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How far back in time can you understand English?

deadlanguagesociety.com

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Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#141

Post by saltcured »

aardvark179 wrote: post #103
Dwedit wrote: post #14

Seems to be heavily focused on orthography. In 1700s we get the long S that resembles an F. In 1600 we screw with the V's and U's. In 1400, the thorn and that thing that looks like a 3 appears. Then more strange symbols show up later on as well.

Orthography is probably the biggest stumbling block going back to the 1500s or 1400s , but that’s really because the rest of the language has changed in vocabulary and style, but is still understandable. If you think the 1200 or 1100 entry are mostly orthographical changes then you are missing the interesting bits.

I would prefer to see a version that was skillfully translated to modern orthography so that we could appreciate shifts in vocabulary and grammar.

To me, it is nearly like trying to look at a picture book of fashion but the imagery is degraded as you go back. I'd like to see the time-traveler's version with clean digital pictures of every era...

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#142

Post by gfto »

dddgghhbbfblk wrote: post #8

Should be "how far back in time can you read English?" The language itself is what is spoken and the writing, while obviously related, is its own issue. Spelling is conventional and spelling and alphabet changes don't necessarily correspond to anything meaningful in the spoken language; meanwhile there can be large changes in pronunciation and comprehensibility that are masked by an orthography that doesn't reflect t…

You can try this video to see how far back you can understand spoken English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842OX2_vCic

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#143

Post by krackers »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #108

Their long S is really annoying, although truthfully I generally am unfamiliar with the long s in modern fonts so I don't KNOW if it really looks worse than it needs to, but I feel it looks worse that it needs to and that makes it harder, for example I thought lest at first was left and had to go back a couple words after. Anyway as I know from my reading history at 1400 it gets difficult, but I can make it through 1…

  (function() {
    const SKIP_PARENTS = new Set(["SCRIPT", "STYLE", "NOSCRIPT", "TEXTAREA"]);
    const walker = document.createTreeWalker(
      document.body,
      NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT,
      {
        acceptNode(node) {
          const p = node.parentNode;
          if (!p || SKIP_PARENTS.has(p.nodeName)) return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT;
          if (p.nodeName === "INPUT") return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT;
          return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT;
        }
      }
    );

    let node;
    while ((node = walker.nextNode())) {
      node.nodeValue = node.nodeValue.replace(/ſ/g, "s");
    }
  })()

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#144

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

dhosek wrote: post #37
dddgghhbbfblk wrote: post #8

Should be "how far back in time can you read English?" The language itself is what is spoken and the writing, while obviously related, is its own issue. Spelling is conventional and spelling and alphabet changes don't necessarily correspond to anything meaningful in the spoken language; meanwhile there can be large changes in pronunciation and comprehensibility that are masked by an orthography that doesn't reflect t…

Indeed, I remember being in Oxford in the 90s and an older man approached me and spoke to me in English and I couldn’t understand a word he said. My ex-wife, who’s an ESL speaker who speaks fluently and without an accent has trouble with English accents in general. Similarly, in Spanish, I find it’s generally easier for me to understand Spanish speakers than Mexican speakers even though I learned Mexican Spanish in s…

> older man approached me and spoke to me in English and I couldn’t understand a word he said

like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs-rgvkRfwc ?

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#145

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

Esn024 wrote: post #139

Very neat! My native language is Russian. I could understand it pretty well up to 1300, then only about 40% of the 1200 section (not at all the beginning, but the last paragraph was easier), then quite little after that - though I understood enough to glean that there was some woman who had showed up that caused the Master to flee. I really got into reading Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" (about 1497) about a year ago,…

audio would drop off slightly faster than text, due to vowel shift in 1400s

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#146

Post by krackers »

klondike_klive wrote: post #134
dataflow wrote: post #114

1400 seems fine except for the one big hurdle being "Þ", which I feel like I'd seen at some point but did not recall. ("ȝ" is useful but that's somewhat easier to guess and not too critical. "ſ" is also easy to guess and I'd seen it before.) 1300 is noticeably harder and needs some iterative refinement, but once you rewrite it, it's surprisingly not too bad: > Then after much time spoke the master, his words were col…

switch the double-u for a w. Uuhiles becomes "whiles" (or "while")

retvrn to tradition

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#147

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

krackers wrote: post #143
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #108

Their long S is really annoying, although truthfully I generally am unfamiliar with the long s in modern fonts so I don't KNOW if it really looks worse than it needs to, but I feel it looks worse that it needs to and that makes it harder, for example I thought lest at first was left and had to go back a couple words after. Anyway as I know from my reading history at 1400 it gets difficult, but I can make it through 1…

(function() { const SKIP_PARENTS = new Set(["SCRIPT", "STYLE", "NOSCRIPT", "TEXTAREA"]); const walker = document.createTreeWalker( document.body, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT, { acceptNode(node) { const p = node.parentNode; if (!p || SKIP_PARENTS.has(p.nodeName)) return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT; if (p.nodeName === "INPUT") return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT; return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT; } } ); let node; while ((node = walke…

what?

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#148

Post by krackers »

NooneAtAll3 wrote: post #147
krackers wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(function() { const SKIP_PARENTS = new Set(["SCRIPT", "STYLE", "NOSCRIPT", "TEXTAREA"]); const walker = document.createTreeWalker( document.body, NodeFilter.SHOW_TEXT, { acceptNode(node) { const p = node.parentNode; if (!p || SKIP_PARENTS.has(p.nodeName)) return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT; if (p.nodeName === "INPUT") return NodeFilter.FILTER_REJECT; return NodeFilter.FILTER_ACCEPT; } } ); let node; while ((node = walke…

what?

That will replace the long-s with the standard s. You can do the same for the thorn.

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#149

Post by drdeadringer »

In AA, they are coming out with a new addition of the Big book, using modern language, because apparently people are having a difficult time understanding language used in the 1940s.

For example, Bill W speaks about being trapped or surrounded by quicksand. Apparently, nobody today understands quicksand. So they remove the word quicksand.

I'm 44, and this makes me feel like an old man yelling at clouds.

Re: How far back in time can you understand English?

#150

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

ajb wrote: post #34
throwaway3060 wrote: post #25

I can get through 1300 with some effort, but from 1200 I get nothing. Just a complete dropoff in that one time frame.

Yeah same. The explanation at the bottom is interesting, lots of the words imported from Normandy drop off then, and the grammar changes more significantly.

I think people see "The blog ends there. No sign-off, no “thanks for reading.”" and stop reading everything after that xD
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