# How far back in time could we go with modern English and still be understood? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 27, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272 "2003-07-27T16:36:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/21 "2003-07-27T19:40:49Z")
The PBS site has several primary documents from the reign of Henry VIII if you’d like to give them a read. [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/sixwives/meet/ca\_handbook\_main.html](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/sixwives/meet/ca_handbook_main.html) The spelling has been updated, but the words remain the same. (Strangely, Catherine of Aragon wrote her own html, though nobody would understand why she addressed her husband as “_ **My Lorde Kynge** _” until long after her death. Katherine Howard was of course executed for subscribing to the Linux heresy, and the adultery.) ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/22 "2003-07-27T19:40:57Z")
Let’s not forget there’s a difference between _you_ understanding someone from the Middle English ere and _them_ understanding you. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/23 "2003-07-27T19:53:53Z")
KJV bible is understandable I think. It was written in early 1600’s. So, I guess at least that far back without much difficulty. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/24 "2003-07-27T20:07:44Z")
I also think that the place is probably most important variable here. While I’m no expert when it come to the UK…I know for sure there are places in the US today that one can go and not be understood. Compare modern English dialect in various places. New York, Boston, San Antonio, **New Orleans** , Kentucky…etc. then cross that with generation and culture. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/25 "2003-07-27T20:10:14Z")
Among the several well-developed skills that I have which will never save my life in a crisis, I’m quite adept at sight-reading original handwritten documents from New England from ca. 1635 and thereafter. Hard to find online examples of any of them , but [here](http://www.nysoclib.org/graphics/winthrop/caption14.jpg) is a fairly typical example from 1640. In my experience syntax and grammar changed little between the early 1600s and the early 1700s, although later documents have a refreshing uniformity of spelling. (Prior to that, writers used to show off by showing how many different ways they could spell the same word.) With practice it becomes evident that _written_ English in colonial America is usually fairly direct and not too terribly different from written English today if one can overcome the random spelling, rare archaic definitions and turns of phrase, and [absolute abhorrence](http://www.federalist.com/histdocs/articles_of_confederation.asp) for dividing paragraphs into those charming subparts we now call sentences. _However_, I’ve also speculated that the variations in spelling within a document may provide valuable clues as to how those words were actually pronounced. If that’s the case, then I have a feeling that spoken English in colonial America was nothing–and I mean _nothing_–like it is today, despite the fact that I’ve heard some people say that old English sounded something like a thick New England accent does today. That of course is just my unscholarly opinion. ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/26 "2003-07-27T20:17:37Z")
**Sofa King** , the people who say that an Old English accent sounds like a thick New Englnd accent are quacks, in truth it probably sounded more German (well that is accrding to some linguists). To get the nearest approximation from a modern dialect you’d have to look at the regional dialects of England, rather than the accents of the US which are compoistes of regional variations in the British Isles and also heavily influenced by non-English speakers. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/27 "2003-07-27T20:25:55Z")
That would square pretty well with my own observations, **MC**. Thanks for the backup. Just for fun, a quick stab at the English part of that Winthrop book reads: > [@](#): > > This above written and the name on the top of the frontisspice of this booke & ye [writing?] in the middle of the frotispice and the severall notes in the margent through the whole booke, was written by that famous philosopher and Chimist John Dee. Wth his owne hand this J: Dee was he yt wrote the philophicall treatise called Monas Heroglifica. also Propaidenmata Aphorist also the learned preface begore Euclides Elements in English in folio. He was warden of Manchester. I have divers bookes yt were his wherein he hath written his name and many notes [&c?] for wch they are [worthyly?] the more esteemed. > > John Winthrop > [Jul:2d]? > 1640… All errors in transcription are of course my own. Piece of cake, eh? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/28 "2003-07-27T20:36:08Z")
Yeah… _all_ of those errors in transcription are mine. At least half a dozen of them… ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/29 "2003-07-27T22:10:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by astro \* > \*\*How far back in time could we go with modern English _and_ still be understood? > > Would a kindly mod please fix the title? \*\* Done. And sorry for the delay. - **xash** General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/30 "2003-07-27T23:52:36Z")
As **Monty** noted, you folks are looking at this backward from the OP. Sure, we can understand things that were written before our time. We have all studied Shakespeare and the KJV and some of us have studied even older works. The question, however, was how far we could go back and make _ourselves understood_ to an audience. I’d say about 1960. ---
**Author:** ![t-keela](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a3d4f5/32.png) [@t-keela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/t-keela)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/31 "2003-07-28T00:23:23Z")
Yeah, that’s what I meant…I could go back as far as the early 17th century and be able to communicate with the folks then. Not fluently of course, but probably better than if I went to say some parts of east LA…or the bayous of south La. or maybe lots of other English speaking **places** in the world today. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/32 "2003-07-28T00:30:58Z")
Dunno if it’s just me, but I find Chaucer unintelligible for the first few pages, then something “clicks”, and I get connected to his language. At this point I find his work easier to read than Shakespeare. I agree that doesn’t seem to make much sense, but there it is. ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/33 "2003-07-28T00:32:55Z")
Depends if we choose to include such terms as “what the dilly yo”, “that’s hardcore”, “l337” or “I \<3 u” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/34 "2003-07-28T01:21:04Z")
Trigonal Planar: Well, what with the rather lax spelling conventions of the time, that last one could also be rendered “I 3\> you” and what a surprise it could be! ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/35 "2003-07-28T02:01:59Z")
I would say you might encounter a situation similar to that of computer software. You can usually run old computer software on a new computer, and open files created by that software using new versions of the program. However, you can’t run new software on an old computer very well, nor can the old version of a software program open up files created by the newer versions. Since the 1600s, English has picked up hundreds and thousands of new words and idioms, through colonization and acquisitions from a region’s host language, technology, and other changes in society. We might be able to understand early modern English from the 1600s, but would someone from the age of Shakespeare be able to understand us? I’m not talking about corporate mission statements and “solutionspeak” of the late 1990s; I mean a regular newspaper article fron the New York Times. ---
**Author:** ![violet9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ea666f/32.png) [@violet9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/violet9)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2004, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272/36 "2004-04-07T03:37:24Z")
I’ll betcha that given the give & take in conversation, we could probably even make out in Old English if we kept the vocabulary simple enough. A Yorkshire accent is almost impossible for me to follow until I accustom myself to it. I was at a family reunion in Kentucky several years ago and my father, who was raised there, asked the waitress for directions. I swear, I didn’t understand a word she said, but my father understood everything. It’s fun to read many 17th cent. writings aloud - they spelled how they spoke, so spelling was very fluid and phonetic . Reading out loud really gives you a sense of the writer’s own accent - it’s cool! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-we-go-with-modern-english-and-still-be-understood/191272.md?page=1)