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I don't know about the history of English. But for Persian, it's not that the language has not changed since 10th century, it is that the last revolution occurr

I don't know about the history of English. But for Persian, it's not that the language has not changed since 10th century, it is that the last revolution occurred between 7th and 10th century and all changes since then have been evolutionary. A modern reader equipped with a dictionary can read any text written in 10th century and later, but anything before that requires essentially learning a new language. The reason for the revolutionary change in Persian language was the Muslim conquest of Persia in 633 CE and the introduction of Arabic language and culture to Iran. Anything before the conquest was in a language unlike the modern Persian. For two centuries following the conquest, there is little written Persian available, so we don't know how exactly the transformation occurred. What emerged after the two centuries of silence was a language based on Old Persian but with many Arabic loan words and written in a modified Arabic alphabet. This language is comprehensible by modern readers. It should be noted that comprehensible does not mean easy. Reading old poems for modern Persian speakers is as difficult as reading Shakespeare is for modern anglophones, but it is a far cry from reading Beowulf.

theobeers 8y ago
It may be worth adding that the adoption of the Arabic alphabet was a major part of the transition from Middle Persian to New Persian, beyond language change itself. People are often surprised by how little difficulty they have parsing a sentence in Middle Persian once it’s been transliterated.
pohaku 8y ago
The continuing popularity in Iran and the Persophone world of Classical poets such as Hafez and Rumi, and of poetry in general, has no equal that I know of in the West. I suspect that this tends to slow down language change to some extent. People continue to know the old texts because they are constantly exposed to them in vital, modern contexts. Perhaps it's something like the position that Shakespeare and the King James Bible held in Protestant English-speaking lands, though they were widely understood for a shorter length of time (maybe 350 years?) than the Persian classics (700-1000 years and counting, as far as I can tell). I'm afraid that Shakespeare and the Bible are now slipping beneath the waves of comprehension for non-specialists.

theobeers 8y ago

It may be worth adding that the adoption of the Arabic alphabet was a major part of the transition from Middle Persian to New Persian, beyond language change itself. People are often surprised by how little difficulty they have parsing a sentence in Middle Persian once it’s been transliterated.

pohaku 8y ago

The continuing popularity in Iran and the Persophone world of Classical poets such as Hafez and Rumi, and of poetry in general, has no equal that I know of in the West. I suspect that this tends to slow down language change to some extent. People continue to know the old texts because they are constantly exposed to them in vital, modern contexts. Perhaps it's something like the position that Shakespeare and the King James Bible held in Protestant English-speaking lands, though they were widely understood for a shorter length of time (maybe 350 years?) than the Persian classics (700-1000 years and counting, as far as I can tell). I'm afraid that Shakespeare and the Bible are now slipping beneath the waves of comprehension for non-specialists.