Languish.org

I recently finished reading an old novel by Michael Crichton, Timeline, which is basically about a group of historians which time travels back to war-torn XIVth century France, caught between the English and French sides.

One of the points of the book which called my attention was that, although most of the protagonists were American, they had to use translation earpieces, as only the expert linguist could understand anyone, even the English.

Indeed, the American protagonists could not even speak to the local English speakers.

For example, when they arrive in the year 1357 AD, a boy comes running to the woman in the group and shouts to her:

Aydethee amsel! Grassa due! Aydethee!

And only her auriculars allow her to understand that she has to duck for cover.

Likewise, later another American protagonist is asked:

Howbite thou speakst foolsimple ohcopan, eek invich array thouart. Essay thousooth Earisher?

And is only rescued by his earpieces. Also, he has to resort to copying what he hears to try to answer questions, because he could not really articulate a sentence in English.

In this case, when he hears "Wee sayen yeaso. Ouriwis, thousay trew", and he gets by the earpiece that "thousay trew" is "you speak the truth" and uses the sentence to confirm what people were asking him.

Their total inability to communicate made me wonder is this is something particular to the English language, or if this is more common to other places.

You see, in Portugal our language did not change much. Our History students don't get classes in "ancient portuguese". When they get to study medieval texts, they just have to learn the abbreviations and get used to the style of writing; after that, they can start reading without any problems.

(In fact, they start reading XIIIth century texts within the first hour of teaching withouth any problems).

I myself got self-study in the area and can read our medieval codexes with no trouble whatsoever (it's just a matter of memorizing more abbreviations and getting used to a somewhat different font type); the language that is used in the texts gives me no doubt that I could immediately communicate with my people should I get to travel back to Lisbon in the year 1300 AD.

What about you? Could you speak to people if you time-travelled back to your own city in the year 1300 AD? I would like to hear from many countries, if possible.

For Americans, as I reckon nobody knows what kind of language Native Americans used in that era, let us instead say you get transported to the city of London in 1300 AD.

For a better example, here is the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English (the language used in London in that year):

    Whan that Aueryłł wt his shoures soote,
    The droghte of Marcħ, hath perced to the roote;
    And bathed euery veyne in swich lycour,
    Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

    Whan zephirus eek wt his sweete breeth,
    Inspired hath in euery holt and heeth;
    The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne,
    Hath in the Ram, his half cours yronne;

    And smale foweles, maken melodye,
    That slepen al the nyght with open iye;
    So priketh hem nature, in hir corages,
    Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrymages;

    And Palmeres for to seeken straunge strondes,
    To ferne halwes, kouthe in sondry londes;
    And specially, from euery shyres ende,
    Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende;

    The holy blisful martir for to seke,
    That hem hath holpen whan þt they weere seeke.

EDIT: Changed "Tom Clancy" with the correct author, "Michael Crichton". Thanks to Caliga for pointing that out.

I thought Timeline was by Michael Crichton?  :huh:

QuoteFor Americans, as I reckon nobody knows what kind of language Native Americans used in that era, let us instead say you get transported to the city of London in 1300 AD.

For a better example, here is the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales in Middle English (the language used in London in that year):

Yeah, unfortunately my knowledge of the Tonkawa language is pretty limited....in fact the Language has been extinct for decades.

I think if I was sent back to my ancestors homeland in Chestershire England I would only be marginely better off.  14th century English is hard enough to read, God knows what it sounded like.  I mean especially as London English and Chester English was probably dramatically different.  Regional dialects probably ruled supreme back in those days.

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 04:22:51 PM
I thought Timeline was by Michael Crichton?  :huh:

Doh! You are quite right, I mixed the two (I spoke yesterday about Tom Clancys' novels and the name stayed in my head).

I fixed the OP thanks  :)

No problem, as I speak fluent Shawnee.  :cool:

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 04:22:51 PM
I thought Timeline was by Michael Crichton?  :huh:

I thought that is what he said.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:26:01 PM

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 04:22:51 PM
I thought Timeline was by Michael Crichton?  :huh:

Doh! You are quite right, I mixed the two (I spoke yesterday about Tom Clancys' novels and the name stayed in my head).

I fixed the OP thanks  :)

PWNED!  Now make me some damn feijoada :mmm:

I would be unable to converse with the stone age tribes that live in Missouri.

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 04:26:02 PM
No problem, as I speak fluent Shawnee.  :cool:

There are about 100 speakers left in the world...and Cal is one of them!

Not fully, no. IIRC there was quite a leap languagewise in the 15th century. 16th century Swedish is no problem, 14th century Swedish is a bit harder.

I'm Icelandic and we still speak my homeland's language as of 874 (first settlement).

Quote from: Viking on December 14, 2009, 04:32:11 PM
I'm Icelandic and we still speak my homeland's language as of 874 (first settlement).

You also think like 874.

Can I kill Danes?

Quote from: Ed Anger on December 14, 2009, 04:33:39 PM
Can I kill Danes?

Damn! Too slow. :(

Quote from: Ed Anger on December 14, 2009, 04:33:39 PM
Can I kill Danes?

Were your ancestors: Germans?

't would be rather hard to use Dutch in medieval times as the unified language didn't exist back then. Only myriads of dialects that were related to each other and in where a few bigger ones would be used as some kind of over-arching means of communication between those who travelled. That or french or latin obviously.

that said: people with a good knowledge of their dialect might get by pretty well, especially in the case of the west-flemish dialects. They've been proven to still be rather close to their 13th-14th (even earlier) versions in both spelling (in sofar it's written today) and pronunciation.
Hell, the coastal dialects of flemish even have a decent bit in common with the coastal dialects of England of the same latitude.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on December 14, 2009, 04:35:14 PM
They've been proven to still be rather close to their 13th-14th (even earlier) versions in both spelling (in sofar it's written today) and pronunciation.

How does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 14, 2009, 04:36:39 PM
How does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

Well linguists can sometimes do a decent job piecing those together using common mispellings and the like from an era that suggest how they were phonetically said.

Quote from: The Brain on December 14, 2009, 04:33:08 PM

Quote from: Viking on December 14, 2009, 04:32:11 PM
I'm Icelandic and we still speak my homeland's language as of 874 (first settlement).

You also think like 874.

And that is how I won Pascal's Wager.

Quote from: Valmy on December 14, 2009, 04:37:39 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 14, 2009, 04:36:39 PM
How does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

Well linguists can sometimes do a decent job piecing those together using common mispellings and the like from an era that suggest how they were phonetically said.

Also by studying tapestries and mosaics they  can get down accents pretty well.

Much information about early life comes from garbage heaps. A not insignifcant amount also returns there.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 14, 2009, 04:36:39 PM
How does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

Note that, while one cannot "prove" a pronounciation, there were no grammar rules in the Middle Ages. People just wrote in a way that made the word sound like the ones they heard. You can know the region where a text was written by reading it aloud and hearing how it sounds like.

Even if they spoke perfect modern english, I'd probably be to disgusted by the bad breath, messed up teeth from people with no braces, horrible BO, hairy women legs, etc. to communicate.

Quote from: alfred russel on December 14, 2009, 04:44:32 PM
Even if they spoke perfect modern english, I'd probably be to disgusted by the bad breath, messed up teeth from people with no braces, horrible BO, hairy women legs, etc. to communicate.

Just think of the crabs infested snatch of the era.

Quote from: alfred russel on December 14, 2009, 04:44:32 PM
I'd probably be to disgusted by the bad breath, messed up teeth from people with no braces, horrible BO, hairy women legs, etc. to communicate.

Actually, people in the Middle Ages bathed quite often (the hate for baths will only become common amongst nobles in the late 16th century and will last until the 18th) and had good teeth, as they lacked harmful foodsuffs.

As for pronunciations, English speakers try saying this aloud fast immediately. Don't pause to think about what you are reading:

Ayeam chillingcold, ee wolld leifer half a coot.

Could you understand it?

I can't really read medieval German texts (although occasionally I can understand parts), so I assume I would have a hard to time to communicate with people back then. German was not really a unified language by 1300.

Quote from: Zanza on December 14, 2009, 04:50:32 PM
I can't really read medieval German texts (although occasionally I can understand parts), so I assume I would have a hard to time to communicate with people back then. German was not really a unified language by 1300.

Speaking German is simple. You just wave your hands around a lot and add an "a" to every word.

I am doubleplusgoodcold and would rather have a coat?

I recognize leif from some written work I've read.

Quote from: alfred russel on December 14, 2009, 04:44:32 PM
Even if they spoke perfect modern english, I'd probably be to disgusted by the bad breath, messed up teeth from people with no braces, horrible BO, hairy women legs, etc. to communicate.

The people in 1300 actually looked really good, it was only later that century that Small Pox scars became fashionable.

Remember: no sugar to rot their teeth and the population was overwhelmingly under 21 so even without shaving most of the women would be low on body hair :P

The (reconstructed and rather fictional) version of medieval German is relatively tough in its grammar and vocabulary. Many false friends (as words shifted in meaning) and weird syntax/turn of phrase.

