The sound determined the spelling, irrespective of the basic word. Words were often written as they were pronounced: lant (land), hi vint (he finds). There was a lot of variation in the spelling. Very often it is possible to tell from the language whether a text comes from Limburg, Brabant, or Holland. Authors generally wrote in their own dialects. During this period there was no standardization of grammar. The Dutch spoken between 11 is referred to as Middle Dutch. In other cases, it is recommended, but not mandatory to follow the official spelling.ĭutch spelling in the Middle Ages The law requires that this spelling be followed "at the governmental bodies, at educational institutions funded from the public purse, as well as at the exams for which legal requirements have been established". This gives the Committee of Ministers of the Dutch Language Union the authority to determine the spelling of Dutch by ministerial decision. Various other attempts at simplification followed, culminating in the Spelling Act of 15 September 2005. This led to a large degree of uniformity of spelling in the Netherlands and Belgium. Still not entirely satisfactory, an ambitious project was proposed in 1851 to produce a large dictionary incorporating vocabulary of the past centuries. This did not prove popular however and another attempt was made in 1844. Matthijs Siegenbeek, professor at Leiden was officially asked in 1801 to draw up a uniform spelling. With the spirit of the French Revolution, attempts were made to unify Dutch spelling and grammar. The word jaar (year) for instance, could be spelt jar, jaer, jair, or even yaer and iaer. The Latin alphabet had been used from the beginning and it was not easy to make a distinction between long and short vowels ( a / aa). Up until the 18th century there was no standardization of grammar or spelling. The history of Dutch orthography covers the changes in spelling of Dutch both in the Netherlands itself and in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in Belgium.
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