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> The point is that the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable. Physically? Maybe. But another factor is that human languages will naturally e

> The point is that the paperback can sit on a shelf for 100 years be readable. Physically? Maybe. But another factor is that human languages will naturally evolve to the point where future generations won't be able to read the words we're writing now without some kind of translation service. Even if it hasn't evolved enough to be classified as an entirely new language, it can change enough to be extremely difficult to decipher. This also requires a migration plan or historians to update the book for the modern language. If you've ever picked up a very old book, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about. Even if it's still physically readable, you struggle to make sense of vocabulary and style in popular use at the time of publication.

anthk 4y ago
Spaniard here. Save from lots of medieval jargon and lots of footnotes, Don Quixote is not rocket science. Also, you know, we have dictionaries.
dredmorbius 4y ago
What's curious to me is that some languages, and writing systems, preserve better than others. Latin, having become a dead language used principally by the Church and for a time science / natural philosophy, remains highly-readable across centuries so long as you read Latin. Similarly for classical Greek. I'm given to understand that Arabic, itself significantly preserved in the Quaran as a literal verbatim transmission from the 7th century. Written Chinese, zhōngwén, or 中文, is logosyllabic, where symbols represent the concepts rather than the phonetic representation of a syllable. It is not only generally readable across millennia, but even across largely mutually-unintelligible dialects of Chinese, or other languages (Korean and Japanese, for example). Contrast written English which becomes highly idiosyncratic even only a couple of centuries ago (long-S, nonuniform spellings, highly stylised and formalised expressions), and both difficult to read and understand (verbally) from as few as five centuries ago. Shakespeare, for example: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YiblRSqhL04 https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YiblRSqhL04> Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M> Beowulf (c. 700--1000 AD): <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M> Numerous of the modern languages of Europe (Spanish, English, French, German) date only to about 900--1,000 CE or so, and the forms spoken then would be difficult or impossible for most moderns to understand. Written forms ... often didn't exist at all (government and business being transacted in Latin, Greek, or Arabic throughout much the region).

anthk 4y ago

Spaniard here. Save from lots of medieval jargon and lots of footnotes, Don Quixote is not rocket science. Also, you know, we have dictionaries.

dredmorbius 4y ago

What's curious to me is that some languages, and writing systems, preserve better than others. Latin, having become a dead language used principally by the Church and for a time science / natural philosophy, remains highly-readable across centuries so long as you read Latin. Similarly for classical Greek. I'm given to understand that Arabic, itself significantly preserved in the Quaran as a literal verbatim transmission from the 7th century. Written Chinese, zhōngwén, or 中文, is logosyllabic, where symbols represent the concepts rather than the phonetic representation of a syllable. It is not only generally readable across millennia, but even across largely mutually-unintelligible dialects of Chinese, or other languages (Korean and Japanese, for example). Contrast written English which becomes highly idiosyncratic even only a couple of centuries ago (long-S, nonuniform spellings, highly stylised and formalised expressions), and both difficult to read and understand (verbally) from as few as five centuries ago. Shakespeare, for example: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YiblRSqhL04 https://yewtu.be/watch?v=YiblRSqhL04> Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M> Beowulf (c. 700--1000 AD): <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qYiYd9RcK5M> Numerous of the modern languages of Europe (Spanish, English, French, German) date only to about 900--1,000 CE or so, and the forms spoken then would be difficult or impossible for most moderns to understand. Written forms ... often didn't exist at all (government and business being transacted in Latin, Greek, or Arabic throughout much the region).