Of course, a unified German language or High German didn't emerge till 18th/19th century, so it would also strongly depend on where in Germany you went back in time.

Quote from: Syt on December 14, 2009, 04:52:23 PM
The (reconstructed and rather fictional) version of medieval German is relatively tough in its grammar and vocabulary. Many false friends (as words shifted in meaning) and weird syntax/turn of phrase.

Of course, a unified German language or High German didn't emerge till 18th/19th century, so it would also strongly depend on where in Germany you went back in time.

What if you woke up tommorow to find yourself in 1300 Vienna?

Quote from: Zanza on December 14, 2009, 04:50:32 PM
I can't really read medieval German texts (although occasionally I can understand parts), so I assume I would have a hard to time to communicate with people back then. German was not really a unified language by 1300.

Let's try with the text of a song that made the runs in the Holy Roman Empire at the time. It's bt Walther von der Vogelwiede, the most famous German musikant of the time:

    Kristen juden und die heiden
    jehent daz dis ir erbe sî
    got müesse ez ze rehte scheiden

    dur die sîne namen drî
    al diu werlt diu strîtet her
    wir sîn an der rehten ger.
    reht ist daz er uns gewer

Would you hear it well?

Quote from: Valmy on December 14, 2009, 04:55:01 PM

Quote from: Syt on December 14, 2009, 04:52:23 PM
The (reconstructed and rather fictional) version of medieval German is relatively tough in its grammar and vocabulary. Many false friends (as words shifted in meaning) and weird syntax/turn of phrase.

Of course, a unified German language or High German didn't emerge till 18th/19th century, so it would also strongly depend on where in Germany you went back in time.

What if you woke up tommorow to find yourself in 1300 Vienna?

Actually a lot of medieval texts and the "language" reconstructed from them were written down in the courts in Southern Germany and Austria, so I might be able to understand large parts. North German, where the low German is somewhere between Dutch, English, Scandi and German would probably be harder for me.

Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 14, 2009, 04:52:18 PM
I am doubleplusgoodcold and would rather have a coat?

I recognize leif from some written work I've read.

You understood everything wonderfully, except "chillingcold", which means "chilling cold"  :lol:

(i.e. "I am chilling cold, and would rather have a coat")

So, pronounciation is key here. Read Medieval texts aloud before trying to decypher them to get the feeling of what you'd hear - this is valid for all European regions.

Quote from: Valmy on December 14, 2009, 04:25:19 PM
I mean especially as London English and Chester English was probably dramatically different.  Regional dialects probably ruled supreme back in those days.

Hugely different.  I mean the Pearl poet (of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fame) was probably from that sort of area and his is a different language from Chaucer's.

QuoteHow does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

With Middle English a lot of it has been worked out from metre and rhyme and so on.  Even until the late 18th century a common rhyme was 'love' and 'prove' which means people either said 'looove' or 'pruv' :mellow:

Plus what Valmy says :)

I can understand Chaucer and was taught how to read it, Anglo-Saxon and the Pearl poet aloud so given a bit of time I think I could be okay.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:55:54 PM
    Kristen juden und die heiden
    jehent daz dis ir erbe sî
    got müesse ez ze rehte scheiden

    dur die sîne namen drî
    al diu werlt diu strîtet her
    wir sîn an der rehten ger.
    reht ist daz er uns gewer

Haven't translated any medieval text in three or four years, so let's see ...

Christians, Jews and Heathens,
claim that this is their heritage
God would have to decide the rightful claim.

By his three names
all the world (violently) disagrees that
We are in our right.
It's right that He supports us.



And that's a text without weird vocabulary that I would have to look up. ;)

When I read the translation, I can match the words between the Vogelweide song and modern German. But some are just completely different ("jehent" for example).

English is a bastard language so it is not so difficult to understand why it has changed so much over time while others have not.

However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Quote from: Syt on December 14, 2009, 05:02:59 PM
Haven't translated any medieval text in three or four years, so let's see ...

Christians, Jews and Heathens,
claim that this is their heritage
God would have to decide the rightful claim.

By his three names
all the world (violently) disagrees that
We are in our right.
It's right that He supports us.

And that's a text without weird vocabulary that I would have to look up. ;)

You have successfully understood what would be sung to you  :)

The only issue would not be one of understanding the language, but of Christian expressions - the three names was used in a different way, as in "by Right" - in this case, God would decide the claims, by His three names.

(It is certain that we would all have to ajust to somewhat different expressions. And some of ours would seem odd to the locals, but we'd ajust fairly quickly)

Quote from: Zanza on December 14, 2009, 05:09:54 PM
When I read the translation, I can match the words between the Vogelweide song and modern German. But some are just completely different ("jehent" for example).

I wasnt too bad with mine (haven't read/heard Palästinalied in a while). The other stanzas are harder IMO.
http://www.fabelnundanderes.at/palaestinalied.htm

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Especially given that in English one of the biggest causes of change was the rediscovery and translation of Latin and Greek texts.  It caused huge problems because they simply didn't have words that accurately matched the Latin or the Greek.  Before the Renaissance they used French words or similar English words, afterwards they used Latinate or Greciate (don't know if that's a word) words which is a huge source in our language.

I imagine other languages faced similar problems.  Because French and Spanish are Romance languages it was perhaps easier to overcome but surely something similar happened in Dutch and German?

Chaucer's English is pretty straightforward, more like an English dialect than anything else; a couple of weeks and the adjustment would be made.

On the other hand.........Gawain and the Green Knight would involve a lot more work to understand, and the stuff from earlier centuries looks like a foreign language.....

Meanwhile Shakespeare is more or less modern English.

Quote from: Valmy on December 14, 2009, 04:52:21 PM

Quote from: alfred russel on December 14, 2009, 04:44:32 PM
Even if they spoke perfect modern english, I'd probably be to disgusted by the bad breath, messed up teeth from people with no braces, horrible BO, hairy women legs, etc. to communicate.

The people in 1300 actually looked really good, it was only later that century that Small Pox scars became fashionable.

Remember: no sugar to rot their teeth and the population was overwhelmingly under 21 so even without shaving most of the women would be low on body hair :P

I am sceptical.

The decades before the Black Death were a bit dismal economically; 1400 might be a better date for the horny time traveller to encounter properly nourished women  :lol:

I guess it would depend on the social class. Most towns and cities in that era in Poland were being settled by Germans, so they would probably speak some form of old German (probably from Saxony). Otoh, the nobles and peasants spoke old Polish, which I could understand.

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
English is a bastard language so it is not so difficult to understand why it has changed so much over time while others have not.

However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Oh, France in 1300 AD is an interesting place, linguistically speaking...

You see, unlike common perception, there was no such thing as a single language for the country. Modern French comes from the "Langue d'Oil" spoken in the area around the Île de France at the time ('Oil' meaning its word for 'Yes').

The other regions had... different languages. In Brittany, one would speak Breton, in Alsace the Alsatian dialect, in the North another dialect. And in the South... well, the South of France is known as Occitania, and they spoke Occitan, which is a language that enormously shocked me when I first read it.

So, if you went to France in 1300 AD and were in, say, the Dordogne area, you would encounter people who spoke Occitan, not French.

Quote from: Martinus
Otoh, the nobles and peasants spoke old Polish, which I could understand.

Let me confirm this: you could communicate with Poles, should you get back to 1300 AD Mazovia?

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on December 14, 2009, 05:22:31 PM
The decades before the Black Death were a bit dismal economically; 1400 might be a better date for the horny time traveller to encounter properly nourished women  :lol:

All things considered, I think we are in the golden age.

Quote from: Crazy_Ivan80 on December 14, 2009, 04:35:14 PM
't would be rather hard to use Dutch in medieval times as the unified language didn't exist back then. Only myriads of dialects that were related to each other and in where a few bigger ones would be used as some kind of over-arching means of communication between those who travelled. That or french or latin obviously.

that said: people with a good knowledge of their dialect might get by pretty well, especially in the case of the west-flemish dialects. They've been proven to still be rather close to their 13th-14th (even earlier) versions in both spelling (in sofar it's written today) and pronunciation.
Hell, the coastal dialects of flemish even have a decent bit in common with the coastal dialects of England of the same latitude.

Like he said if you know some German and local dialect you can prolly help yourself. Medieval Dutch was more alike German in that age you could go from Ostend to Königsberg without the language abruptly changing. Dutch had genitives, dative and used du instead of you, conjugation of verbs is more alike to German.

ARch....Haven't seen you in a while.

Hey, who's that on your avatar? Is that the one and only David Gilmour??

You know, if I had been asked before I saw this thread whether it was possible to have an intelligent conversation about a Michael Crichton book, I would have said "no."

'Grats to all.  You have done the impossible! :cheers:

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 05:29:32 PM
Oh, France in 1300 AD is an interesting place, linguistically speaking...

