How far back in time could you read English?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Right, so I’m off back in time again and like that fella with that blue box I fancy taking a companion with me. We’ll be off to various dates in England. However, I need someone who can read and understand the contemporary inhabitants, so he’s an entrance exam.

Don’t need a word-for-word translation, if you can figure out the gist of the paragraph you’re good to hop in the DeLorean.

Let’s start off easy, something from 1603;

The gist; Someone’s pissed off and wants a fight.
Translation; What a shameless jerk you are to pretend you don’t know me! It was just two days ago that I tripped you and beat you up in front of the king. Draw your sword, scoundrel. It may be nighttime, but there’s enough moonlight to fight by. I’ll make ground beef out of you. Draw, you affected, preening son of a bitch! Draw your sword!
From: King Lear

Now that you’ve warmed up, it’s back in time a bit further. From 1371;

The gist; It’s an epitaph for a bloke named John the Smith.
Translation; Man, come and see how all dead men shall lie: when that comes bad and bare,
we have nothing when we away fare: all that we care for is worms:—
except for that which we do for God’s sake, we have nothing ready:
under this grave lies John the smith, God give his soul heavenly peace.
From this inscription.

Next, let’s head to the latter 12th century, somewhere between 1150 and 1180.

The gist; It’s the background to the nativity and the coming of that there Jesus fella.
The translation: As soon as the time came
that our Lord wanted
to be born in this middle-earth
for the sake of all mankind,
at once he chose kinsmen for himself,
all just as he wanted,
and he decided that he would be born
exactly where he wished.
From the Ormulum

Last one since I’m running out of plutonium; from 1020;

The gist: It’s a proclamation of King Cnut (not a typo) saying he’ll be a righteous dude.
The translation: Cnut, king, greets his archbishops and his lede’(people’s)'-bishops and Thorkell, earl, and all his earls and all his peopleship, greater (having a 1200 shilling weregild) and lesser (200 shilling weregild), hooded(ordained to priesthood) and lewd(lay), in England friendly. And I kithe(make known/couth to) you, that I will be [a] hold(civilised) lord and unswiking(uncheating) to God’s rights(laws) and to [the] rights(laws) worldly.
From: The Charter of Cnut

Which ones did you get?

2

What a fun poll!

3

In my experience, I can read Shakespeare no problem. Chaucer, I need enough help to call it “translation”. So 1600, but not 1400. I’m unsure where in between the exact cutoff is, not having much experience with pre-Shakespearean literature.

4

I had the general sense of 1371 but I missed a few important words - “wermes yolk” I thought was maybe “womenfolk” (“the womenfolk are coming, heads bare and sad” was what I mis-red in that line) and “graue” I couldn’t turn into “grave” but I had the sense that a bunch of people were coming by to see someone dead and that what you do for god you “have nothing more” and at the end “god give his soul” (thought maybe John was in reference to a saint, wondered at the “smith” thing, really should’ve figured that part out if I’d spent 5 more minutes thinking).

SO I don’t know, it’s about a 40/60 shot against me that I could figure something out that far back. Depends on how specific you’d need me to be.

The next one, heck, what I got out of it “Forthright we see the time come, that sure Drihhtin would, been born in this midgard, for all of mankind needs. He chase him some kinsmen, all still some he would, and where he would bear them, he chases all his wile” which while it makes a bunch of words for me doesn’t really translate very specifically into anything. Drihhtin, born into midgard, is seeing the time come in which mankind needs help, and so he bears them gifts of kinsmen that would help them through their troubles?

After opening the spoiler, well…I guess I sort of got like 15% of the idea…

The last one, King Canute was trying to get his archbishops and under-bishops to do something near and far in England. Perhaps proclaim his kingship over the domain of England? And that he is the rightful king and lord of their lands?

Which is maybe 5% right. I know who Cnut is, anyway! I’m honestly surprised I did even this well.

5

This was something noticed at the time, when Middle English started to transmogrify into Early Modern English, William Caxton said of the English Language of his time “And certaynly our langage now vsed varyeth ferre from that whiche was vsed and spoken whan I was borne”

1603 is Early Modern English, the 1371 and ~1150 ones are Middle English, the 1020 is Old English.

