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c/mildlyinteresting · by Quilotoa@lemmy.ca · 189d

How far back in time can you understand English? This site goes back by centuries allowing you to test yourself.

https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english

335 points · 53 comments · view on lemmy.world

53 Comments

trailee@sh.itjust.works · 55 pts · 189d (3 replies)

That was great, thanks for sharing! The þorn guy around Lemmy might learn from it a few more ways to be archaically misunderstood.

Tetragrade@leminal.space · 5 pts · 188d

the porn guy

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 189d (1 reply)

You mean Sân?

joelfromaus@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 189d

Yes, fâþer?

DrFunkenstein@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 189d (4 replies)

This was fun! Anyone know about the ſ character? How come in the 1600s it only sometimes seemed to take the place of s?

sik0fewl@piefed.ca · 25 pts · 189d

It’s purely stylistic, but here are the rules - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s#Rules

5ibelius9insterberg@feddit.org · 11 pts · 189d

Some of the rules for the use of the long s from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s

Long s was always used (ſong, ſubſtitute), except:

  • Upper-case letters are always the round S; there is no upper-case long s.
  • A round s was always used at the end of a word ending with ⟨s⟩: his, complains, ſucceſs
    • However, long s was maintained in abbreviations such as ſ. for ſubſtantive(substantive), and Geneſ. for Geneſis(Genesis).
  • Before an apostrophe (indicating an omitted letter), a round s was used: us'd and clos'd.
  • Before or after an f, a round s was used: offset, ſatisfaction.
Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 189d

It looks almost like the old german "S".

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 189d

It was often used for "f" as well, specifically in print to save money.

Towards the end of the article, they explain the same thing was done with using "y" to replace the letters that make the "th" sound (ð and þ) so instead of "the" or "ðe" you got "ye"

_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works · 16 pts · 189d (3 replies)

I did better than I thought I would but by 1300 it was starting to get confusing.

dustyData@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 189d (2 replies)

And that's just the reading part. Phonetic changes will make the spoken word unintelligible a bit ways before that.

_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 189d (1 reply)

Good thing I'm not a time traveler.

ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 189d

realitista@lemmus.org · 14 pts · 189d (3 replies)

About to 1400, then it starts to look more like Dutch or something. A few hundred years more and it starts to look like Danish or something. I bet it's harder to understand verbally.

frank@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 189d

Yeah, I said it looked like Dutch in the 1300 and before period. Maybe that's a bias because I can speak danish (okay, anyway) but dutch is like a random bunch of nonsense to me

Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 189d (1 reply)

Yeah same. I wonder how related were English and Dutch around that time period. It seems like the latter is still somewhere in that time period in speech and grammar style.

LowlandSavage@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 189d

Surprisingly related

KittenBiscuits@lemmy.today · 13 pts · 189d (1 reply)

I muddled through the 1200s with context clues, and was still catching words in the 1100s, but gave up on the 1000s. It was too brutally yuele.

I would love to find an audio version to see how far I could get on spoken word alone. Being from the Appalachians, I've always been told our dialect is older.

tychosmoose@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 189d

Here is a similar thing in audio monologue:

https://youtu.be/842OX2_vCic

naught@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 189d

Oh no þis article has þe þorn character, nobody panic

stickly@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 189d

Just reading text isn't really a fair representation of the English language as you go back to beyond the 14th century. The grammar remains pretty similar if you sound it out and most vocab is similar (or can be figured out by context clues).

The non-standardized spelling and premodern characters make it feel alien but it's mostly someone with a heavy accent using phonetics to write [approximately] what they're sounding like. I bet most people wouldn't struggle if the text was massaged a bit.

mlg@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 189d

Written English has been remarkably stable over the last 300 years

And yet the College Board will use the most incoherent journal entry that makes the westing game look like a picture book

TyrionBean@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 189d (1 reply)

Around 1200, I start having a little trouble, but I can still read most of it fairly well. 1100 is when I start to lose a lot of it, struggling through. 1000 is what I remember from trying to write papers on this stuff in University wherein I'd use translated copies side by side.

Maybe I can go back further than some others because I'm so damned old. 🤣

GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca · 3 pts · 189d

1300 was the end for me, at least reading at a reasonable pace. I might have squeezed out another century or two, parsing together context and other clues, but that is only through the benefit of knowing the story being told.

HowAbt2day@futurology.today · 6 pts · 189d (1 reply)

How far north of London can you go and still understand English?

evidences@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 189d

As an American looking at a map of the UK I'd say probably Hatfield or St Albens. I'm really shit with accents though.

Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 189d (1 reply)

This is all quite interesting, but did the farmer really offer the traveler his lusty hens?

daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 189d

No, þou ſtupid idiot, he proffered his luſty hens.^[:)]

iMastari@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 189d

I was able to make it all the way to 1500 with no issues. I was lost at 1400 due to the unfamiliar lettering.

olafurp@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 188d (2 replies)

As a person that is native Icelandic speaker, took Danish in school and speak Dutch it was really fun. I whish they kept going so it becomes more like Icelandic again.

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 188d (1 reply)

Technically it's more like Old Norse

olafurp@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 188d

Exactly, Icelandic is basically old norse with a spelling skin and different vocabulary. Most people take an least one class which involves reading old norse like Hávamál. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1vam%C3%A1l?wprov=sfla1

How similar? Here's the first stanza of Hávamál translated by me just now. All the words are common. Other places like Snorra Edda is also easily readable although Snorri used less common words so there's more vocabulary to memorise like "röðull" for sun and "gumi" for man.

Gattir allar, aþr gangi fram, vm scoðaz scyli, vm scygnaz scyli; þviat ouist er at vita, hvar ovinir sitia a fleti fyr[b]

Gáttir allar, áður gangi fram, um skoðast skal, um skyggnast skal: því að víst er að vita, hvar óvinir sitja á fleti fyrir.

RebekahWSD@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 189d (1 reply)

Dear lord I did poorly lol. And I use to read some middle English books for school!

daychilde@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 189d

I got back to 1300 alright, but not 1200. But I had a bit of an odd upbringing - our houshold library for some reason had lots of British fiction from the 1700s/1800s and so I got a jump in obscure vocabulary. heh

Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk · 3 pts · 189d

1300s I can understand.

1200s I can make out the odd word.

In my a-level English lessons we did a term on the Canterbury Tales and Middle English so we had to learn how to read it.

Pazintach@piefed.social · 3 pts · 188d

As a nonnative, I stuck at 1600. Too many different spellings really gives me trouble...

silasmariner@programming.dev · 3 pts · 189d

It was a good thread here too: https://lemmy.world/post/43447694

I guess the nature of the fediverse means that some post duplication is necessary for exposure coverage, lol, so who am I to accuse a repost of not suitably linking the source.

OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 189d (3 replies)

gets to 1500s:

"I get the gist, I reckon I could do this"

gets to 1400s:

Taleya@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 189d (2 replies)

It's easy if you know the rules - the fs that are s's, the fact v and u were pretty much interchangeable and that prior to 1700 spelling was largely vibe driven

OriginEnergySux@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 189d (1 reply)

Yeah but i mean actually talking to someone lol. The reading I get but talking it in a convo? I reckon 1500s i just might barely be passable

Taleya@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 189d

I parse the first line of the 1400's "But the man would me not abandon there, nor suffer me to pass forth. I might not flee, for his companions, of whom there were a great number, beset me about and held me fast that I should not escape."

So...if you've read a pompous fantasy hack in your teens (and honestly who hasn't) you'll get by.

also the word douȝti suggests there's a chunk of scots in there.

balsoft@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 188d

I could understand more-or-less everything at 1300, got the gist of the story at 1200, and could make out some familiar roots and morphology from other languages at 1100 and 1000 but not enough to puzzle things together.

ChicoSuave@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 189d

At a certain point it feels like reading math

Taleya@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 189d

I crap out at the 1200's. Which is ironically how far back i can trace my paternal line

DarkSurferZA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 189d

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4a9LfdavRlVMaSSWFdIciA

Rob words YouTube channel is amazing!

mybuttnolie@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 189d

1700 got a little hard and 1600 was mostly nonsense

chunes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 188d (1 reply)

I can't believe what pretentious twats they sounded like in 1900

mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 188d

It's called class and style

manigordo@lemy.lol · 1 pts · 188d

For a person who barely speaks English as me, going beyond 1700 it's impossible.

AntiBullyRanger@ani.social · 1 pts · 189d

ja e noske nove mo

Donebrach@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 188d

The written phrase “and let me tell you” screams of AI usage right off the bat. This and that to the torque had me crazy in how this English changed

Crozekiel@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 189d

Anyone else hate the 1900 section. It felt like it was trying to be harder to understand on purpose. 1800 was perfectly clear and required so much less processing than 1900, imo.

njm1314@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 189d

Seems to me that 1400 is harder than 1300.