You see, unlike common perception, there was no such thing as a single language for the country. Modern French comes from the "Langue d'Oil" spoken in the area around the Île de France at the time ('Oil' meaning its word for 'Yes').

The other regions had... different languages. In Brittany, one would speak Breton, in Alsace the Alsatian dialect, in the North another dialect. And in the South... well, the South of France is known as Occitania, and they spoke Occitan, which is a language that enormously shocked me when I first read it.

So, if you went to France in 1300 AD and were in, say, the Dordogne area, you would encounter people who spoke Occitan, not French.

Even today English is hard to understand.  I was talking about the difference between Quebecois French and the French spoken in France today and reflecting on the fact that there are differences which have occured after only a couple hundred years which makes me suspicious of any claim that other languages have not changed over greater periods of time.

We had a thread about Turkish Delight and how nobody knows what that is except we all read about it in the Narnia books.  English is like that.  It borrows a lot from where ever it goes.  Other languages must have similar influences unless the people speaking it are completely shut off from other cultures/language.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on December 14, 2009, 05:22:31 PM
The decades before the Black Death were a bit dismal economically; 1400 might be a better date for the horny time traveller to encounter properly nourished women  :lol:

According to artistic evidence, women have been getting better looking up until the mid 19th century, when they started to fade. Then in the early 20th century, they developed numerous freakish characteristics and no longer appeared human in many cases. :)

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 05:29:32 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
English is a bastard language so it is not so difficult to understand why it has changed so much over time while others have not.

However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Oh, France in 1300 AD is an interesting place, linguistically speaking...

You see, unlike common perception, there was no such thing as a single language for the country. Modern French comes from the "Langue d'Oil" spoken in the area around the Île de France at the time ('Oil' meaning its word for 'Yes').

The other regions had... different languages. In Brittany, one would speak Breton, in Alsace the Alsatian dialect, in the North another dialect. And in the South... well, the South of France is known as Occitania, and they spoke Occitan, which is a language that enormously shocked me when I first read it.

So, if you went to France in 1300 AD and were in, say, the Dordogne area, you would encounter people who spoke Occitan, not French.

Quote from: Martinus
Otoh, the nobles and peasants spoke old Polish, which I could understand.

Let me confirm this: you could communicate with Poles, should you get back to 1300 AD Mazovia?

I am not sure Mazovia, tbh, since it had its own fucked up dialect - but I think I could in, say, Greater Poland. I definitely can read 16th century Polish stuff, and it couldn't have been that much different 200 years earlier.

Quote from: Martinus on December 14, 2009, 06:15:14 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 05:29:32 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
English is a bastard language so it is not so difficult to understand why it has changed so much over time while others have not.

However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Oh, France in 1300 AD is an interesting place, linguistically speaking...

You see, unlike common perception, there was no such thing as a single language for the country. Modern French comes from the "Langue d'Oil" spoken in the area around the Île de France at the time ('Oil' meaning its word for 'Yes').

The other regions had... different languages. In Brittany, one would speak Breton, in Alsace the Alsatian dialect, in the North another dialect. And in the South... well, the South of France is known as Occitania, and they spoke Occitan, which is a language that enormously shocked me when I first read it.

So, if you went to France in 1300 AD and were in, say, the Dordogne area, you would encounter people who spoke Occitan, not French.

Quote from: Martinus
Otoh, the nobles and peasants spoke old Polish, which I could understand.

Let me confirm this: you could communicate with Poles, should you get back to 1300 AD Mazovia?

I am not sure Mazovia, tbh, since it had its own fucked up dialect - but I think I could in, say, Greater Poland. I definitely can read 16th century Polish stuff, and it couldn't have been that much different 200 years earlier.

Fuck, how hard could that be? :rolleyes:

TAK TAK TAK GZGZGZGZGZGZGZ

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:20:57 PM
For Americans, as I reckon nobody knows what kind of language Native Americans used in that era, let us instead say you get transported to the city of London in 1300 AD.

:rolleyes:

While there has certainly been drift between various language groups shifting boundaries, and at least some drift within language groups, we generally have a pretty good idea what language or languages would have been spoken in a given area.

Thus while I can't be certain if the local language here was an early version of Tuchone, Tagish, or more unlikely Tlingit Han or Kaska, it was one of those.

Actually it's very unliekly to be Tlingit - they are quite recent to the inland areas.

The problem with Chauncer there is that this predates some standardization upon spellings.  I don't know if the spelling there is phonetic or not.  It's a bit easier if you use modern standardization to write the words.  Also isn't Chauncer only writing in the London area dialect.  Someone from say, Northumbria might sound completely different.  If it was spoken to me for a while I think I could puzzle out what they are saying in a few days.  Hell there are some current British accents I don't quite understand well.

Quote from: Barrister on December 14, 2009, 06:23:36 PM

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:20:57 PM
For Americans, as I reckon nobody knows what kind of language Native Americans used in that era, let us instead say you get transported to the city of London in 1300 AD.

:rolleyes:

While there has certainly been drift between various language groups shifting boundaries, and at least some drift within language groups, we generally have a pretty good idea what language or languages would have been spoken in a given area.

Thus while I can't be certain if the local language here was an early version of Tuchone, Tagish, or more unlikely Tlingit Han or Kaska, it was one of those.

Actually it's very unliekly to be Tlingit - they are quite recent to the inland areas.

Yeah, it's we have a fairly good idea who was in my area around 1300.  Sioux speaking peoples had arrived right a little before that.  Before that would have been a Caddo people.  The French documented the peoples in central Missouri in the mid 17th century so it's not to far from 1300.

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Well, to be honest, I and my friends don't see Québéquois as being that different from mainland French...

I mean, yes, there are different expressions and the pronounciation changes a bit, but we consider those to be very minor. One of my gaming buddies is even bethroted to a girl from Qébéc, and he doesn't see much differences from the "official" French (yes, we notice the differences, but they seem *very* minor to us). She can't even speak anything but Québécquois, but we all undestand her just fine.

I suppose that is because Continental French is really recent. I only see it emerging in force in the 16th century (I can read French books from 1500 AD without problem), and thus for us in Southern Europe the changes it underwent are not significant.

But Occitan is a different story... oh, how what the French are doing to Occitan hurts me. It hurts A LOT. It is absolutely NOT a patois of French.

Of course, all languages get influenced, but at least over here what we do is add the new words to our vocabulary, instead of changing the language. I know the English did otherwise and actually rewrote a lot of their language in the 17th century, though).

Quote from: Martinus
I am not sure Mazovia, tbh, since it had its own fucked up dialect - but I think I could in, say, Greater Poland. I definitely can read 16th century Polish stuff, and it couldn't have been that much different 200 years earlier.

That is interesting to hear. Another people that kept its language  :)

Though note that 200 years is actually a long time... linguistically, in many countries the 16th century is often more distant from the 14th century than our 21st century is from, say, the 18th century.

Let us make a test. Let us say you are in a tavern in Poland, and they started to sing:

Bogurodzica, dziewica, Bogiem sławiena Maryja,    
Twego syna, Gospodzina, matko zwolena Maryja,
Zyszczy nam, spuści nam.    
Kyrieleison.
      
Twego dziela krzciciela, Bożyce,    
Usłysz głosy, napełń myśli człowiecze.    
Słysz modlitwę, jąż nosimy,    
A dać raczy, jegoż prosimy,    
A na świecie zbożny pobyt,    
Po żywocie rajski przebyt.    
Kyrieleison.    

Nas dla wstał z martwych Syn Boży,       
Wierzyż w to człowiecze zbożny,       
Iż przez trud Bog swoj lud odjął diablej strożej       
      
[...]
   
Amen...       
... tako Bog Daj,       
Bychom szli szwyćcy w raj.

How was that? Could you understand it?

Quote from: Barrister on December 14, 2009, 06:23:36 PM
:rolleyes:

While there has certainly been drift between various language groups shifting boundaries, and at least some drift within language groups, we generally have a pretty good idea what language or languages would have been spoken in a given area.

:yes:

In the case of where I live, circa 1300 AD a Native American culture called the Fort Ancient culture inhabited Kentucky, which is believed to be the ancestral culture of the Shawnee.  There is a break in the archaeological record that historians believe was caused by an epidemic introduced into the South by de Soto's expedition... apparently disease practically wiped out the Native Americans in Kentucky, and when later explorers arrived in what is now Kentucky it was almost totally deserted--used as a sort of hunting preserve by both the Shawnee and the Cherokee.

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 06:40:41 PM

Quote from: Barrister on December 14, 2009, 06:23:36 PM
:rolleyes:

While there has certainly been drift between various language groups shifting boundaries, and at least some drift within language groups, we generally have a pretty good idea what language or languages would have been spoken in a given area.

:yes:

In the case of where I live, circa 1300 AD a Native American culture called the Fort Ancient culture inhabited Kentucky, which is believed to be the ancestral culture of the Shawnee.  There is a break in the archaeological record that historians believe was caused by an epidemic introduced into the South by de Soto's expedition... apparently disease practically wiped out the Native Americans in Kentucky, and when later explorers arrived in what is now Kentucky it was almost totally deserted--used as a sort of hunting preserve by both the Shawnee and the Cherokee.

