The English language has evolved for basically as long as there has been English. A great book on this subject is Robin MacNeil (and company) in The Story Of English (highly recommended if you are a history nerd like me).
Well, via a link from someone I've forgotten (sorry! Midwest Chick? A Large Regular?) there is a fabulous demonstration of this where the writer starts in the present and where each paragraph goes backwards in time 100 years. I started getting lost around 1200 AD, and I've messed around casually with Old English before. I would catch the odd word before 1200 but the overall gist was a mystery.
And I love the URL for his site. LOL.
But at the end of his post he links for a Youtube video of a guy who speaks the different versions of English, starting in 400 AD and going forward 100 years at a time. I found this a lot harder than reading, only starting to pick up some comprehension around 1500 AD. But when he turns on transcriptions it's amazing how far back I recognize a lot of words.
Wild. I've embedded it here. Highly, highly recommended. And I guess I'm not the only one who's interested - 1.2 Million views in two months? Yowser.
5 comments:
All languages change and evolve over time. It's always been this way. It will like always be this way.
Great post! I enjoy the history of language and if I understand it correctly you can still hear the Frisian language as kind of an old English.
I've not gone through it all. Been working a little at time. This guy is really good.
https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
1550-ish before spoken English starts be be comprehensible.
Found at least part of it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWBVMdB_505ikJyx8WtftmCAjN1GDZ4SE
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