Throughout their empire, the Franks spoke a variety of languages, which initially resembled one another closely. Old French and many dialects of Old High German were some of the languages spoken by the Franks. These later developed into other languages, such as French, Dutch, German and Limburgish.

In the 7th and 8th centuries, the Germanic-Romance language border was established through assimilation of the Romance language areas in Flanders, Brabant, Limburg and the Rhine region by Germanic speakers, as well as through the assimilation of the Germanic-speaking region in the Romance language area now known as Wallonia and France. From this time onwards, the immediate predecessor of contemporary Limburgish gradually began to develop within the Limburgish area of these overlapping regions, which had its own version of West Germanic words.

When various Germanic tribes settled in the Roman empire from the 4th century onwards, they encountered written Roman law. Using this as an example, various Germanic laws were written down in the 5th and 6th centuries, including those of the Visigoths, Alemanni, Burgundians, as well as Salian and Ripuarian Franks. The majority of such texts were more or less indirect precursors to Limburgish and are much closer to Limburgish in time and usage than the East Germanic Bible translation. One of these texts, the Lex Salica, or Salian Law, is a direct precursor. However, this work cannot be classified as Limburgish as such, since the language used was a Germanic that was still too undifferentiated and marked by the absence of any typical Limburgish features.

The Lex Salica was prepared on the orders of the French King Cloves, somewhere between 507 and 511 CE. The book is one of the most important Germanic legal texts and remained influential until the Middle Ages. Although the Lex Salica was written in Latin, it includes many separate Germanic words, which are referred to as the Malbergse Glosse (‘Malbergian Glosses’), thereby making this text one of the earliest written precursors to Limburgish. One of the oldest sentences is the following: Maltho thi afrio lito, which can be rendered as ‘I will set you free, half-free one’, which was a formula used when setting a serf free.

This demonstrates that the local vernacular was not the written language of government at the time, which would also have been very unlikely. The Romans reigned over many peoples and nations in their empire and used their own language, Latin, to subject these to Roman law and establish Roman rule. As a result, our Limburgish predecessors had to face a Latin-speaking government. The top echelon of Franks, who became the sole rulers over their own people following the collapse of the Roman empire and the retreat of Roman troops, were quite accustomed to using Latin and continued to do so after the disintegration of the Roman empire.

Consequently, the earliest official documents under Roman and Frankish rule were written in Latin. Latin was also the language of government and science, as well as the Roman Catholic Church, during the reign of the Carolingian Franks, serving as a means to unite the various Germanic and Latin peoples that lived throughout this enormous empire. Nevertheless, a few opportunities remained to use the local vernacular. Charlemagne encouraged his subjects to say the Lord's Prayer and make their confession in their local tongue. During the Council of Tours in 813 CE, the Roman Catholic Church also allowed the use of local vernacular for reasons of comprehensibility. In addition to Latin, the precursor to our contemporary Limburgish must also have been heard in churches.

References
Robinson, O. W., Old English and its closest relatives; A survey of the earliest Germanic languages, Stanford University Press, 1992.
Tervooren, Helmut, Van der Masen tot op den Rijn; ein Handbuch zur Geschichte der mittelalterlichen volkssprachlichen Literatur im Raum von Rhein und Maas, Historisches Verein für Geldern und Umgegend (105), 2005.
Vries, de, J. W., Willemyns, R., Bruger, P., Het verhaal van een taal; negen eeuwen Nederlands, Prometheus Amsterdam, 1993.
Willemyns, R., Het verhaal van het Vlaams; De geschiedenis van het Nederlands in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, Standaard Uitgeverij Antwerpen, 2003.

http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/anltexte.htm (28-5-2008).