So by wiping out the local populations, surrounding tribes were able to thrive on the sudden windfall of - now fat from gorging themselves on human carcasses - animals.

Life finds a way.

Epidemics are OSSUM for the people who manage to survive them. :smoke:

Quote from: Razgovory on December 14, 2009, 06:34:09 PM
Yeah, it's we have a fairly good idea who was in my area around 1300.  Sioux speaking peoples had arrived right a little before that.  Before that would have been a Caddo people.  The French documented the peoples in central Missouri in the mid 17th century so it's not to far from 1300.

Note that from 1300 to mid 17th century means 350 years... in other words, we today are closer to 1700 AD than those Native Americans were from their predecessors from 1300.

Also, can one REALLY be sure it was the same tribe? Isn't it possible that the nomadic tribes that lived there in 1300 AD were actually pushed around a century or two later by the tribe that was there in the 17th century? North American tribes could be quite mobile if need be.

Quote from: Caliga
In the case of where I live, circa 1300 AD a Native American culture called the Fort Ancient culture inhabited Kentucky, which is believed to be the ancestral culture of the Shawnee.  There is a break in the archaeological record that historians believe was caused by an epidemic introduced into the South by de Soto's expedition... apparently disease practically wiped out the Native Americans in Kentucky, and when later explorers arrived in what is now Kentucky it was almost totally deserted--used as a sort of hunting preserve by both the Shawnee and the Cherokee.

This is an example... can we truly sure that the Fort Ancient culture were indeed the ancestors of the Shawnee? There have been many cases of skeletons proving that the current tribes were not the ones living in those same lands in medieval times.

And your epidemic would indicate it could be so - so many deaths would leave the local tribes quite vulnerable to advances by their neighbors, which would make the Shawnee conquerors of the land, not descendents of the peoples of the 1300's...

And how can we be sure their languages did not change considerably over the centuries?

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:57:24 PM

We had a thread about Turkish Delight and how nobody knows what that is except we all read about it in the Narnia books. 

Heh, I'm the opposite, I haven't read the Narnia books and I know what Turkish delights are (only because I've been to Turkey three times though)

No I don't speak Spanish or basque so i'd be screwed.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on December 14, 2009, 05:16:04 PM
Chaucer's English is pretty straightforward, more like an English dialect than anything else; a couple of weeks and the adjustment would be made.

On the other hand.........Gawain and the Green Knight would involve a lot more work to understand, and the stuff from earlier centuries looks like a foreign language.....

Meanwhile Shakespeare is more or less modern English.

I agree with you, I found Shakespeare quite easy to read, but I know a lot of people who have a great deal of trouble reading Shakespear.

Chaucer, well I haven't read that in so many years I'm having a hard time remembering how difficult it was, just that it was significantly more so than Shakespeare.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:20:57 PM
For Americans, as I reckon nobody knows what kind of language Native Americans used in that era, let us instead say you get transported to the city of London in 1300 AD.

I can't understand people in London now, going back to 1300 certainly isn't going to help

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 06:39:06 PM


Though note that 200 years is actually a long time... linguistically, in many countries the 16th century is often more distant from the 14th century than our 21st century is from, say, the 18th century.

That's because literacy preserves language and modern communications even more so.

Quote from: katmai on December 14, 2009, 09:43:40 PM
No I don't speak Spanish or basque so i'd be screwed.

Weren't you trying to learn Basque a little while ago?

as for the question at hand. if i was here in canada i'd be shit out of luck. In Portugual it depends. I've heard that brazillian is supposed to sound like old portuguese. if so i would be able to read it (slowly :lol: ), but have no idea what they're saying. Which is weird, because i can understand other accents/dialects in portuguese, just not brazillian.

Quote from: HVC on December 14, 2009, 10:05:49 PM

Quote from: katmai on December 14, 2009, 09:43:40 PM
No I don't speak Spanish or basque so i'd be screwed.

Weren't you trying to learn Basque a little while ago?

as for the question at hand. if i was here in canada i'd be shit out of luck. In Portugual it depends. I've heard that brazillian is supposed to sound like old portuguese. if so i would be able to read it (slowly :lol: ), but have no idea what they're saying. Which is weird, because i can understand other accents/dialects in portuguese, just not brazillian.

Still Like to, but haven't found a good program, think I just need to move there and get hands on language training :P

Quote from: katmai on December 14, 2009, 10:07:21 PM

Quote from: HVC on December 14, 2009, 10:05:49 PM

Quote from: katmai on December 14, 2009, 09:43:40 PM
No I don't speak Spanish or basque so i'd be screwed.

Weren't you trying to learn Basque a little while ago?

as for the question at hand. if i was here in canada i'd be shit out of luck. In Portugual it depends. I've heard that brazillian is supposed to sound like old portuguese. if so i would be able to read it (slowly :lol: ), but have no idea what they're saying. Which is weird, because i can understand other accents/dialects in portuguese, just not brazillian.

Still Like to, but haven't found a good program, think I just need to move there and get hands on language training :P

Just bring over an old live in maid. She'll teach ya :p

Quote from: HVC on December 14, 2009, 10:11:55 PM
[Just bring over an old live in maid. She'll teach ya :p

Why don't I bring in a hot young maid then :rolleyes:

Quote from: katmai on December 14, 2009, 10:16:26 PM

Quote from: HVC on December 14, 2009, 10:11:55 PM
[Just bring over an old live in maid. She'll teach ya :p

Why don't I bring in a hot young maid then :rolleyes:

Spain isn't poor like it used to be, it's harder to bring over the young ones now. But if you want to learn messed up spanish you could always get a rican or cuban on the cheap :D

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 06:52:41 PM
Also, can one REALLY be sure it was the same tribe? Isn't it possible that the nomadic tribes that lived there in 1300 AD were actually pushed around a century or two later by the tribe that was there in the 17th century? North American tribes could be quite mobile if need be

Actually, Native Americans were not, in the main, nomadic.  The big exception would be the Plains tribes, but even they were only semi-nomadic until they got horses from the Spanish.

That said, of course over that long a period of time, there can be plenty of cultural and language shifts without the people being nomadic per se.

As to the question in the OP, I think if I had to go back to 1300 London, I'd just learn Latin and try to pass myself off as Italian.

An Arkansas Southron in King Henry's Court.

I'd teach them how to brew up moonshine and make shotguns.

Quote from: Razgovory on December 14, 2009, 06:27:57 PMI don't know if the spelling there is phonetic or not.

Medieval English spelling is generally phonetic.  The language of the Church was Medieval Latin and the language of the court was Central French; these two have some regularity because they are being written formally.  Medieval English wasn't used for that sort of purpose so most spelling was phonetic.  Some Middle English anachronisms have survived, for example the reason knight is spelled knight is because it was pronounced k-n-igh-t, it's from the Old English cniht and I believe survived in German too as knecht (sp?) at some point pronunciation shifts but we're left with the spelling and Monty Python jokes.

QuoteIt's a bit easier if you use modern standardization to write the words.

Yeah the section of Chaucer quoted by Silva looks mostly unedited.  Most good editions nowadays standardise the letters so they look modern.

QuoteAlso isn't Chauncer only writing in the London area dialect.  Someone from say, Northumbria might sound completely different.  If it was spoken to me for a while I think I could puzzle out what they are saying in a few days.

Chaucer's the Middlesex dialect.  As I mentioned earlier an example of the West Midlands/North-West dialect would be the Pearl-poet's Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  Another good source is actually 'The Reeve's Tale' which is about a miller and two North-Eastern students and Chaucer plays up the dialect and accent difference quite a bit. 

Quote from: dps
As to the question in the OP, I think if I had to go back to 1300 London, I'd just learn Latin and try to pass myself off as Italian.

The eventual use of Latin would be actually interesting.

In Timeline, Crichton (who was clearly aided in his work by historians), writes this exchange: one of the American academics is being questioned by a noble Englishmen, but he cannot articulate a proper phrase.

The local, assuming he may be an Earwashman (Irishman), asks him:

Loqurisquide Latine?

("Do you speak Latin?")

The Academic, which had had some classes in it, feels he can answer a little:

Non, Senior Danielis, solam parpaululum. Perdoleo.

("No, sire Daniel, I only speak a little. Please excuse me")

To which the local looks stunned and replies:

"Per, per... diciendo ille Ciceroni persilimis est."

("But, but... he speaks like Cicero.")

This is a nice touch, because in the Middle Ages people learned Medieval Latin, while today Academics teach Classical Latin, a language that was only used by the uppermost Romans during their heyday.

So, anyone who uses his modern knowledge of Latin would cause great surprise amongst learned Medievals.

Quote from: HVC on December 14, 2009, 10:05:49 PM
In Portugual it depends. I've heard that brazillian is supposed to sound like old portuguese. if so i would be able to read it (slowly :lol: ), but have no idea what they're saying.

