| Only about 300 years before Chaucer and you get Beowulf which is as incomprehensible to the modern native English reader/listener as Danish is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGVDeafmsco http://www.kami.demon.co.uk/gesithas/readings/bss_oe.html And a good argument can be made that Shakespeare has a non-trivial percentage that's also not comprehensible to the modern reader/listener. And that was 16th century! However, I agree that between Shakespear and the King James Bible's influence, that's about as far back as a Native English Speaker can go and generally understand what's going on. Much of it is attributed to the "Great Vowel Shift" in English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift It's amazing what important literature can do to "fix" language. It seem remarkable that so much linguistic change can happen in such a relatively short time period, but my wife points out that in her home country of Korea, the original 15th century text that introduced their written language (Hangul) is not readable by modern Korean readers (slight differences in orthography from the modern Hangul notwithstanding). http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=272447 |