[torben-friis]

> Even written language in China is still largely intelligible to moderns, from a thousand years ago or more. English, more than about 400 years ago is almost wholly foreign:

You're pretty much equating English and Europe when talking about language, which in this case is very wrong. I, as a spaniard, can read poetry from a thousand years ago perfectly fine, and we do indeed do it in school.

[dredmorbius]

In 1000 CE, the principle language of Spain was Arabic.

Though Spanish, Castillian, etc., were spoken. Well, back until 210 CE:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Spanish_languag...

[torben-friis]

Spanish (or the dozens of romance languages and dialects that would eventually converge to it, anyway) predated Arabic in the peninsula, and survived it. As a consequence, we study arabic presence as an invasion/influence that came and left, rather than "what our culture was" at the time - whether that's fair or not is an entirely different topic, but the point is that I can perfectly read the literature made in romance languages since it hasn't changed that much. Even latin would be somewhat understandable.