FLEMISH LANGUAGE AND LITERA TURE (Flem. Dllt ell Plaionsch, Orris. flemschr, Pim-macho• eon fleeted With FI•M. Placnderen, Dutch l'Iaamicren, Ger. Pigmies-1i, Flanders). The Low German language aml lit erature of Belgium. The earliest history of the Flemish language is also the history of Dutch, the name specifically applied to the language of the Netherlands. The oldest stage of both is the dialect group called Ohl Low Franconia u. spoken, from the seventh century to the middle of the twelfth by various German peoples in the whole Lower Rhine region, from the confluence of the Ruhr with the Rhine to the sea. When out of the popular dialects, in the second half of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, a written language was developed, a number of dialect groups existed in what are now the Netherlands and Belgium that had an impor tant hearing upon the subsequent formation of the language. Frisian (1.v.), at the beginning the principal dialect, was spoken in the territory farthest north and along the seacoast ; Saxon, in the region about the Yssel; Franconian. on the Rhine. Out of Frisian and Saxon contact had arisen a Frisian-Saxon mixed dialect, which was spoken principally in territory subsequently Dutch, but also in a small part of West Flanders. Out of Frisian contact with Franconian. further more, had arisen a Frisian-Franconian mixed dia lect. The territory of the latter, besides those parts subsequently Dutch, was East Flanders, west of the Scheldt and the Lys, and the greater part of West. Flanders. Pure Franconian was spoken in territory subsequently Dutch. but also in East Flanders, east of the Lys and the Scheldt, in Antwerp, in South Brabant, and in Limburg. Each of the main dialects, in this way, con tributed its quota to what. was. in the end, to be the language of the Low German part of Belgium.
The first dialect which. as far as can be ascer tained, developed a written language. was the Franconian of Limburg, in which Henrik van Veldeke, born in the neighborhood of Maastricht, wrote after the middle of the twelfth century.
The oldest poems of the thirteenth century were in Limburg, Brabant. Antwerp. and par ticularly in Flanders. They all exhibit local dia lectic peculiarities, but there is visible in them, at the same time• the tendency toward a common literary form. The Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant (c.1235-1300), the founder of the di dactic school of poetry in ,the Netherlands. and sometimes called 'the father of Dutch poets.' in his !wren can St. Franciscus, names as dia lects 'Duutsch; by which he apparently means the dialect of Holland, Brabantish. Flemish. and Zealandish. Ilis own work shows the striving. already indicated, to write a literary form. which tendency obviously continued during the succeed ing centuries, down to the close of the middle period in the hiseory of the language, at the end of the fifteenth century.
During the sovereignty of the Dukes of Bur gundy, which terminated in 1477, the language was subjected to French influence, which re sulted not only in the introduction of a multi tude of French words, but also in the loss of inflexional endings, and made the sixteenth century a period of linguistic confusion. The writers on language, of whom there were many at this time, endeavored each to make his own dialect the recognized literary form, and the dia lect of Bruges, the East Flemish of Ghent, and the dialect of Brabant, were in turn presented as forms of usage. Toward the end of the century, however, this had given way to the feeling that the common language should have more general characteristics and should represent the whole rather than any particular part. Pontus de Heuiter. who published, in 1581, at Antwerp, his Nedcrduitse Orthographic, said of his own lan guage that it is "set together out of the speech of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, Guelders, and Cleves," and this was ultimately the common attitude.