Here, HVC, a portuguese text written in 1296 AD in Santarém. Read it aloud to get the meaning:

Sabham quantos este estrumento uirem e leer ouirem que eu Maria Soariz molher de Johanne Afonso Caualeyro de Lanioso e madre de Joham martijz trobador per outoridade dua procuraçom que eu reçebj do dicto meu marido ffeyta per maao de Joham da Pedra Tabelliom de pena da Raya de mynho.

E'nome do dicto meu marido cuja procurador suu e no meu nome vendo ao muyto alto Senhor don Denis pela graça de Deus Rey de Portugal e do Algarue (...)


Btw, HVC... want to read someting interesting?

Here is part of an Occitan text (the language of Southern France in the 14th century and later), written at the time by the Count of Foix and Béarn (read it aloud):


Aquelas montanhas
Que tan nautas son,
M'empachan de veire
Mes amors ont son.

Se canta, que cante,
Canta pas per ieu,
Canta per ma mia
Qu'es al luènh de ieu.
   
Baissatz-vos, montanhas
Planas, auçatz-vos
Per que pòsca veire
Mas amors ont son.

Aquelas montanhas
Tant s'abaissaràn,
Que mas amoretas
Se raprocharàn.

Noticed something?

Yeah Latin's hugely important in Medieval England, at least, but not very widely learned or understood.  It was a common cure for illnesses actually.  Because Latin was the language of God and associated with what was proclaimed a miracle and so on scraps of Latin text were sold which a person would then tie around the area of their body that felt unwell. 

Quote from: Martinus on December 14, 2009, 06:15:14 PM
I am not sure Mazovia, tbh, since it had its own fucked up dialect - but I think I could in, say, Greater Poland. I definitely can read 16th century Polish stuff, and it couldn't have been that much different 200 years earlier.

I don't know. Having had to interpret 16th century and 13th century texts I have to say the former were infinitely easier.

A royal pain in the butt was the Hildebrandslied from 9th century.

Yes, I'm fluent in Greek and Latin.

Quote from: Jaron on December 15, 2009, 12:17:16 AM
Yes, I'm fluent in Greek and Latin.

But do you speak Nahuatl?

Quote from: Peter Wiggin on December 15, 2009, 01:14:48 AM

Quote from: Jaron on December 15, 2009, 12:17:16 AM
Yes, I'm fluent in Greek and Latin.

But do you speak Nahuatl?

You god damn son of a BITCH! :angry:

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 04:43:26 PM

Quote from: Admiral Yi on December 14, 2009, 04:36:39 PM
How does one prove that the pronounciations are the same?

Note that, while one cannot "prove" a pronounciation, there were no grammar rules in the Middle Ages. People just wrote in a way that made the word sound like the ones they heard. You can know the region where a text was written by reading it aloud and hearing how it sounds like.

that's spelling, not grammar. Every language has grammar rules.

Quote from: Jaron on December 15, 2009, 01:16:42 AM
You god damn son of a BITCH! :angry:

:lol: :unsure:

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 06:39:06 PM
Let us make a test. Let us say you are in a tavern in Poland, and they started to sing:

Bogurodzica, dziewica, Bogiem sławiena Maryja,    
Twego syna, Gospodzina, matko zwolena Maryja,
Zyszczy nam, spuści nam.    
Kyrieleison.
      
Twego dziela krzciciela, Bożyce,    
Usłysz głosy, napełń myśli człowiecze.    
Słysz modlitwę, jąż nosimy,    
A dać raczy, jegoż prosimy,    
A na świecie zbożny pobyt,    
Po żywocie rajski przebyt.    
Kyrieleison.    

Nas dla wstał z martwych Syn Boży,       
Wierzyż w to człowiecze zbożny,       
Iż przez trud Bog swoj lud odjął diablej strożej       
      
[...]
   
Amen...       
... tako Bog Daj,       
Bychom szli szwyćcy w raj.

How was that? Could you understand it?

Well I know the song from history and literature lessons, but yeah, this one is pretty easy. Most words are identical as used today, others are "Old Polish" but pretty understandable (the Polish equivalent of, say, "giveth" instead of "give" and "thou" instead of "you" and the like).

Quote from: Pat on December 14, 2009, 06:55:26 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:57:24 PM

We had a thread about Turkish Delight and how nobody knows what that is except we all read about it in the Narnia books. 

Heh, I'm the opposite, I haven't read the Narnia books and I know what Turkish delights are (only because I've been to Turkey three times though)

I haven't been to Turkey and I haven't read the Narnia books. I know what Turkish delight is because I've been to Marks & Spencer.  :blush:

Unlike Polish,  our language has undergone evolution and in the 19th century, a centralized effort of streamlining, so I think I would have serious problems.

I can't recall 14th century examples, but I do know that the earliest written memory of our language (1075 or so) is very hard to understand, the only help is if you know/adopt to the different 'accent' then you can make out some of the basic words.

We had quite many dialects, most only had minor differences but I remember from documentaries that I had a hard time understading the old people speaking some of the more extreme ones.

Then in mid-late 19th century linguists started to organize official grammar rules, and selected the dialect my region spoke as the etalon and now the various dialects only remain as curiosities.

To add to the side discussion on Turkish Delight. I think everyone in Britain will know what Turkish Delight is, if only the debased form produced by the Fry's chocolate firm. I guess its introduction into Britain must have happened fairly recently as the NA posters seem not to have heard of it. ie maybe by the Victorians rather than a 17th century traveller to Turkey.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 14, 2009, 06:39:06 PM

Quote from: crazy canuck on December 14, 2009, 05:10:26 PM
However, I find it hard to believe that other languages havent also changed over time.  For example I often heard that the French spoken in Quebec is archaic compared to the French spoken in France as the continental French changed with other influences that did not affect the provincial French of Quebec.

Well, to be honest, I and my friends don't see Québéquois as being that different from mainland French...

I mean, yes, there are different expressions and the pronounciation changes a bit, but we consider those to be very minor. One of my gaming buddies is even bethroted to a girl from Qébéc, and he doesn't see much differences from the "official" French (yes, we notice the differences, but they seem *very* minor to us). She can't even speak anything but Québécquois, but we all undestand her just fine.

I suppose that is because Continental French is really recent. I only see it emerging in force in the 16th century (I can read French books from 1500 AD without problem), and thus for us in Southern Europe the changes it underwent are not significant.

But Occitan is a different story... oh, how what the French are doing to Occitan hurts me. It hurts A LOT. It is absolutely NOT a patois of French.

Of course, all languages get influenced, but at least over here what we do is add the new words to our vocabulary, instead of changing the language. I know the English did otherwise and actually rewrote a lot of their language in the 17th century, though).

Martim

Québécois = Brasileiros do Francês

As for me, given that I'm from Northern Portugal, it would be even easier than for Martim. We would  be even in great trouble if we go to pre-1147 Lisbon ;)

HVC

Brazilian Portuguese does not sound like Old Portuguese which is Galaico-Portuguese. The closest thing to Galaico-Portuguese now is spoken in Northern Portugal.

I think I could get used to 1300 English pretty quickly, since I've gotten used to understanding non-native speakers who sometimes completely butcher the language.

But as has already been said, I can't even understand people from several places in Britain now.

Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on December 15, 2009, 03:28:26 AM
To add to the side discussion on Turkish Delight. I think everyone in Britain will know what Turkish Delight is, if only the debased form produced by the Fry's chocolate firm. I guess its introduction into Britain must have happened fairly recently as the NA posters seem not to have heard of it. ie maybe by the Victorians rather than a 17th century traveller to Turkey.

:yes: It was introduced to the West by a, unknown Briton in the 19th Century.

As to the language question, Middle English would be a lot easier to understand spoken than written, I imagine. But there'd be dialects that varied so hugely within a relatively small distance, you wouldn't have to go far to experience a difference as great as English and Welsh, for example.

Old Russian is different from modern but it's still mostly understandable, so yeah, I wouldn't be totally lost.

I can't speak Iroquois nor Huron. I would be shit out of luck in London.

In France, langue d'oil could be do able & apparently, I can understand some part of langue d'oc.

I can understand an excerpt from the Liber Regnum, written a century earlier, despite not speaking Fabla (Aragonese). So I guess I would be alright.

QuoteIn this case, when he hears "Wee sayen yeaso. Ouriwis, thousay trew", and he gets by the earpiece that "thousay trew" is "you speak the truth" and uses the sentence to confirm what people were asking him.

Aha, when you say it that way it makes sense- true is said and should be written trew, it just isn't. So if someone said to me 'thou-say true' I'd probally get it,

QuoteHowbite thou speakst foolsimple ohcopan, eek invich array thouart. Essay thousooth Earisher?

That's how come you speak like such simpletons (ohcopan being?) An English army you are. Are you Irish? I guess??


I think I'd stand a better chance than most English in some ways but worse in others. I'm geordie which is the closest thing to original English you get outside of Friesland but over the past few decades the dialect has really died off a lot so even sent back 200 years and speaking to someone uneducated I would likely have to concentrate to communicate.

