How far back in time can you understand English?

It’s a thousand years of the English language, compressed into a single blog post.

"... as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler."

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

#english #language

How far back in time can you understand English?

An experiment in language change

Dead Language Society
@Natasha_Jay
Great!
From 1200 onwards, my knowledge of Frisian and Dutch helped me a bit. But even so, I quickly got lost...
@bmk @Natasha_Jay I had the same. Frisian and Dutch came to germanic aid.

@EllenB @bmk @Natasha_Jay

got about as far as 1100 but struggled at 1000, but I do understand Dutch and German (and listen to some pirate radio from NL every so often, where I get to hear many of the regional dialiects)