# How far back in time could you read English? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 16, 2014, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431 "2014-12-16T19:59:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/21 "2014-12-16T22:10:48Z")
If you really want to try your hand at Old English, try reading this and see how much of it you get. \*Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, [5] egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra [10] ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning! Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, geong in geardum, þone god sende folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat [15] þe hie ær drugon aldorlease lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang), Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. [20] Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme, þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume, leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal [25]\* Translation and reading [here.](http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Prologue.html) Click on the line numbers to hear it spoken. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/22 "2014-12-16T22:12:42Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > So I forget. Did english come out of Latin or German? Old English derived from the Germanic branch of Indo-European. Latinate words were absorbed later, largely through French after 1066 and William the Conqueror, although some directly from The Church and, later, from science. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/23 "2014-12-16T22:12:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I don’t think we’re supposed to use that word on this MB. 😃 > > 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. True, it seemed to be pretty clearly mentioning “arch-bishops”, but that alone was insufficient to make heads or tales of the full text. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/24 "2014-12-16T22:25:33Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > 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? “Modern Hebrew” is a resurrected language, based on the biblical tongue, so that’s not too surprising. As for Arabic, well there’s spoken Arabic which varies like crazy over the Arab speaking world, and there’s written Arabic, which is based on the language of the Koran, so again not too surprising. If you’re looking for a candidate for most unchanged over time, it’s probably Icelandic, which is still very close to Old Norse. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/25 "2014-12-16T23:29:22Z")
I have no trouble reading Shakespeare. It’s just a different dialect at that point, and not so different from reading modern English using Aussie or Brit slang that I’m not familiar with. By Chaucer, I’m really not reading it as English any more. I can understand the gist of it, but it’s a lot like the way I can mostly read Italian thanks to my knowledge of Spanish. Still, I’ll know basically what a passage is talking about even if not the specific meaning. Any further back than that, it’s just a foreign language that happens to share some features of English. While I might pick up individual terms or phrases, I’m no longer making sense of it to any great degree. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/26 "2014-12-16T23:53:27Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If you really want to try your hand at Old English, try reading this and see how much of it you get. > > \*Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, > > þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, > > hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. > > Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum, > monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah, [5] > > egsode eorlas. Syððan ærest wearð > > feasceaft funden, he þæs frofre gebad, > > weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, > > oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra [10] > > ofer hronrade hyran scolde, > > gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning! > > Ðæm eafera wæs æfter cenned, > > geong in geardum, þone god sende > > folce to frofre; fyrenðearfe ongeat [15] > > þe hie ær drugon aldorlease > > lange hwile. Him þæs liffrea, > > wuldres wealdend, woroldare forgeaf; > > Beowulf wæs breme (blæd wide sprang), > > Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in. [20] > > Swa sceal geong guma gode gewyrcean, > > fromum feohgiftum on fæder bearme, > > þæt hine on ylde eft gewunigen > > wilgesiþas, þonne wig cume, > > leode gelæsten; lofdædum sceal [25]\* > > Translation and reading [here.](http://faculty.virginia.edu/OldEnglish/Beowulf.Readings/Prologue.html) Click on the line numbers to hear it spoken. I can’t read that, but I recognize it. [Skip to 20:29 to hear an Anglo Saxon scholar sing it the way that he thinks the English bards did, around the fire.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3q95Mg2i7c) It’s not quite a fair comparison, because what you’ve posted is poetry, where the passage about Cnut was journalism. Different registers of language. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2014, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/27 "2014-12-16T23:54:36Z")
If you’re going that far back in time in England, you should consider taking someone conversant in Latin instead. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/28 "2014-12-17T00:10:46Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > If you’re going that far back in time in England, you should consider taking someone conversant in Latin instead. I was thinking more French, if we were to rub shoulders with the bigwigs. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/29 "2014-12-17T00:15:09Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > I can’t read that, but I recognize it. [Skip to 20:29 to hear an Anglo Saxon scholar sing it the way that he thinks the English bards did, around the fire.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3q95Mg2i7c) It’s not quite a fair comparison, because what you’ve posted is poetry, where the passage about Cnut was journalism. Different registers of language. Forget the poetry, look at individual words, and how many do you recognize? BTW, I saw that TV special when it first aired. If you scroll back a bit, there is a guy speaking modern English but using only words derived from Anglo-Saxon. Then listen to the same sentences in Old English, and you won’t understand any of it. I think the difference between written and pronounced language is more apparent for Chaucer. I don’t have much trouble reading it, but can’t understand much of it when I hear it [spoken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU). Now, I suspect that if any of us was transported back in time to Chaucer’s era, it wouldn’t take too long to get used to the accent. But just hearing it now, it sounds about as close to a foreign language as one can get but not quite feeling that it’s totally foreign. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/30 "2014-12-17T02:37:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Forget the poetry, look at individual words, and how many do you recognize? BTW, I saw that TV special when it first aired. If you scroll back a bit, there is a guy speaking modern English but using only words derived from Anglo-Saxon. Then listen to the same sentences in Old English, and you won’t understand any of it. > > I think the difference between written and pronounced language is more apparent for Chaucer. I don’t have much trouble reading it, but can’t understand much of it when I hear it [spoken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE0MtENfOMU). Now, I suspect that if any of us was transported back in time to Chaucer’s era, it wouldn’t take too long to get used to the accent. But just hearing it now, it sounds about as close to a foreign language as one can get but not quite feeling that it’s totally foreign. Reading them, not many. But _hearing_ them, more than enough to recognize that the language bears some relation to English. _Cyning_ - sounds close to _king._ _Eorlas_ - earls. _ða_ - _the_. _Þæt wæs god cyning!