[flagged]
What would they say?
How far back in time can you understand English?
61–70 of 432 posts
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#62I can get through 1300 with some effort, but from 1200 I get nothing. Just a complete dropoff in that one time frame.
I was able to get the gist of 1200, with some effort. By paragraph: P1: Unclear, but I think it's basically saying there is much to say about all that happened to him. [Edit: the more I stare at it, the more sense it makes. "There is much to say about all that ? was wrought on me, ???. I shall never forget it, not while I live!"] P2: Unexpectedly, a woman ("uuif", wife) appeared at "great speed" to save him. "She cam…
That older spelling is the reason why "w" is called "double u".
Had the word been written "wif", I don't think that there would have been any need for you to search the word, as the relationship with "wife" would have been obvious.
Between then and now, in this word only the pronunciation of "i" has changed, from "i" like in the European languages to "ai".
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#63Would be curious to know from other HN readers: how far back can you understand written prose of your own language, assuming the writing system uses mostly the same letter or characters? Medieval French, Middle High German, Ancient Greek, Classical Arabic or Chinese from different eras, etc.
People read Shahname[1] regularly in Iran, and it was written at around 1000 CE, but there isn't much before 900 CE that is comprehensible to a modern day Persian speaker.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh
The Shahnameh is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems, and the longest epic poem created by a single author.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#64[flagged]
I don't know what your problem is, your comments so far are all low effort and not really contributing to the conversation.
Your language is not acceptable here.
If you're not already shadow-banned I suspect that's the way you're heading.
Have a word with yourself. (A British idiom, meaning to consider what you're doing, particularly in terms of morality and cultural acceptability.)
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#65Would be curious to know from other HN readers: how far back can you understand written prose of your own language, assuming the writing system uses mostly the same letter or characters? Medieval French, Middle High German, Ancient Greek, Classical Arabic or Chinese from different eras, etc.
If you're interested you can read up on language change (and glottochronology, although that's a bit controversial now), and the Swadesh lists.
In general, language changes around at the same rate all over history and geography, barring some things (migration, liturgical languages)
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Knowing that W is a late addition to the alphabet and would have been written UU or VV suddenly makes uuif obvious.
I could intuit the pronunciation but I didn’t make the connection from “wif” to “woman” in general. In hindsight I should have, after all we have words like “midwife” which doesn’t refer to a person’s actual married partner.
I’m a native English speaker and I think this is an easier jump if you know other Romance languages. In Spanish and Portuguese “woman” and “wife” are often the same word, “mujer” and “mulher” respectively.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#67I can get through 1300 with some effort, but from 1200 I get nothing. Just a complete dropoff in that one time frame.
I was able to get the gist of 1200, with some effort. By paragraph: P1: Unclear, but I think it's basically saying there is much to say about all that happened to him. [Edit: the more I stare at it, the more sense it makes. "There is much to say about all that ? was wrought on me, ???. I shall never forget it, not while I live!"] P2: Unexpectedly, a woman ("uuif", wife) appeared at "great speed" to save him. "She cam…
Also I loved this little discovery, from 1300:
> "Þe euele man louȝ, whan that he sawe my peine, and it was a crueel louȝter, wiþouten merci or pitee as of a man þat haþ no rewþe in his herte."
"The evil man laughed, when he saw my pain, and it was a cruel laughter, without mercy or pity as of a man that has no rewthe in his heart."
In other words, a rewthe-less man.
We've retained the word "ruthless" but no longer use the word "ruth", "a feeling of pity, distress, or grief."
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#68no cap u need to b like so unc 2 read this I finna yeet my phone like who even reads I have siri English is lowkey chueggy anyway all my homies use emoji now bet English is cooked fam. Gen Alpha’s kids are going to get lost at the 2000 paragraph.
fr fr, OP be cappin 2000 ain't English
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#69Well, for a native speaker of Dutch who doesn't speak English at all (not many left since my grandmother died in 2014), I'd say old English is actually easier to read than modern - starting around 1400. Around 1000, English and Dutch must have been mutually understandable.
My experience traveling to the Netherlands as an English speaker is that people are speaking English, but they're drunk!
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#70Well, for a native speaker of Dutch who doesn't speak English at all (not many left since my grandmother died in 2014), I'd say old English is actually easier to read than modern - starting around 1400. Around 1000, English and Dutch must have been mutually understandable.
What accent did you read it in? Vlaams? Gronings?