I am pretty good at talking with foreigners though and have some basic French, Dutch and Swedish understanding so from there could hopefully cobble together something.

Quote from: Caliga on December 14, 2009, 06:40:41 PM

Quote from: Barrister on December 14, 2009, 06:23:36 PM
:rolleyes:

While there has certainly been drift between various language groups shifting boundaries, and at least some drift within language groups, we generally have a pretty good idea what language or languages would have been spoken in a given area.

:yes:

In the case of where I live, circa 1300 AD a Native American culture called the Fort Ancient culture inhabited Kentucky, which is believed to be the ancestral culture of the Shawnee.  There is a break in the archaeological record that historians believe was caused by an epidemic introduced into the South by de Soto's expedition... apparently disease practically wiped out the Native Americans in Kentucky, and when later explorers arrived in what is now Kentucky it was almost totally deserted--used as a sort of hunting preserve by both the Shawnee and the Cherokee.

Interesting. I have read that the Kentucky area was used by many tribes for hunting. Didn't know that population had been decimated there, leading to that. Also read that the hunting parties from different tribes would try to observe truces in that area, when they might otherwise be at war with each other.

Quote from: Tyr on December 15, 2009, 09:05:41 AM
Howbite thou speakst foolsimple ohcopan, eek invich array thouart. Essay thousooth Earisher?

That's how come you speak like such simpletons (ohcopan being?) An English army you are. Are you Irish?

I guess??

The way (Howbite)
you speak (thou speakst)
clearly (foolsimple=to do things in a simple way; without difficulty)
to your companion (ohcopan)
and (eek)
[the] attire in which you are. (invich array thouart.)
Say (Essay)
are you in truth (thousooth)
Irish? (Earisher?)

Quote from: Tyr on December 15, 2009, 09:05:41 AM
I think I'd stand a better chance than most English in some ways but worse in others. I'm geordie which is the closest thing to original English you get outside of Friesland but over the past few decades the dialect has really died off a lot so even sent back 200 years and speaking to someone uneducated I would likely have to concentrate to communicate.

I am pretty good at talking with foreigners though and have some basic French, Dutch and Swedish understanding so from there could hopefully cobble together something.

Everything helps, but French won't do much good. Dutch, if from the coastal regions, would be of great use, especially South of the Thames, but also very much in London. Danish or Norwegian would be better than Swedish, but it wouldn't hurt.  :)

Quote from: Tamas
Unlike Polish,  our language has undergone evolution and in the 19th century, a centralized effort of streamlining, so I think I would have serious problems.

I can't recall 14th century examples, but I do know that the earliest written memory of our language (1075 or so) is very hard to understand, the only help is if you know/adopt to the different 'accent' then you can make out some of the basic words.

We had quite many dialects, most only had minor differences but I remember from documentaries that I had a hard time understading the old people speaking some of the more extreme ones.

Hmmm... it would be expected that Magyar would underwent a lot of change. On the other hand, I think your people had a good knack for Latin. At least you made good minstrels.

And still do, if this medieval Latin song performed by Magyars is any indication:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSgGZGt4r7Y

Quote from: Duque de Bragança
As for me, given that I'm from Northern Portugal, it would be even easier than for Martim. We would  be even in great trouble if we go to pre-1147 Lisbon ;)

Indeed, many of the regional differences still exist today. If one reads the 1296 portuguese text I posted above, we see that the lady's son was a trobador (troubador), as 'v' and 'b' had similar values in Medieval Portugal.

And even now, while portuguese from the Center and South say 'trovador', the North still says 'trobador', just to note one of the many differences.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança
Brazilian Portuguese does not sound like Old Portuguese which is Galaico-Portuguese. The closest thing to Galaico-Portuguese now is spoken in Northern Portugal.

Note that Galaico-Portuguese was going in one direction, which would have turned out similar to Mirandês (Portugal's second offical language).

We, however, got side-tracked. Our current language was heavily molded in the second half of the 11th century by Geraldo, Bishop of Braga, who was Occitan and gave us their grammar, as well as a good chunk of their orthography - our "lh", "nh" and "ç", for example, are all Occitan - for some reason our language is that different from Castillian.

Portuguese and Galician are the two closest languages to each other. But after that, Occitan is our "godmother tongue", so to say (and, in a lesser way, Catalonian is our far cousin language, as it was once part of Occitan and is now halfway between them and Castillian).

Have you read the Occitan song I posted before? Medieval Occitan is even closer to our language that its modern version, and even that one is very understandable.

This is an example of current Occitan (or more accurately, Llengua d'Oc):

Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor cal agir entre elas amb un esperit de frairesa.

What amazes me is that Paris insists that this is just a patois of regular French and doesn't even consider Occitan a second language of the country!

Tell me, when you read Occitan, what do you use more? Your knowledge of French, or that of Portuguese?

Quote from: Iormlund
I can understand an excerpt from the Liber Regnum, written a century earlier, despite not speaking Fabla (Aragonese). So I guess I would be alright.

But would you understand Aragonese? And Catalonian? How would you think you'd fare in Occitania?

Quote from: Solmyr
Old Russian is different from modern but it's still mostly understandable, so yeah, I wouldn't be totally lost.

There seems to be a Slavic pattern emerging; these languages do not seem much affected. By similarity, I suppose Bulgarians (not the mongolian Bulgars) would also be ok in 1300.

I wonder about the Serbs and the Croats, who got separated longer from their northern kin...

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 15, 2009, 02:21:57 PM

Quote from: Iormlund
I can understand an excerpt from the Liber Regnum, written a century earlier, despite not speaking Fabla (Aragonese). So I guess I would be alright.

But would you understand Aragonese? And Catalonian? How would you think you'd fare in Occitania?

I can make some sense of spoken Catalonian, Aranese, Aragonese and Portuguese. I suspect teaching myself to speak their medieval ancestors would be as relatively easy as learning the modern languages themselves. It would take me some time, but things don't seem to have changed that much around the Peninsula.
Modern French, on the other hand, is almost incomprehensible to me, so I don't have high hopes of understanding anyone further than Occitania.

Just to say the examples of Middle English from the Crichton book don't look like convincing Middle English to me - which isn't to say much but I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

Edit:  And for the English speakers 1300 was before the Great Vowel Shift which would significantly impact our language.  I added this just because I love the phrase 'Great Vowel Shift'.  It sounds like tectonic Countdown.

Ethnic Albertans have always spoken modern English.

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 15, 2009, 08:39:27 PM
Just to say the examples of Middle English from the Crichton book don't look like convincing Middle English to me - which isn't to say much but I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

Edit:  And for the English speakers 1300 was before the Great Vowel Shift which would significantly impact our language.  I added this just because I love the phrase 'Great Vowel Shift'.  It sounds like tectonic Countdown.

Come 2012 we're all screwed. As will become Is, Os Us and no one will have any clue what on earths going on.

Quote from: Tyr on December 16, 2009, 02:27:20 AM

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 15, 2009, 08:39:27 PM
Just to say the examples of Middle English from the Crichton book don't look like convincing Middle English to me - which isn't to say much but I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

Edit:  And for the English speakers 1300 was before the Great Vowel Shift which would significantly impact our language.  I added this just because I love the phrase 'Great Vowel Shift'.  It sounds like tectonic Countdown.

Come 2012 we're all screwed. As will become Is, Os Us and no one will have any clue what on earths going on.

that's going to fuck up the MIEUO mod then :(

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 15, 2009, 08:39:27 PM
Just to say the examples of Middle English from the Crichton book don't look like convincing Middle English to me - which isn't to say much but I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

Edit:  And for the English speakers 1300 was before the Great Vowel Shift which would significantly impact our language.  I added this just because I love the phrase 'Great Vowel Shift'.  It sounds like tectonic Countdown.

I thought that was more of a continental thing.  You can actually read Old English right?

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 15, 2009, 02:21:57 PM

Note that Galaico-Portuguese was going in one direction, which would have turned out similar to Mirandês (Portugal's second offical language).

What do you mean by that? For me, Mirandês is not a dialect of Galaico-Portuguese, it is a dialect of Astur-Leonese. I get most of it, of course, since it is an influence in the local dialect.

Quote
We, however, got side-tracked. Our current language was heavily molded in the second half of the 11th century by Geraldo, Bishop of Braga, who was Occitan and gave us their grammar, as well as a good chunk of their orthography - our "lh", "nh" and "ç", for example, are all Occitan - for some reason our language is that different from Castillian.

Portuguese and Galician are the two closest languages to each other. But after that, Occitan is our "godmother tongue", so to say (and, in a lesser way, Catalonian is our far cousin language, as it was once part of Occitan and is now halfway between them and Castillian).

Have you read the Occitan song I posted before? Medieval Occitan is even closer to our language that its modern version, and even that one is very understandable.

This is an example of current Occitan (or more accurately, Llengua d'Oc):

Totas las personas naisson liuras e egalas en dignitat e en drech. Son dotadas de rason e de consciéncia e lor cal agir entre elas amb un esperit de frairesa.

