This was a fun exercise. I made it through 1300 by reading it in a Scottish accent and being familiar with some basic old Norse characters from a prior trip to Iceland. I watch Scottish shows like "Still Game", and for some reason that combo with the accent and their lingo made it simpler to read. By 1200 I was completely lost; it looks more Germanic to me, which I don't have the knowledge to read.
How far back in time can you understand English?
81–90 of 432 posts
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#82Really interesting! Somewhat reminds me of the ending of H. P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls", where the main character, a scion of a very old family which has done some really bad things, goes mad and progressively starts speaking in older and older versions of English after every sentence.
Thanks, that's such a great detail. I was reading Lovecraft during highschool in locally translated print editions. Where such details didn't come through.
Do you know if there any other such language related eastereggs in other of Lovecraft's writing? should I chose to revisit them, in English this time around.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#83I really think that the onset of mobile device communication will be a major pillar in the history of the English language. lol / crash out / unalive / seggs / aura
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#84Is it weird that the 1900 style is closer to how I typically write than the first 2000 style? I'm not that old, am I?
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#85Would 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.
I think it depends a lot on the history of the language. My native language is French, and since long ago various authorities try to normalize and "purify" the language. This is why the gap between spoken French and written French is so wide. Now my experience as an avid reader...
Books written in the 17th century or later are easy to read. Of course, the meaning of some words can change over time but that's a minor trouble. I believe Molière and Racine are still studied in school nowadays, but the first name that came to my mind was Cyrano de Bergerac (the writer, not the fictitious character).
Books from the 16th need practice, but I think anyone who tries hard will get used to the language. I enjoyed Rabelais's Pantagruel and Gargantua a lot, and I first read them by myself when I was in highschool (I knew a bit of Latin and Greek, which helped).
Before that, French was much more diverse; the famous split into "langue d'oc" and "langue d'oïl" (terms for "oui" — yes — at the time) is a simplification, because there were many dialects with blurry contours over space and time.
I've read several 11th-12th novels about the Round Table, but I was already experienced in Old French when I started, and I think most readers would struggle to make sense of it. It may depend on the dialect; I remember "Mort Artur" was easier than "Lancelot, le chevalier à la charette".
"La chanson de Roland" (11th century, Old French named anglo-normand) is one of my favorite books of all times. Reading it for the first time was a long process — I learned the declensions of Old French and a lot of vocabulary — but it was also fun, like deciphering some mystery. And the poesy is a marvel, epic, incredibly concise, surprising and deep.
Before that (9th-10th), Old French was even closer to Latin.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#86I have an edition of the Nibelungenlied, which presents a modern German translation right next to a version of the original text. While the original is somewhat difficult to understand there is an amazing continuity between the two.
To me this made it clear that the German Nation has been clearly defined over the last thousand years and just how similar the people who wrote and enjoyed that work are to the native Germans right now. Can only recommend people do something like that if they want to dispel the delusion that people of your Nation who lived a thousand years ago were in any way fundamentally different from you.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#87[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.)
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Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#88Well, 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!
When they seamlessly switch from English to Dutch I feel like I’m having a stroke: all the same intonation, the same accent, but nothing makes sense any more
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#89Man when I read Adam Smith, that was a challenge. Not only is his Enlgish super archaic with all kinds of strange units, but he writes these incredibly long logically dense sentences.
Re: How far back in time can you understand English?
#90Reading Steven Pinker's "The Language Instinct", and he has a section that shows how the Lord's Prayer has changed over the ages.
What's interesting is the one in use today - from the early 17th century - is not the most modern variant. There was another revision from the mid-19th century that fell out of favor because it sounded a bit off, less rhythmic, less sacred (ie. Kingdom -> Government).