How far back in time can you understand English?
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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."
How far back in time can you understand English?
An experiment in language change
(www.deadlanguagesociety.com)
I read it easily back through 1600. I'm used to Shakespearean English, so it was comfortably familiar.
At 1500, I had to begin reading aloud, because the typography looked strange, so I needed to actually hear the words, but once I heard them, it easily made total sense.
At 1400, my reading aloud went much slower, with some backtracking ("Ah, wait, that's what that word is!"), but once I nailed the words, there was not a problem understanding it. Sort of like reading Chaucer.
At 1300, I began to have serious problems. There were a number words I just couldn't figure out at all. Got maybe three-fourths of the passage, but there were a lot of gaps.
At 1200, I hit a wall and had difficulty climbing it. I only got about two words in every ten. I managed to figure out that the narrator had somehow escaped, but I have no idea whatsoever how he managed that.
At 1100, my comprehension simply evaporated. I had no idea at all what was happening from that point on.
Thank you! This exercise was a lot of fun!
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