What amazes me is that Paris insists that this is just a patois of regular French and doesn't even consider Occitan a second language of the country!

Tell me, when you read Occitan, what do you use more? Your knowledge of French, or that of Portuguese?

For me Galician is a dialect of (Northern) Portuguese ;) It has been castillanised though...

ç used to exist in Castillan btw.
Occitan is sometimes used as a synonym for Langue d'Oc ,not always though. As for me, French comes naturally but yeah, the lh/nh thing comes to mind, even more now that you mention it. Hell, it even ended in Vietnamese (nh)...

Paris and everybody north of the Loire. ;)
As for Occitan, there is a -somewhat limited- revival in the South. In Toulouse, streets names are bilingual, for what it's worth... Catalan, gotmother tongue?  It is too close to French for me.

I am not too sure I could understand old French, if I was moved to Paris at the time of the 100 years War.  Understanding modern French people is hard enough, I can't imagine their ancestors... :D

Quote from: viper37 on December 16, 2009, 11:20:18 AM
I am not too sure I could understand old French, if I was moved to Paris at the time of the 100 years War.  Understanding modern French people is hard enough, I can't imagine their ancestors... :D

More importantly whose side would you have been during the Revolt of the Jacquerie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

I imagine, like Sheilbh said, the Great Bowel Shit led to a lot of changes.

Quote from: Razgovory on December 16, 2009, 03:29:11 AM
You can actually read Old English right?

Yeah.  Though I'm out of practice.

Quote from: Sheilbh
Just to say the examples of Middle English from the Crichton book don't look like convincing Middle English to me - which isn't to say much but I wouldn't put too much faith in them.

Edit:  And for the English speakers 1300 was before the Great Vowel Shift which would significantly impact our language.  I added this just because I love the phrase 'Great Vowel Shift'.  It sounds like tectonic Countdown.

You have a point, though as he clearly got aid from historians, the guesses there are as good as any.

How deep was the Vowel Shift? We also had some vowel changes in Portugal, but in reality these only had limited effects in prounciation (especially the 'u' and 'v', which today are spoken quite differently, but which in the Middle Ages were very similar - 'ouuirem' instead of 'ouvirem', for example).

Quote from: Duque de Bragança on December 16, 2009, 05:26:41 AM
What do you mean by that? For me, Mirandês is not a dialect of Galaico-Portuguese, it is a dialect of Astur-Leonese. I get most of it, of course, since it is an influence in the local dialect.

Mirandês is not considered a dialect at all in Portugal, but as a language in its own right.. The second official language of the country, in fact. In Spain it is seen as an asturian dialect, but not here.

http://pglingua.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=920:o-mirandes-segunda-lingua-oficial-de-portugal-desde-ha-dez-anos&catid=5:babel&Itemid=68

More details here:

http://mirandes.no.sapo.pt/BEestudos2.html

Quote from: Duque de Bragança
For me Galician is a dialect of (Northern) Portuguese ;) It has been castillanised though...

Castillanised? Where?

Here, a gallician forum - everybody is writing in galician. If you would be so kind as to show me the castillian influences... 'cos I can't find them.

http://www.forum-gallaecia.net/

I suppose one could call it a 'dialect', but to be honest the differences are so small that I suspect that Galicians would be considered portuguese speakers if their region was Portuguese instead of Spanish.

Heck, I have more problems with Azorians (who are Portuguese and who are supposed to speak our language, but which actually once expressly required a translator to understand what I was saying) than with Galicians.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança
Occitan is sometimes used as a synonym for Langue d'Oc, not always though. As for me, French comes naturally but yeah, the lh/nh thing comes to mind, even more now that you mention it. Hell, it even ended in Vietnamese (nh)...

Paris and everybody north of the Loire. ;)

First, it is Lenga d'Òc, not Langue d'Oc - the frenchified version is an attempt by Paris to confuse people into thinking this language is just another version of French. It even had me fooled until I actually read/heard it.

(the dialect spoken in the Tolosa area is referred to as "lengadocian", from the region of "Lengadoc" and part of the general "Lengadocià" [which is not the same as the whole of Occitania], in order to avoid confusion)

Lenga d'Òc is used as an equivalent to Occitan, though the designation of "Occitan" is more common.

And the Langue d'Oil is not of "everybody North of the Loire"... ever heard Walloonian? It was not subject to Parisian rule for most of the time, so their language was not brought to heel, keeping to its older traditions. Which is why Portuguese immigrants to the area find it far easier to learn than French.

Sure, Paris loves to say that French is spoken there, but its just more misleading info.

Here, a Walloon forum, where everybody is writting in their language:

http://berdelaedje.walon.org/

An example:

Walon'rèye (e Feller) est eployî dins tot l' payis d' Lidje. C' est ene sorwalonde. Mins pol Walon(r)eye on pout eployî les deus, c' est on dobe rifondaedje, k' i m' shonne.

Dji pinse ki dins l' Wikipedia c' est Walonreye paski les djins k' ont scrît les pådjes el dijhnut. Gn a pont d' rîle. Po des djins c' est pus "walon" come mot.

Gn årè todi des diferinnès voyes emey les rfondeus...

This other language is certainly not French. They are related, but certainly are not one and the same.

Quote from: Duque de Bragança
As for Occitan, there is a -somewhat limited- revival in the South. In Toulouse, streets names are bilingual, for what it's worth... Catalan, gotmother tongue?  It is too close to French for me.

The "revival", marked by the increase in Occitan schools (called Calandretas) is done with no support from Paris, which insists that Occitan is just a patois of French.

Occitan is our (Portuguese) Godmother tongue. And the reason why we put some words in parts of the sentences that are different from their Castillian/Leonese counterparts. The reason why we have "filhos" and not "hijos", or why we have "Pai" and "Mãe" and not "Padre" and "Madre", just to give some examples.

Catalan was once part of Occitan, but is now autonomized into a separate (but very similar) language.

The only exception is in the Val d'Aran, were the local speech (Aranese) is a Occitan dialect. Note that Iormlund (who can't get French) notes that he can understand Aranese.

And Catalan is close to French?  :lmfao:

You never heard the language in your life, have you? You really need to come down to Catalonia and say that - people are in need of a good, long, laugh.

Here, a forum in Catalan:

http://www.fobiasocial.net/forum-general-en-catala/

Example of a post:

Apart del tema lingüistic/cultural/polític i tot plegat... que ja cansa...

Com a fòbic social em fa sentir molt malament parlar amb català i que no m'entenguin. sobretot quan em contesten un "què?" amenaçador, com si fós un criminal, o amb les autoritats.

o al revés, perquè quan ens contesten o comencen a parlar en castellà, passem a parlar-lo en la conversa, quan ells no ho fan quasi mai?

És un tema que em fa sentir molt incòmode desde que estudio a Barcelona, i és que mai l'havia tingut que parlar, el castellà, fins que no vaig començar els estudis universitaris.

Clearly "too close to French"... NOT.

Btw, for all those interested, here is a catalonian tv report about videogame consoles.

Everybody who speaks French is invited to watch, in order to witness the "closeness" of Catalan with the language of Rosseau ;):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1myWqqFSw8

Question: can one embed YouTube videos in Languish? That would be better than just giving the links...

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 16, 2009, 03:54:57 PM
How deep was the Vowel Shift? We also had some vowel changes in Portugal, but in reality these only had limited effects in prounciation (especially the 'u' and 'v', which today are spoken quite differently, but which in the Middle Ages were very similar - 'ouuirem' instead of 'ouvirem', for example).

The Great Vowel Shift is more to do with pronunciation.  It's another reason why English has odd spelling.  It was largely a Southern event - some Northern and Scottish accents have pre-GVS pronunciation.  I believe though that it is largest example in a major language.  I believe some other Germanic languages experienced a vowel shift but the English one is massive every single vowel changes, we used to have long vowels which were more or less wiped out and became dipthongs and so on.  It's a major linguistic change and one that's named in a charmingly dramatic way.

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 16, 2009, 04:07:43 PM
The Great Vowel Shift is more to do with pronunciation.  It's another reason why English has odd spelling.

Apparently vowel shifts are still going on in the US now, although not necessarily as large as the GVS:

QuoteThe short vowels in English, pit, pet, pat, have been standing still for a thousand years, while the long vowels did their merry chase. It's called the great vowel shift. But long about 1950, the short vowels in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, began to move. It's called the northern city shift.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5220090

Quote from: Sheilbh on December 16, 2009, 04:07:43 PM
The Great Vowel Shift is more to do with pronunciation.  It's another reason why English has odd spelling.  It was largely a Southern event - some Northern and Scottish accents have pre-GVS pronunciation.  I believe though that it is largest example in a major language.  I believe some other Germanic languages experienced a vowel shift but the English one is massive every single vowel changes, we used to have long vowels which were more or less wiped out and became dipthongs and so on.  It's a major linguistic change and one that's named in a charmingly dramatic way.

