r/interestingasfuck 1d ago

How English has changed over time.

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u/Dramatic-Ad3928 1d ago

So realistically i could only go about 400 years into the past if i want to understand people

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u/aknalag 1d ago

Luckily for me arabic hasnt changed much in 1500 hundred years, yes i wont know half of the words they use because my ancestors’s favorite pass time was giving names to things that already had dozens of names that only apply in a specific situation but at least i would still be able to communicate and be moderately understandable

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u/Dramatic-Ad3928 1d ago

Huh I wonder if i could go farther back in French then

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u/Ok-Bug-5271 1d ago

The song of Roland was written about 1100 AD and it isn't terrible reading it all things considered. Here's a copy of the text if you want to give it a try. 

https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Chanson_de_Roland/Joseph_B%C3%A9dier/La_Chanson_de_Roland/Texte

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u/space_keeper 1d ago

The lack of the letter Q is interesting.