something really cool is listening to the first few verses of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which was written in Middle English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GihrWuysnrc
In English history, Old English is the language up to around ~1100 AD, Modern English is everything from Shakespeare onwards (1600s) and Middle English is the stuff in the middle
but when you first listen to it, it sounds so foreign and strange - you can still understand significant parts, so it's not a different *language*, but it is different
@lizardsquid I can't understand much of it, but it sound a lot more melodic than modern English (but I think that's just how the Canterbury Tales are set up?)
@lizardsquid Oh yeah, I'm reminded of Karel Ende Elegast, which I've not read either but I know was meant to be read aloud:
"Vraaie hostorie ende al waar
mag ik u tellen, hoort ernaar."
(I don't know if that's been translated a little, but I guess so or Dutch hasn't changed much in centuries)
translates somewhat to
"Verified(?) history and all true
may I tell you, do hear"
Language stuff like that's interesting. I don't know of a good translation of "Vraaie" in this context but it's ~"true"
@lizardsquid Also I've noticed that some Scandinavian words are somewhat similar to Dutch, or once I understand what they mean I can at least see what it's similar or derived from.
@BatElite I think the original version of "very" would have been close, but it's since changed meaning
it's interesting how fiction changed when literacy levels went up - it became much less flowery and much more dense
@lizardsquid @BatElite Eeee, diachronic linguistics nerdery! <3
@BatElite that's partly the tales and partly the narrator - since most people were illiterate, tales like this were set up to be easy to be heard by several people at once, in perhaps a crowded room