I think I know what you mean. My Scottish relatives speak many vowels differently from the English way (Like 'coat', for example. They say 'coot' with a strong emphasis on the oo's. The 'A's are also deeper than the high-pitched English versions).

But I remember it took me a grand total of one minute to get used to/use in conversation the Scottish vowels instead of the English ones, so maybe the adaptation may not be as sysmic as that to a native English speaker.

Besides, as you know well, most medieval texts were made to be read aloud, not merely read, with the writer making putting every effort possible into making the word sound like the ones they heard, so we get good clues by comparing similar words in texts from different writers of the same period and place.

That put, the "twoplusgoodcold" interpretation by Yi of "chillingcold" worries me, especially because Americans have many different accents. I wish I could hear how you people read the English quotes, really.

As for other Germanic languages, maybe Syt can help.

Syt, could you tell us, using the "Were diu werlt alle min" poem, if the vowels could/were spoken differently than from modern German?

Were diu werlt alle min
von deme mere unze an den Rin
des wolt ih mih darben,
daz diu chunegin von Engellant
lege an minen armen.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 16, 2009, 05:31:24 PM
Were diu werlt alle min
von deme mere unze an den Rin
des wolt ih mih darben,
daz diu chunegin von Engellant
lege an minen armen.

Wäre die Welt all mein
von dem Meere bis an den Rhein
des wollt ich mich darben,
dass die Königin von England
läge in meinen Armen.

There are only minimal differences between ä and e, at least in Northern Germany. Southerners would disagree.
The single I in min and Rin possibly would be pronounced like the English I here. The modernized version has mein and Rhein instead. ih mih became ich mich. chunegin is Königin now. The u at the end of diu has become an e which is there to indicate a long i sound nowadays. Maybe the u served the same purpose.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 16, 2009, 05:31:24 PM

That put, the "twoplusgoodcold" interpretation by Yi of "chillingcold" worries me, especially because Americans have many different accents. I wish I could hear how you people read the English quotes, really.

That's just an Orwellian way of saying very cold. He understood it.

Quote from: Martim Silva on December 16, 2009, 03:54:57 PM

Mirandês is not considered a dialect at all in Portugal, but as a language in its own right.. The second official language of the country, in fact. In Spain it is seen as an asturian dialect, but not here.

It was very recently recognised as a language though. Most Lisboetes don't know that, for instance. But then, for them, everything from Coimbra northward is Terra incognita :D

http://pglingua.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=920:o-mirandes-segunda-lingua-oficial-de-portugal-desde-ha-dez-anos&catid=5:babel&Itemid=68

More details here:

http://mirandes.no.sapo.pt/BEestudos2.html

Quote
Castillanised? Where?

Here, a gallician forum - everybody is writing in galician. If you would be so kind as to show me the castillian influences... 'cos I can't find them.

http://www.forum-gallaecia.net/

Not that forum indeed but I'm not sure The Larch uses that spelling.

Quote
I suppose one could call it a 'dialect', but to be honest the differences are so small that I suspect that Galicians would be considered portuguese speakers if their region was Portuguese instead of Spanish.

Heck, I have more problems with Azorians (who are Portuguese and who are supposed to speak our language, but which actually once expressly required a translator to understand what I was saying) than with Galicians.

Impressive for a Lisboete :) I think you are a bit harsh on the Azorians though :D
Madrid and some Galicians claim Galician is now a separate language from Portuguese. Like Catalonian and Valencian :D

Quote
First, it is Lenga d'Òc, not Langue d'Oc - the frenchified version is an attempt by Paris to confuse people into thinking this language is just another version of French. It even had me fooled until I actually read/heard it.

You are reading a bit too much on a technicality. If it says Langue, it's not a mere patois cf. the opposition Langue d'Oc/Langue d'Oïl.

(the dialect spoken in the Tolosa area is referred to as "lengadocian", from the region of "Lengadoc" and part of the general "Lengadocià" [which is not the same as the whole of Occitania], in order to avoid confusion)

Lenga d'Òc is used as an equivalent to Occitan, though the designation of "Occitan" is more common.

Quote
And the Langue d'Oil is not of "everybody North of the Loire"... ever heard Walloonian? It was not subject to Parisian rule for most of the time, so their language was not brought to heel, keeping to its older traditions. Which is why Portuguese immigrants to the area find it far easier to learn than French.

I referred only to France in my North of the Loire (excluding the Bretons, Flemish and Alsatians).
I heard a Walloon speaking "French" from Liège and it was awful  :lol: Not even the dialect, just his accent was enough to remind me of the old "Belgian jokes" in France.

Quote
Sure, Paris loves to say that French is spoken there, but its just more misleading info.

Here, a Walloon forum, where everybody is writting in their language:

http://berdelaedje.walon.org/

An example:

Walon'rèye (e Feller) est eployî dins tot l' payis d' Lidje. C' est ene sorwalonde. Mins pol Walon(r)eye on pout eployî les deus, c' est on dobe rifondaedje, k' i m' shonne.

Dji pinse ki dins l' Wikipedia c' est Walonreye paski les djins k' ont scrît les pådjes el dijhnut. Gn a pont d' rîle. Po des djins c' est pus "walon" come mot.

Gn årè todi des diferinnès voyes emey les rfondeus...

This other language is certainly not French. They are related, but certainly are not one and the same.

Sounds like ch'ti, the dialect in Northern France or Ch'nord :) Not all Wallonia has that dialect anymore.

Quote
The "revival", marked by the increase in Occitan schools (called Calandretas) is done with no support from Paris, which insists that Occitan is just a patois of French.

"Patois" has a somewhat derogatory meaning. Do you mean dialect or even different but closely related language? The Jacobins (left) love to do that and they are not only from Paris.
Sarkozy recently changed the French constitution regarding minority languages so it's getting better. # Article 75-1 : nouvel article

    * « Les langues régionales appartiennent au patrimoine de la France ».

Quote
Occitan is our (Portuguese) Godmother tongue. And the reason why we put some words in parts of the sentences that are different from their Castillian/Leonese counterparts. The reason why we have "filhos" and not "hijos", or why we have "Pai" and "Mãe" and not "Padre" and "Madre", just to give some examples.

Castillan in the Middle Ages was closer to Galaico-Portuguese than it is now with forms such as fijos and no "geada" though.

Quote
Catalan was once part of Occitan, but is now autonomized into a separate (but very similar) language.

The only exception is in the Val d'Aran, were the local speech (Aranese) is a Occitan dialect. Note that Iormlund (who can't get French) notes that he can understand Aranese.

Quote
And Catalan is close to French?  :lmfao:

You never heard the language in your life, have you? You really need to come down to Catalonia and say that - people are in need of a good, long, laugh.

Here, a forum in Catalan:

http://www.fobiasocial.net/forum-general-en-catala/

Example of a post:

Apart del tema lingüistic/cultural/polític i tot plegat... que ja cansa...

Com a fòbic social em fa sentir molt malament parlar amb català i que no m'entenguin. sobretot quan em contesten un "què?" amenaçador, com si fós un criminal, o amb les autoritats.

o al revés, perquè quan ens contesten o comencen a parlar en castellà, passem a parlar-lo en la conversa, quan ells no ho fan quasi mai?

És un tema que em fa sentir molt incòmode desde que estudio a Barcelona, i és que mai l'havia tingut que parlar, el castellà, fins que no vaig començar els estudis universitaris.

Clearly "too close to French"... NOT.

Btw, for all those interested, here is a catalonian tv report about videogame consoles.

Everybody who speaks French is invited to watch, in order to witness the "closeness" of Catalan with the language of Rousseau ;):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1myWqqFSw8

Question: can one embed YouTube videos in Languish? That would be better than just giving the links...

Better say that than trying to speak Castillan there :D See the spelling of Catalan and compare to French, don't you get something? "Velocitat del VENT" for instance. They've got the cedilla, too.
As for the pronunciation, yes OBVIOUSLY it's not like Paris-Tours French but I thought you understood my implicit reference to (relative) closeness. The (Southern) French/Occitan link is what separates Catalan from, say, Castillan, If you will.

Quote from: Valmy on December 16, 2009, 11:24:57 AM

Quote from: viper37 on December 16, 2009, 11:20:18 AM
I am not too sure I could understand old French, if I was moved to Paris at the time of the 100 years War.  Understanding modern French people is hard enough, I can't imagine their ancestors... :D

More importantly whose side would you have been during the Revolt of the Jacquerie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

King.  He won.

Quote from: Valmy on December 16, 2009, 11:24:57 AM

Quote from: viper37 on December 16, 2009, 11:20:18 AM
I am not too sure I could understand old French, if I was moved to Paris at the time of the 100 years War.  Understanding modern French people is hard enough, I can't imagine their ancestors... :D

More importantly whose side would you have been during the Revolt of the Jacquerie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquerie

I once played a game of Vampire: Dark Ages as Brujah vampire embraced during the Jacquerie. :nerd: