Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt.
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@Tinido this is fun! Sadly the author does not seem to be on Fedi?
I wonder if @yvanspijk could read all this just as is… (Yoïn, spoilers ahead so if you want to play, read the OP article first.)
I first got slight troubles in the 1500s when there began to be occasional words I didn’t know. I guess I would just have to look them up in the dictionary as I need to do today for some English words. These that troubled me were distinct from those that would trouble a native speaker, for I’m German and know Latin, inflection gave me only a little pause, we had long s ourselves, and I knew thorn, eth, and even yogh and wynn.
1200 was when it mostly lost me. I don’t know Old High German, so even after I figured out the… well… double u, and identified wif as woman, I only could follow a larger part of the story, but not all of it any more.
1100, well. I got that they were to marry. That’s that. yfel was understood, and cƿæþ was clear from context.
1000, I could read more easily than 1100, as in, the writing gave me less tongue-tying, but I understood even less of the words. "næfre ne mihton fram Ƿulfesfleote" was clear but the verb of that sentence not. In retrospect (after having read the summary), ofslean is clear (seeing the dutch connection here), same for forlætan = verlassen. "deorcan stræta þisses grimman stedes" is dark street of this grim… well stede, I don’t know how to put that in English
Stätte.@Tinido (I probably only fared this well from gradually easing into it, not being placed in front of a random 1400s text with no other idea of what’s going on)
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@Tinido (I probably only fared this well from gradually easing into it, not being placed in front of a random 1400s text with no other idea of what’s going on)
@mirabilos @Tinido Interesting to read how you experienced those phases!
No, I don't understand these Middle and Old English texts with ease. I understand more than the average layman thanks to my lknowledge of historical phonology, grammar and vocabulary, but I'm more of a generalist than a specialist when it comes to those phases. Only people who have enough experience reading full texts become familiar enough with these languages to understand them fluently.
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido Sehr sehr cool, danke!
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido absolutely fascinating, thank you.
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido Sehr schöner Tipp! Mal sehen, wie weit ich komme
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@mirabilos @Tinido Interesting to read how you experienced those phases!
No, I don't understand these Middle and Old English texts with ease. I understand more than the average layman thanks to my lknowledge of historical phonology, grammar and vocabulary, but I'm more of a generalist than a specialist when it comes to those phases. Only people who have enough experience reading full texts become familiar enough with these languages to understand them fluently.
@yvanspijk @Tinido interesting! So it’s more a, you know more so you can work through it with effort, but as it’s a dead language you aren’t getting anywhere near fluent in it unless you specialise?
(Like I tried to learn to speak Latin at school (like in actual conversations) but never found a sparring partner and it’s impossible alone.)
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@mirabilos @Tinido Interesting to read how you experienced those phases!
No, I don't understand these Middle and Old English texts with ease. I understand more than the average layman thanks to my lknowledge of historical phonology, grammar and vocabulary, but I'm more of a generalist than a specialist when it comes to those phases. Only people who have enough experience reading full texts become familiar enough with these languages to understand them fluently.
@Tinido @yvanspijk I probably got the historic phonology all wrong but often I could just pronounce a word as if it was english, german or dutchish, and the result would make sense in either english, germanic or romance. That was fun!
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
Keep in mind there was no such thing as standard written English well understood across the whole country until relatively recently; spoken English even less so.
Even today, someone in rural Northumberland would not necessarily clearly understand every word spoken by somebody from rural Devon.
Personally, as a reasonably well educated native speaker of English, most (>95%) of Shakespeare is clear to me.
Chaucer (late 14th/early 15th C) starts to be a struggle.
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@yvanspijk @Tinido interesting! So it’s more a, you know more so you can work through it with effort, but as it’s a dead language you aren’t getting anywhere near fluent in it unless you specialise?
(Like I tried to learn to speak Latin at school (like in actual conversations) but never found a sparring partner and it’s impossible alone.)
@mirabilos @Tinido That's right! Leaning to speak Latin or another historical language would require the same methods as learning to speak a modern language, but that's extremely hard without a community. Luke Amadeus Ranieri, who has popular YouTube channels, is fluent in Latin and Ancient Greek, thanks to many factors, including the modern speech communities, a lot of effort, and - I think - a good predisposition.