6

Isaac Asimov half joked that English stopped evolving so fast because no one wanted to lose the ability to read Shakespeare. That Shakespeare actually had a braking effect (maybe “standardizing” is the better word?) on the language.

Makes sense to me. Isn’t modern Hebrew and Arabic close enough to the ancient versions of those languages that modern speakers can still read the Torah and Koran in their original text? Is modern Greek close enough to ancient Greek to make sense of Plato?

7

While Asimov might have said that, I would challenge him that the King James Bible was a bigger influence.

Oh, as for the quotes - I could wrestle my way through 1371, but any older, nope.

8

1371 - I had no problem with the original middle English version of the Cantubary tales.

The 1180 is quite hard, but it is a bit easier to understand if you try to say it outloud.

edit I accidentally voted for the 1080 one - I couldn’t understand it one bit.

9

That last one I got was 1371. It would be hard to give an exact translation, but I understood the general gist of it. I agree that it’s much easier if you say it aloud - don’t try to dissect it, just pretend you have a heavy Scottish accent and go for it. :wink:

10

Isn’t the 1371 made harder by abbreviation for inscription?

11

Very cool poll. I love this stuff. Though I think I did better with the 1150 excerpt than the 1371 one!

(On the 1371 excerpt, should a couple of those 'y’s had been 'þ’s instead, as in “Ye Olde Shoppe” which is actually “þe Olde Shoppe”?)

12

For some reason, the 1020 one is easier for me to read than the Middle English ones. I guess it helps if you read it out loud.

13

I just went and read the wikipedia link for the 1371 one and it said this was also written on a tombstone at the location:

Well, I never!
Taunting me from beyond the grave!

14

The Authorised Version is easy enough but bear in mind the copy you buy today has the spelling modernised so it’s still not identical to the one King James saw.

15

I think I could dope out the sense in all of them. Shakespeare was easy-peasy; it was … Tybalt? … talking smack, from Romeo and Juliet. I think.

The 1371 was maybe Chaucer? It was the common medieval ubi sunt meditation on death, over the grave (“graue”) of John the Smith, ending I think with a pious wish that God makes his soul great (“hewn grit”)

“ure Drihhten” I think is “our Lord”, so I suspect this is about Jesus being born in this middle-earth “for all mankind’s needs” (“forr alle mannkinnde nede”)

The last was actually easier for me - it was talking about King Canute greeting his archbishop, and lesser bishops, and Earl Thurcyl, and all his earls and household, both noble and lay, twelvehundred and two hundred, in England. “freondlice” I don’t get, except that it’s an adverb - the AngloSaxon suffix “-lice” became the modern English “-ly”. So I’m guessing the word is “friendly”. Not sure about the next sentence, except “I [something] you, that I will [some form of the verb “to be”] [something about holding] lord and [something] to God’s rule or law and rule [wisely?]” So I’m guessing that’s Canute promising before the men of England that he will rule wisely and according to God’s law.

Now to check the spoiler tags to see if I’m right.

16

Got the attributions wrong of the Shakespeare and 1371 quotes, but generally got the sense. Say, 75%.

17

I don’t think we’re supposed to use that word on this MB. :smiley:

That 1020AD one is not a good example. It coincidentally has a lot of easily understood words. More so than would be typical of that tyme.

18

My comprehension level by year:
1603: 95%
1371: 70%
1150: 30%
1020: 10%

My initial reaction is that poetry is harder to understand than prose, because of allusions and other non-colloquial word choices. But, a great deal of text from earlier time periods would be poetry, so it’s a fair selection.

There’d be a significant difference between understanding written text and spoken words.

Using “y” for “þ” in the 1371 quote confused me at first. But old fonts can be very hard to read anyway.

I’d say the printing press becoming widespread in England was the biggest factor.

19

For all but the most recent, it was a matter of degree. I credited myself with getting the gist of the second one, and I pretty much understood the beginning of the oldest one (i.e., Canute was greeting his archbishops & stuff) but not enough of it to say I really got the gist. The one about the Nativity, I only got one line and a few other scattered words; I didn’t know what it was about.

20

So I forget. Did english come out of Latin or German?