_ - looks totally foreign, but pronounced _That was god ku-ning"_. Of course there are plenty of grammar and vocabulary elements that have disappeared - the “ge-” prefix on verbs, for example - but there is enough continuity with Modern English that it’s not completely and utterly incomprehensible, the way, say, Estonian would be. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/31 "2014-12-17T03:55:28Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > Reading them, not many. But _hearing_ them, more than enough to recognize that the language bears some relation to English. _Cyning_ - sounds close to _king._ _Eorlas_ - earls. _ða_ - _the_. _Þæt wæs god cyning!_ - looks totally foreign, but pronounced _That was god ku-ning"_. > > Of course there are plenty of grammar and vocabulary elements that have disappeared - the “ge-” prefix on verbs, for example - but there is enough continuity with Modern English that it’s not completely and utterly incomprehensible, the way, say, Estonian would be. Yeah, perhaps I was too absolute. Any Germanic language is going to have recognizable elements to it. Point being, it’s much more foreign then not. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/32 "2014-12-17T05:32:21Z")
There are things written today that are incomprehensible. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/33 "2014-12-17T12:34:21Z")
Part of my MA work was in medieval languages and literature; it’s some years ago now and, like all learned languages, gets a bit fuzzy after awhile if you don’t use it, but I did once translate a lot of Anglo-Saxon poetry and I can still read it. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/34 "2014-12-17T13:14:35Z")
Oddly enough, I easily understood the 1st one, and partially understood the oldest one, but couldn’t make heads or tails of the ones in between. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/35 "2014-12-17T13:41:35Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Oddly enough, I easily understood the 1st one, and partially understood the oldest one, but couldn’t make heads or tails of the ones in between. When half the words are some variation of “bishop” or “earl”, that helps. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/36 "2014-12-17T13:58:50Z")
Shakespeare’s easy. I’m sure I’m missing some of the nuances, but I can definitely understan the import and the main meanings of the words. The next one’s OK, although I would never have guess that God was giving him peace. The next one’s not too bad. Much harder than the last one, but I suspect that’s due to the subject. The last one’s actually quite easy. I thought at first it was because I speak German but on reflection it’s just that it contains mostly words that haven’t changed much. Not a lot got written down back then; if it got written down even then, its spelling and then pronunciation are less ikely to have changed. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/37 "2014-12-17T15:20:24Z")
Looks like I won’t be quitting my day job. (1603) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/38 "2014-12-17T15:56:33Z")
We should keep in mind that as we go back in time, we encounter a situation where there is no spelling convention and there is not a standard dialect of written English. And so, our understanding of a given passage might vary, depending on who wrote it and where. Our standard English of today evolved out of one of the many dialects spoken hundreds of years ago, and if you see a written form from a “nonstandard” dialect, that is going to look more foreign to you. Written English, today, has a standard form regardless of the dialect you might speak at home. But that was not always the case. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/39 "2014-12-17T16:07:16Z")
I’ll try to paraphrase without reading the spoilers. > [@](#): > > What a brazen-faced varlet art thou to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the king? Draw, you rogue, for though it be night yet the moon shines. I’ll make a sop o’ th’ moonshine of you. Draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw! What a bold villain you are to say that you do not know me! Two days ago, I tripped you (onto the ground) and beat you up in the presence of the king, right? Pull out your weapon - even though it is nighttime, the moon is out! I’ll make you look like a drunkard. Pull your weapon, your mom is a prostitute and you sell hair for a living! > [@](#): > > man com & se how schal alle ded li: wen yolk comes bad & bare > moth have ben ve awaẏ fare: All ẏs wermēs yt ve for care:— > bot yt ve do for god ẏs luf ve haue nothyng yare: > yis graue lẏs John ye smẏth god yif his soule hewn grit Man, come and see all these dead people: when folk become evil Most have been very far away: All these worms to take care of:- but what you do for good (i.e. what good deeds you do) in this life, you have nothing there (i.e. you have no good deeds): In this grave lies John Smith, hewn (carved) by God into a good soul. > [@](#): > > Forrþrihht anan se time comm > þatt ure Drihhtin wollde > ben borenn i þiss middellærd > forr all mannkinne nede > he chæs himm sone kinnessmenn > all swillke summ he wollde > & whær he wollde borenn ben > he chæs all att hiss wille. The time is coming forthright (right now, immediately, or soon) That your right would be born in this Middle Earth (i.e. the mortal world of humans) for all mankind’s needs He chooses some kinsmen (family) for himself like pigs and where he would be born He chooses all of these things at his will (i.e. he chooses them himself) (This one is about Jesus, isn’t it?) > [@](#): > > Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice. And ic cyðe eow, þæt ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage. King Canute greeted his Archbishops, his Lead Bishops, Earl Thurcyl, all his Earls, and all his people, in the twelfth land and twentieth land, given to law, in England’s countryside. And I know now, that I will be a Lord myself and unresistant to God’s grace and to right leadership of the world. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431/40 "2014-12-17T16:20:48Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Old English derived from the Germanic branch of Indo-European. Latinate words were absorbed later, largely through French after 1066 and William the Conqueror, although some directly from The Church and, later, from science. Right. So it’s more correct to say that English and German both derive from a common source, which was spoken at the same time as Latin but wasn’t Latin. Most of the languages of Europe have been influenced by each other, many of them heavily. Interestingly enough, even though English is considered to be closely related to German in terms of descent, the word order of English is pretty nearly identical to that of Swedish and rather different than modern German. The standard hypothesis is that English originally used a German-like word order that was changed when the Vikings entered England, conquered it, learned English imperfectly, and taught their subjects to speak the new broken Viking-English. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-far-back-in-time-could-you-read-english/707431.md?page=3)