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@mirabilos @Tinido That's right! Leaning to speak Latin or another historical language would require the same methods as learning to speak a modern language, but that's extremely hard without a community. Luke Amadeus Ranieri, who has popular YouTube channels, is fluent in Latin and Ancient Greek, thanks to many factors, including the modern speech communities, a lot of effort, and - I think - a good predisposition.
@yvanspijk @Tinido yeah, no such thing as a community for a lone preteen in the last millennium.
I’m probably not up for this any more, but I’m glad there are people who did it. All the best to them.
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@Tinido
1200 war Ende für mich.@wortezimmer
1200 war das letzte, das ich noch verstanden habe.
Hat jedenfalls Spaß gemacht
@Tinido -
P pearl22@troet.cafe shared this topic
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido das ist ganz großartig, ich bin bis 1100 gekommen und habe das Wesentliche noch kapiert, aber die Details nicht mehr. 1000 war dann aus.
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Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido
1100 habe ich den ersten Satz noch erschließen können, aber das war's dann auch. Sehr spannend! -
Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido Dachte erst, dass ich als nicht Muttersprachler eher früher als Letztgenannte straucheln würde, aber meine Deutschkenntnisse haben mir eher geholfen und hätte ich etwas mehr Niederländisch aufgeschnappt oder wäre ich in anderen Sprachen auch versiert … ich hätte es ev. bis zum Ende des Textes damit noch geschafft. — Sehr schön auf jeden Fall. Vielen Dank darum für's Teilen hier!
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Keep in mind there was no such thing as standard written English well understood across the whole country until relatively recently; spoken English even less so.
Even today, someone in rural Northumberland would not necessarily clearly understand every word spoken by somebody from rural Devon.
Personally, as a reasonably well educated native speaker of English, most (>95%) of Shakespeare is clear to me.
Chaucer (late 14th/early 15th C) starts to be a struggle.
@gwentlarry Your differences between Northumberland and Devon may be quite similar to nowadays differences between spoken German in Saxony and Bavaria. Bavarian for me, if coming from a more rural region and fast spoken is as strange and undecipherable as the content of the Voynich manuscript is to me. 1/2
@Tinido -
@gwentlarry Your differences between Northumberland and Devon may be quite similar to nowadays differences between spoken German in Saxony and Bavaria. Bavarian for me, if coming from a more rural region and fast spoken is as strange and undecipherable as the content of the Voynich manuscript is to me. 1/2
@Tinido@gwentlarry So that, I think, is quite common in nearly every spoken language and the very reason, that — as the author pointed out — understanding language from the past would be as difficult as understanding anything from the future as well … I think. 2/2
@Tinido -
@Tinido
1100 habe ich den ersten Satz noch erschließen können, aber das war's dann auch. Sehr spannend!@Nike_Leonhard Nice! Ich hab in den 1200ern den Faden schon verloren gehabt, insofern ich nicht mehr zusammen bekam, wer oder was genau ihn da retten kam. 🤯
@Tinido -
E energisch_@troet.cafe shared this topic
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@Nike_Leonhard Nice! Ich hab in den 1200ern den Faden schon verloren gehabt, insofern ich nicht mehr zusammen bekam, wer oder was genau ihn da retten kam. 🤯
@Tinido -
@Nike_Leonhard Ja, das erklärte der verlinkte Text ja selbst auch am Ende.
Aber danke! 
@Tinido -
Super Fun für Sprach-Nerds, Weird Fiction-Fans und alle, die gerne neue Sachen lernen: Diese Geschichte wird jeden Absatz 100 Jahre älter (& gruseliger), am Schluss sind wir um 1.000 sprachlich angelangt. Bis wann könnt Ihr verstehen, was da steht? Danach erklärt ein Sprachhistoriker die Veränderungen, die ihr da rückwärts mitgemacht habt.
#linguistics #historyoflanguage #language #literature #learning
https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-understand-english
@Tinido Uh, very nice one.
I managed to get to the 1300 and after that it was really hard to decipher, but then I'm no native speaker mind you.
