century
7. Related languages
• Frisian
• Afrikaans
8. Bibliography
9. Credits