Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/752

740 from the 8th to the middle of the 11th century. A gradual change took place subsequently in the language, and it became the mother of a new dialect, which is called the middle High German, and which survived it in the same districts of upper Germany. The literature of middle High German reaches from the 12th to the end of the 15th century, and it is so clear, grand, refined, and melodious, that it has been called the first classical period of German literature. A new modification of the old High German, and a daughter of the middle High German, made its appearance for the first time in a literary production of note in Luther's translation of the Bible, and in its rapid development seems to have reached its culminating point in the literature of the present century. Under the term Low German are comprised all the dialects spoken in the lowlands of Germany. The old Saxon, which belongs to this group, was spoken between the Rhine and the Elbe, in the districts which lie at the foot of the central plateau of Germany. Its literary documents date from between the 9th and 11th centuries, and had their origin in the districts of Münster, Essen, and Cleves. The old Saxon is the mother of the middle Low German, which is to be distinguished from the middle German and middle Netherlandish or middle Dutch, and also from the modern derivative of it called modern Low German, or Platt-Deutsch. While old Saxon most closely approaches old High German, the dialect spoken in the districts of Thuringia and the region between upper and lower Germany formed a kind of transition between High and Low German. On the N. coast of Germany, between the Rhine and the Elbe, and beyond the latter river as far as Jutland, extended the old Frisian dialect. Its literary records are of comparatively late date, but it displays a very antique cast, resembling most closely the old High German. The Dutch language has no literature earlier than the 16th century, but it is still a literary and national language; while Flemish, which was also used during this period in the courts of Flanders and Brabant, had to give way to the official languages of Holland and Belgium, and its use is almost completely confined to the Flemish peasantry. Anglo-Saxon is also a Low German dialect. The four Germanic tribes that invaded Britain have left no record in the dialects peculiar to each, and there are no facts from which to determine the precise nature of their speech. The Jutes who settled in Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight probably did not speak an old Norse dialect, as no traces of it are found in those districts. The Angles, coming from a settlement adjacent to the Saxons, may also have spoken a Saxon dialect. The Saxons of England called themselves simply Saxons, in distinction from the old Saxons, or those who had remained on the continent; but it is still doubtful whether they belonged exactly to one and the same tribe. The term Anglo-Saxon