4 ms·

This would be lost anyway as language evolves over time. You really have to study in order to understand old english as an english speaker, or latin as an itali

• schoen 9y ago
  Still, (1) Having easy access to the last several generations' literature is very nice! (2) Knowing the modern form of the language is often a huge help to learning the ancient form, so losing native proficiency in modern languages would still be a hindrance to understanding older texts. (3) People can try to slow down language change in order to at least slightly reduce the magnitude of this effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_planning
• ACS_Solver 9y ago
  Old English is a fairly poor example because it was basically replaced by another language through conquest. While languages do evolve, it's a gradual process and they remain understandable for centuries. Shakespeare, Dante and Goethe are quite understandable to speakers of modern English, Italian and German. A speaker of Spanish or Italian can learn to read Latin texts even now with relatively little study. When the language of Julius Caesar is separated from modern Italian by 2000 years, the change process was so gradual that culture of the Roman Empire is still very visible in modern societies. That is not comparable to, for example, Mesoamerian cultures that were wiped out in a shorter period of time.