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Well, 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.
Well, 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?
Fucking AI slop, even this
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I have had to interpret between an Ulsterman and a South African, who were both speaking English. I think those accents have vowel shifted in opposite directions. I was also taught a bit of Chaucer (died 1400) in English at school. Although not any of the naughty bits.
Around 1300 to 1400. Some words were harder. But English isn't my first language either. So I guess that's alright. I guess I'd be fine in the 1500 in England. At least language wise.
In 1500 a lot of pronunciation would've been different too, it was in the middle of the Great Vowel Shift [1]. And of course while the UK is still (in)famous for its many accents and dialects, some nigh mutually unintelligible, the situation would've been even worse back then. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
Well, 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!
Earlier 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.
Man changed to mean only a male person, and we lost wer except in the word "werewolf".
Well, 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.
Assuming that translation was done a while ago (100+ yrs?)... It is hard to read. I can understand it if I try. But the phrasing is not current. 100 pages will take double the time at the least.
Almost think AI needs to rephrase it into current English.
Probably has these double negatives, long sentences, etc.
I 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