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Not sure if you intentionally missunderstood, but the point was, that you probably would be able to make some sense of 1000 year old english, but that is about
by hutzlibu 5y ago
Not sure if you intentionally missunderstood, but the point was, that you probably would be able to make some sense of 1000 year old english, but that is about the border.
It depends on the culture of course. There are old cultures with the same references like a bible, that might cover longer timeframes of understanding.
- srcreigh 5y agoAh, my apologies. I could be clearer. It was curious for that comment to refer to _mutual intelligibility_ for people on either side of a 1000 year period. It's a lot easier to ask whether contemporary humans can understand 1000 year old language, than to ask whether humans 1000 years ago can understand contemporary language.
- hutzlibu 5y ago"It's a lot easier to ask whether contemporary humans can understand 1000 year old language, than to ask whether humans 1000 years ago can understand contemporary language." This is clear. And since we can only look backwards, we can only assume it works the other way around.
- nkrisc 5y agoI think it’s fair to assume that if we can’t understand them, they probably couldn’t understand us. Yes, they’re long gone so it doesn’t really matter.