How far back in time can you understand English?
This unique article uses a reverse-chronological narrative to demonstrate how the English language has evolved over 1,000 years, making a blogger's tale progressively more archaic and challenging to read. It's a clever, interactive exploration of linguistics that resonated with Hacker News's penchant for deep dives into technical and historical curiosities. Readers found themselves grappling with a language that slowly became alien, prompting introspection on their own comprehension limits.
The Lowdown
The article presents a fascinating experiment: a fictional travel blog post that begins in modern English and gradually rewinds through the centuries, transforming its language with each narrative segment. The author, a PhD linguist, constructs these passages to realistically reflect the English of different eras, showcasing how spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and even typography have changed.
- The narrative follows a blogger's journey to a mysterious town called Wulfleet, with his language becoming noticeably older every hundred years.
- Initially, changes are subtle, like the adoption of the long 's' (ſ) in the 1700s, a typographic rather than linguistic shift.
- Significant shifts appear around the 1500s-1600s with unstandardized spelling and variants like 'v' for 'u' (e.g., 'vntroubled').
- The introduction of letters like thorn (þ for 'th') and yogh (ȝ for 'gh' or 'y') further complicates readability in the 1400s.
- The author highlights the social implication of 'thouing' (using 'thou' as an insult) in early modern English, contrasting it with the more polite 'you'.
- A 'cliff' of comprehension is often hit around the 1300s-1200s due to the massive reduction in French and Latin loanwords, revealing a more Germanic core vocabulary (e.g., 'pinunge' for 'torture').
- Old English (450-1100) passages are nearly incomprehensible to modern readers due to inflected grammar (flexible word order) and unfamiliar letters like wynn (ƿ for 'w'), eth (ð for 'th'), and ash (æ).
- The fictional story concludes with the blogger trapped in Wulfleet in the 1000s, married to a woman named Ælfgifu, forever hunting the wolf-like 'Master' to break the town's curse.
The piece serves as a vivid demonstration of the dynamic nature of language, illustrating that what we call 'English' has been a continuously shifting entity, evolving past the point of mutual intelligibility with its distant ancestors.
The Gossip
Comprehension Cut-offs
Many commenters shared their personal 'struggle points' and when they 'hit the wall' while reading the article's evolving English, often attributing difficulties to changes in spelling, typography (like the long 's'), and grammatical structure. Most noted that understanding became significantly harder around the 1300s or 1200s, aligning with the article's explanation of the loss of French/Latin loanwords and increasing Germanic influence.
Aural Ancestry & Orthographic Observances
The discussion highlighted the difference between *reading* and *understanding* spoken historical English. Several users provided links to audio examples (like Simon Roper's videos) that demonstrate the sound of English evolving over time, prompting a debate on whether the article's title should have referred to 'reading' rather than 'understanding' given that spelling changes don't always reflect spoken language shifts.