Taal en Tongval - Volume 73, Issue 2, 2021

Developments in orthography research

This article, which serves as the editorial to the special T&T issue Spelling in ontwikkeling, consists of four parts. The first part is a brief introduction to spelling as a linguistic field. The second part provides a status quaestionis of this field within Dutch linguistics, especially from a diachronous point of view. The third part is an overview of the research articles in previous T&T issues which, to some extent, deal with spelling. Although the current issue is the first one in which historical spelling research is prominently exhibited, I thought it useful to provide an overview of research articles in the history of T&T that address the topic of spelling, as their titles do not always give this away. The publications listed in the second and third part may serve as a good vantage point for linguists with an interest in historical spelling research as part of language variation in the Low Countries. The fourth part introduces the articles that constitute this issue.

Consonant change between singular and plural forms: A combination of spelling principles

In modern Dutch the spelling principle of uniformity dictates that the singular form of plural nouns ending in -den and -ben, such as landen, ribben, are systematically written with voiced consonants (land, rib), although the final consonants are pronounced voiceless. However, the voiced consonants of plural nouns ending in -zen and -ven (huizen, duiven) are in the singular changed into voiceless consonants, following the pronunciation and leading to the spelling huis, duif etc. Yet, this rule is not systematic: there are many cases where for instance singular and plural both show a voiceless consonant, for example paraaf-parafen, kous-kousen. In this article we examine what caused the difference in spelling rules, and we try to find an explanation for the exceptions to the rule. For this we examine the effect of various factors: the origin of the pairs of voiced and voiceless consonants, the influence of pronunciation, dialect difference, grammatical features as inflection and gender, the spelling principle of uniformity, and the etymological origin of the words concerned. It appears that the current spelling rules can be traced back to a combination of changes in pronunciation and the spelling principle of uniformity, while all exceptions can be explained by the etymology of the words concerned.

Two problematic phoneme oppositions through the centuries: /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ in Dutch

Dutch has a set of solid phoneme oppositions such as /t/-/d/, /p/-/b/ which manifest themselves in minimal pairs such as /p/ak-/b/ak, /t/ak-/d/ak, ra/t/en-ra/d/en which are quite numerous. This is different in the case of /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/. There are not many minimal pairs and although it is generally accepted that /s/-/z/ and /f/-/v/ form phoneme oppositions, there are homonyms for many a speaker in cases such as /f/ier and /v/ier, /s/ein and /z/ijn, especially in the Dutch of the Netherlands. It will be argued that the phoneme opposition /s/-/z/ has been weak through the centuries and that the phoneme opposition /f/-/v/ only has become weak recently. In the latter case the recently formed labiodental [ʋ] out of bilabial [w] may have triggered the [v] to become [f]. Spelling forms in charters as well as statements and spellings of Renaissance grammarians are analysed, just as data from Modern Dutch dialects. This study shows how phoneme oppositions can become stronger and weaker over time.

On the history of sentence-internal capitalisation in Dutch – a corpus-based study on genre influence on the capitalisation practice

Though sentence-internal capitalisation of nouns is – unlike in German – no hallmark of Modern Dutch orthography at all, initial studies on Early Modern Dutch writing practice have affirmed Maas’ (1995, 2007) claim that Dutch once exhibited at least a moderate tendency to uppercase nouns in sentence-internal position (cf. Nowak, 2019 & 2020a): Since both studies were restricted on a corpus of bible prints, it remains an open question whether the capitalisation practice was restricted to this text type only. Therefore, the present paper aims at analysing the use of majuscules in other texts types to gain a more conclusive picture on the overall phenomenon. The contrastive analysis of bible prints with printed travel reports and sailing letters (1500-1800) confirms – on the one hand – previous findings, mainly the fact that the use of majuscules within common nouns was increasingly motivated by cognitive factors, mainly animacy and concreteness of the referent; on the other hand, however, the present study shows that sentence-internal capitalisation of common nouns was much more pronounced in non-biblical texts than expected by previous studies (cf. Nowak, 2019 & 2020a). In contrast to bible prints, non-biblical texts did not abolish sentence-internal uppercase letters by the end of the 17^th century, suggesting that this spelling convention was not abandoned due to religious reasons as suggested by Maas (1995 & 2007).

Towards a uniform written Dutch: The elimination of dialect features by Gheraert Leeu, printer in Gouda and Antwerp

This study discusses the influence of the printing press on the gradual rise of standard Dutch on the basis of the language used in a selection of incunables, printed by Gheraert Leeu, one of the pioneers of early printing. Leeu was active in Gouda (Holland) from 1477 until 1484, but moved in 1484 to the city of Antwerp (Brabant), where he continued his printing activity until his sudden death in 1492. In three books from Gouda and five books originating from Antwerp, we determined the degree of dialecticity, classified the dialect variants according to their origin, interpreted the variation found between regional and non-regional variants and discussed their diachronic evolution.

We found that both the Hollandic and the Brabantish dialect features were increasingly replaced by their non-regional equivalents. By rapidly diminishing the amount of dialect variants in his printed language, Gheraert Leeu contributed to the transition from dialectal Late Middle Dutch to more supraregional Early New Dutch, which was reflected in Hollandic and Antwerp printed books around 1500. So the traditional view that the standard Dutch is based on the Hollandic dialect of the 17^th century, should be revised: a tendency towards more uniformity in written Dutch was already noticeable at the end of the 15^th century among printers in Antwerp and Holland, who were striving for a more uniform language in order to enlarge the sales market for their printed books. The case of the famous printer Gheraert Leeu shows that the prosperous city of Antwerp played a leading role in the development of a uniform written language.