How far back in time can you understand English?
It’s a thousand years of the English language, compressed into a single blog post.
"... as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler."
deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-…
How far back in time can you understand English?
An experiment in language changeColin Gorrie (Dead Language Society)
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woe2you
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Hedders
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •That's fantastic.
I got as far as 1200.
brabo
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Bauke Kramer
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •From 1200 onwards, my knowledge of Frisian and Dutch helped me a bit. But even so, I quickly got lost...
Leeloo
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Nope. Didn't even get to the first unfamiliar word before I got stopped by "sign up for our mailing list" garbage.
Close tab.
john lomax
in reply to Nαtαshα • •Mab_813 likes this.
Ciara
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Hard test! I'm reminded of this idea to warn people in 10,000 years, when our language has been lost, where we dumped nuclear waste.
“They proposed we genetically engineer a species of cat that changes color in the presence of radiation. We release it into the wild to act as living Geiger counters. Then we create folklore and write songs and tell stories about these 'ray cats', the moral being that when you see these cats change colors, run far, far away.”
99percentinvisible.org/episode…
Ten Thousand Years - 99% Invisible
99% InvisibleLog 🪵
in reply to Ciara • • •Ciara
in reply to Log 🪵 • • •Ryek Darkener
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •murks
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Dan Hugo (แดน)
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •I'm not entirely certain what this comment means.
What is that, 5 seconds?
commonst
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •int%rmitt]nt sig^al. ...~!...)
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Once you get that it all, sort of, makes sense.
luca
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Pino Carafa
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •HarryMutt
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Interestingly, as a German, I can understand quite a lot of the very old texts. But my mother had a PHD in English and French and knew a lot about old Germanic sagas and medieval German literature. So, that is nothing foreign to me.
If you read anything from Walther von der Vogelweide, you will clearly see the similarities to the oldest texts. Words and grammar are recognizable, and if you can read one, you can read the other.
But even in Shakespeare's time, you will find a lot of those common roots of our languages, and if you get used to the different spelling, the sound of it rings familiar. And as late as in Jane Austen's times, even the number format was still the same as in German, for instance, four-and-twenty and not twenty-four.
After all, with all the lost grammar and words, modern English is just a watered-down version of old German.
ಚಿರಾಗ್ 🌹✊🏾Ⓥ🌱🇵🇸 (he/him)
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Mans R
Unknown parent • • •Franchesca
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •stevenray
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Daniel Johnson
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •dragonfrog
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •that was fun!
I understood what was going on as far as 1300, got most of 1200, got the gist of 1100 but definitely missed some of it, and was fully guessing at what was going on in 1000 (it turned out i guessed at least a bit of it right so there was a shadow of comprehension).
Cainmark Does Not Comply 🚲
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Lost me at 1600 "thouing". First word I had to understand from the context.
1200 still understood half.
Thought I lost meaning completely at 1100 until I imagined it was a play being performed, then got an eighth of it.
1000 could only glean some meaning from the spacing of the words, might as well be a completely different language to me.
CpyJx 🍉
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •for an audible experience
loops.video/v/dxXFQREMjg
Mason Loring Bliss
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Fun, but I have a some comments and criticisms.
1900: I wish the author had leaned less obviously on Clement Clarke Moore and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They spoke (or wrote) a stylized English consciously, and our traveller would not.
1700: The letter "ſ", the "long s", is typographical, not linguistic. Readers at the time would read "congress" as readily as "congreſs".
1600: Again, this is mostly typographical variation. Spoken, one would understand it easily. The weird "thouing" want seen until some fifty years later.
1500: Spoken, this would present no trouble to a modern listener.
1400: Typographical again, wiþ only minor variations in þe ſpelling used. Nat harde to reade, alþouȝ again the letter ſubstitution can be rouȝ.
1300: I don't see "ſchaltou" that far back, bit I didn't dig hard. I imagine spoken, one would realize it's two words mashed together. A Germanic "en" seems to show up randomly. "Rewþe" made me smile.
1200 and earlier: I feel like the vocabulary is starting to c
... Show more...Fun, but I have a some comments and criticisms.
1900: I wish the author had leaned less obviously on Clement Clarke Moore and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. They spoke (or wrote) a stylized English consciously, and our traveller would not.
1700: The letter "ſ", the "long s", is typographical, not linguistic. Readers at the time would read "congress" as readily as "congreſs".
1600: Again, this is mostly typographical variation. Spoken, one would understand it easily. The weird "thouing" want seen until some fifty years later.
1500: Spoken, this would present no trouble to a modern listener.
1400: Typographical again, wiþ only minor variations in þe ſpelling used. Nat harde to reade, alþouȝ again the letter ſubstitution can be rouȝ.
1300: I don't see "ſchaltou" that far back, bit I didn't dig hard. I imagine spoken, one would realize it's two words mashed together. A Germanic "en" seems to show up randomly. "Rewþe" made me smile.
1200 and earlier: I feel like the vocabulary is starting to change here to the point where my unfamiliarity with the typographical anachronisms becomes an impediment. Hearing it spoken would help, and I'm interested enough to want to substitute modern characters for the archaic to see if that gets me further.
Thanks for posting this.
Jo - pièce de résistance
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •I did read a lot of Medieval & Arthurian literature as a kid.
Robin Barton
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Melia_Runs_NYC
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •M. Grégoire
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Light
Unknown parent • • •Same.
@Natasha_Jay
sgt1372
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Peter
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •teadrinker
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Marco Antoniotti
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Fluffgar 🏴
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •notsoloud
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •At 1200 I understood about half. Less than that in 1100 and 1000, but more than zero. It also helped when I realized the p was a w.
Being Danish did help. "sloȝ hem and fælde hem to þe grunde" is not too far from modern Danish.
John_Loader
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Mohamed Al-Hajamy 💾
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Jane
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Kaliah
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Floaty Birb
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •Tim Richards
in reply to Nαtαshα • • •