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We talkin' First Folio Shakespeare, or the more common versions with the spelling and other features updated? This may not be the best example, but here's what I came up with on a moment's notice:TaylorS wrote:Anything before John Milton and Thomas Hobbes (such as Shakespeare and St. Thomas Moore), I need help with, and the English of Chaucer is pretty much a foreign language.
meidei wrote:I'd say the New Testament (Koiné Greek, 300BCC~300CE). Once a while there unfamiliar word usages and suffixes, but generally speaking, most educated Greeks and Greek-speaking Cypriots can understand written Koiné fairly well. They certainly do understand Medieval Greek.
Oleksij wrote:meidei wrote:I'd say the New Testament (Koiné Greek, 300BCC~300CE). Once a while there unfamiliar word usages and suffixes, but generally speaking, most educated Greeks and Greek-speaking Cypriots can understand written Koiné fairly well. They certainly do understand Medieval Greek.
What about Plato or Aristotle? I don't get the impression that the language in which their works are normally rendered (since quite possibly no works written by either one of them in person actually survive) is drastically different from Koine Greek..
meidei wrote:I'd say the New Testament (Koiné Greek, 300BCC~300CE). Once a while there unfamiliar word usages and suffixes, but generally speaking, most educated Greeks and Greek-speaking Cypriots can understand written Koiné fairly well. They certainly do understand Medieval Greek.
ciaran1212 wrote:1400-1600: A big struggle, but I wouldn't put it in the 'can't read' category. (Chaucer etc.)
Prior to 1400: No. I get the impression I'd have an easier time with modern Dutch (even if I hadn't had any exposure to it) than Old English.
JackFrost wrote:ciaran1212 wrote:1400-1600: A big struggle, but I wouldn't put it in the 'can't read' category. (Chaucer etc.)
Prior to 1400: No. I get the impression I'd have an easier time with modern Dutch (even if I hadn't had any exposure to it) than Old English.
Most of the 1400-1600 is Early Modern English. The shift was almost done when Le Morte d'Arthur was published in 1485. So, 1100-1400 would be Middle English... The Chaucer's language, although it's very rare to find a text written in it in the 12th and 13th centuries.
Or maybe it's just you?
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