Old Low German (Old Saxon) language
 
Old Saxons lived in the first centuries AD on the shores of the Northern Sea. They were closely related to such Northern Germanic tribes as Angles, Jutes, Frisians. Saxons were quite numerous and that is why always needed to search for new lands to settle, as the economy was not productive enough to feed everyone in severe northern conditions. Southern Germanic tribes had an opportunity to migrate to vast territories of the Roman Empire and plunder lands of Gaul, Italia, Hispania and countries along the Danube. But Old Saxons had nothing to do but to migrate though the sea.

In the 5th century AD tribal communities of Saxons, together with Angles and Jutes, began their continuous invasions in Britain. They invaded also lands of Norway and Frisia, but were successfully repelled from there. Weak Celtic tribes in Britain could not resist too long the aggressive Germans, and soon the Old Saxon language and ethnic group divided into two: Anglo-Saxon or Old English language and the Saxon language, known now as Low German.

The main peculiarities of the Old Saxon language were not nu,merous but still significant: e.g., nasal consonants were dropped before a vowel (like in fîf - five, German fünf). The personal pronouns lost their -r at the end (a rather strange feature); the 3rd person of those pronouns acquired a form he (obviously, from Old Scandinavian). Besides, there was no reflexive pronoun in Old Saxon, and English still lacks it having just the word self with a reflexive meaning.

Old Saxon turned to be more analytical than the High German language: the nominative singular of the nouns was not already different in the gender.