Editing Middle Low German (section)

==History==
Sub-periods of Middle Low German are:<ref>{{cite book |title=Lexikologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen |trans-title=Lexicology. An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies |year=2005 |volume=2 |page=1180 |language=de |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |location=Berlin |oclc=1025116289 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Mittelhochdeutsch: eine Einführung |trans-title=Middle High German: An introduction |last=Weddige |first=Hilkert |year=2015 |edition=9th |page=7 |language=de |publisher=C.H. Beck Verlag |location=München |isbn=9783406684388 |oclc=933385847 }}</ref>

* Early Middle Low German (Standard High German: {{lang|de|Frühmittelniederdeutsch}}): 1200–1350, or 1200–1370
* Classical Middle Low German ({{lang|de|klassisches Mittelniederdeutsch}}): 1350–1500, or 1370–1530
* Late Middle Low German ({{lang|de|Spätmittelniederdeutsch}}): 1500–1600, or 1530–1650

Middle Low German was the [[lingua franca]] of the [[Hanseatic League]], spoken all around the [[North Sea]] and the [[Baltic Sea]]. It used to be thought that the language of [[Lübeck]] was dominant enough to become a normative standard (the so-called {{lang|de|Lübecker Norm}}) for an emergent spoken and written standard, but more recent work has established that there is no evidence for this and that Middle Low German was non-standardised.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Low German texts from late medieval Sweden |last=Mähl |first=Stefan |year=2012 |pages=113–122 |editor1-first=Lennart |editor1-last=Elmevik |editor2-first=Ernst Håkon |editor2-last=Jahr |editor2-link=Ernst Håkon Jahr |journal=Contact Between Low German and Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages: 25 Years of Research |volume=121 |series=Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi |location=Uppsala |publisher=Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur |url=https://kgaa.bokorder.se/en-GB/article/2916/contact-between-low-german-and-scandinavian-i |isbn=9789185352975 }}</ref>{{rp|p=118}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Stellmacher |first=Dieter |title=Die niederdeutsche Sprachgeschichte und das Deutsch von heute |year=2017 |pages=30–31 |language=de |publisher=Peter Lang Edition |location=Frankfurt am Main |isbn=978-3-631-67548-9 |doi=10.3726/978-3-653-07005-7 |oclc=993588521 }}</ref>

Middle Low German provided a large number of [[loanword]]s to languages spoken around the Baltic Sea as a result of the activities of Hanseatic traders. Its traces can be seen in the [[North Germanic languages|Scandinavian]], [[Finnic languages|Finnic]], and [[Baltic languages]], as well as [[Standard German|Standard High German]] and [[English language|English]]. It is considered the largest single source of loanwords in [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Estonian language|Estonian]], [[Latvian language|Latvian]], [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]] and [[Swedish language|Swedish]].

Beginning in the 15th century, Middle Low German fell out of favour compared to Early Modern High German, which was first used by elites as a written and, later, a spoken language. Reasons for this loss of prestige include the decline of the Hanseatic League, followed by political heteronomy of northern Germany and the cultural predominance of central and southern Germany during the [[Protestant Reformation]] and [[Luther Bible|Luther's translation of the Bible]].