Old Saxon

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Old Saxon, also called Old Low German, was an early form of Low German spoken by the Saxons in what is now northwest Germany, eastern Netherlands, and southern Denmark (North Schleswig). It was written from about the 8th to the 12th century and is the earliest recorded form of Low German, which later developed into Middle Low German.

Language family and relatives: Old Saxon is a West Germanic language in the broader Indo-European family. It is related to Old English and Old Frisian and comes from the Ingvaeonic group, but it is not a pure Ingvaeonic dialect. It existed alongside Old Dutch and shared some features with them, though the languages later diverged.

Writing and transition: Old Saxon used Latin letters. By around 1150, writing increasingly reflected Low German norms, and the language gradually became Middle Low German in the following centuries.

Grammar in brief: Old Saxon was highly inflected. It had five grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, and a vestigial instrumental), three numbers (singular, dual, and plural), and three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter). The dual was mainly used for two people. Nouns had different endings depending on their class, and by the Middle Low German period many noun classes merged.

Verbs and syntax: The Old Saxon verb system had strong and weak verbs, with several irregulars. Like other old Germanic languages, word order was more flexible because of the heavy inflection.

Sound and writing notes: Old Saxon did not take part in the High German consonant shift, so sounds like p, t, k stayed the same as in earlier Germanic languages. Vowel changes over time helped separate Middle Low German from Old Saxon.

Literary evidence: Only a few texts survive. The best known is the Heliand, a long poetic retelling of the life of Jesus. Fragments of the Genesis, baptismal vows from Charlemagne’s time, and a poetic version of the Lord’s Prayer also survive.

Summary: Old Saxon was an early, highly inflected West Germanic language spoken in parts of present-day Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark. It laid the groundwork for Middle Low German and remains known from a small set of medieval texts.