heurekusFeb 22
Bruce Sterling @bruces

*For what it is, it's pretty good. It probably needs a sequel that goes a thousand years into the future.

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

How far back in time can you understand English?

An experiment in language change

Dead Language Society
Feb 22 at 7:04amWeb
Show threadTheophile EscargotFeb 22
@bruces Here's a couple of videos that do a similar thing with spoken English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=842OX2_vCic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Zqn9_OQAw
From Old English to Modern American English in One Monologue

YouTube
Show threadEyeFeb 22

@bruces

I enjoyed reading this.

I understood back to 1200. Earlier than that is very intriguing to me but I don't have the ability to read it.

Show threadNNNIFeb 22
@bruces interesting! I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to read a paper by J. C. Maxwell from the 1800s, and it saddens me (and severely triggers my anxiety) to see English go to absolute shit on the internet and the apathy surrounding it
Show threadJoyce LionaronsFeb 22

@bruces

I got all the way through it with no trouble. But then again, I spent my working years teaching medieval English literature.

Show threadHere's WaldoFeb 22
@bruces In a thousand years, most of the silent letters will be gone and possibly "the."
Show threadtobadzistsiniFeb 23
But it's a substack and @stevendbrewer won't read it on principle.