Does your language have a classic form? How you call it? Is it understandable? How well you can understand it?
If I read grabar REALLY CAREFUL, I can mostly understand it. But it's so tedious I give up after one paragraph.
Does your language have a classic form? How you call it? Is it understandable? How well you can understand it?
Christopher Rogers
Hunter Nelson
It's called vieux françois, the oldest texts are pretty hard to get without a proper formation.
Camden Gray
I mean, every modern language has an origin. There’s a reason why every “classic” version is not used, it is not common to use it in society’s standards hence its outdated
Charles Perry
Yes it's called Icelandic.
Aaron Perry
It depends, 18th century portuguese is almost the same to nowadays portuguese, but if you talk about native languages there is classical tupi which is extinct, but it was documented by jesuits including some poems and other shit and gave birth to nheengatu which is still used in some isolated cities of the amazon
Leo Williams
Old English is incomprehensible
Middle English is difficult to understand when spoken, but a little easier to read (especially later)
Old English Gospel of St. Luke
youtube.com
Canterbury Tales prologue
youtube.com
Josiah Garcia
Of course, but there aren't any writings with it
Gavin Adams
pretty interesting stuff, thanks anons
Andrew Morales
>Does your language have a classic form? How you call it?
Several, for Aramaic.
Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian Palestinian Aramaic are apparently one set. Mandaic and Jewish Babylonian, another set. And East and West Syriac. I've also read of Nabatean, Hatran, and Palmyrene, and Zoharic, but I don't know how much literature was produced in them. Many of these are still used in some capacity.
>Is it understandable? How well you can understand it?
It can sometimes be so understandable that it's hard to tell if it's classical or modern - at least, East and West Syriac, from the first centuries A.D., can be. Other times it's difficult. There are even a few people reviving it as a spoken dialect. Note that for the first three, the Palestinian ones, might not have a living counterpart, I don't know.
Eli Ward
old spanish from 1200s is very understandable, like say, 80% more than Italian, less than Portuguese, syntax and pronounciation was different
youtube.com
shitty dark ages latin is like 30% understandable
classical latin is like 15% understandable
Robert Stewart
You speak Aramaic? Based.
Joshua Lopez
>tfw no qt medieval galician gf to sing me songs about the blessed virgin
youtube.com
Brandon Young
I've posted about it sort of frequently here.
I believe the number of speakers is usually understated or underestimated, for a variety of reasons. It may even have as many speakers as Georgian.
Gabriel Scott
CAN YOU UNDERSTAND ONKELOS?
Zachary Jackson
Yes. It has many stages.
All the following is about written texts, not speech (pronounciation has changed).
There's Mycenaean Greek which is from ~1600 BC. Many words are recognizable and pretty much the same as today. Haven't read any texts in it though, just the wikipedia article.
Then there's Homeric Greek, which is just Homer's works (~800 BC).
I don't fully understand it. Sometimes I get the meaning of what he says, sometimes not. It's mainly because he mixes a bunch of dialects together and because it's a poetic language that wasn't actually used.
After that it's Classical Greek. Plato, Aristotle, etc.
I personally can understand them. I have read Aristotle from the original without many problems.
And it depends on the writter desu. There are difficult texts and there are easy texts, just like in any language.
After that, it's Koine Greek, the language after Alexander's conquests.
The New Testament is written in it.
It's essentially a dialect or modern Greek. Any pleb can understand it.
Then there's "medieval" Greek which is just modern Greek named differently for historical reasons I guess.
Also, written language and spoken language differ a lot in that era (written language was supposed to be as Attic as possible), so some texts are clusterfucks depending on how retarded the writer was, but you usually get the meaning.
Connor Rivera
Interesting thread.
I guess the classic form would be old norse or old Swedish.
Old norse as well as old gothic is partially understandable to most native nordic speakers in written form but otherwise incomprehensible.
Iceanders can probably understand old norse easily.
Dylan Bailey
old Bulgarian
yeah mostly
knowing Russian also helps somewhat, because of the case endings
Eli Davis
based, Armenian has three stages but writings were found only starting from 5th century because Christianity valued it more and also destroy all that was pagan .
Specialists usually claim that considering the richness that it had from the beginning there should've been an even more ancient type of Armenian (or some language that it was based on) but no writings were ever found.
This one turned to be a really good thread, didn't expect so much new information. Thanks again anons.
Michael Mitchell
I wish I knew a unique language like Georgian and Armenian. Unfortunately, from what I have heard they are borderline impossible for outsiders to learn.
Old English is basically a different language, it's /kind of/ understandable if you're willing to give yourself a focus induced headache but it's not really worth the effort.
Middle English is hard to understand when you hear people speak it, but in written form can be understood rather easily, though it's a bit awkward.
Early Modern English is a bit of a clusterfuck, given that it was a transition between what is spoken now and what was spoken in the middle ages. But it's still legible enough that most classics from that period can be read by anyone.
Justin Baker
>Does your language have a classic form?
Yes. Swedish has evolved alot since medieval times, but even medieval Swedish is surprisingly close.
>How you call it?
Old Swedish.
>Is it understandable?
Yes, but I am a linguist so I have no major problems with it. The random Swede however would probably scratch his head and go "what"?
Icelandic has nothing to with the olden Swedish forms.
>Iceanders can probably understand old norse easily.
They do thanks to Guðni Jónsson and his efforts to write down Old Norse with Icelandic phonemes, but this unfortunately created a wrongful idea of Old Norse is like and everyone assumes that Icelandic is almost identical because of it.
Julian Powell
Lol, it looks completely different
Brody Campbell
Yes. Every korean are studying literature written in classic korean(aka middle korean) if you are good at chinese characters it maybe easier to understand
This is how it looks like
Brayden Walker
This stuff is so cool but /his/ and /lit/ are so fucking bad that there's nowhere to talk about it that doesn't require an account.
Jackson Reyes
Jow Forums is shit, but miles better than /his/ for most history, including lingual history. So, talk about it here desu
Adrian Myers
Random Swede here. I can usually get the gist of it.
However "Sio" trips me up
Most other things I struggle with I can pick up from context.
For example, the last sentence would be
>Och omkring sjön sju köpstäder?
Elijah Reyes
yes, it sounds very retarded
Lincoln Hughes
Nvm, it means lake, sjö, when reading it again. I attempted to translate it, but I'm sure I got at least one sentence really wrong.
Birger Jarl, den vise man.
Han lät Stockholms stad att bygga.
Med diger kvickhet(?) och mycket omtanke(?)
Ett fagert hus och en skön(?) stad
Alla ? gjort som han bad
Den erladess vid den sjön
Så att karelen gör dem ingen oro
Den sjön är god, jag säger till dig(?).
Nittio kyrkosocknar ligga där i
Och omkring sjön sju köpstäder
Jaxson Sanchez
>For example, the last sentence would be
>>Och omkring sjön sju köpstäder?
Yes.
Birger jarl, den vise man.
Han låt Stockholms stad (att) bygga
'med digert vitt (jmf engelskans 'wit') och mycken hågja (tanke)
ett fagert hus och en god (bra) stad
alla led så gjort som han bad.
Det är lås före den sjö,
så at kareler göra dem ingen oro.
Den sjö är god, jag säger för hvi ((h)vi = gammalt 'varför', jmf engelskans 'why'),
nitton kyrkosockner ligger däri
och omkring sjön sju köpstäder.
Jacob White
>alla led så gjort som han bad.
>Det är lås före den sjö,
Ah, that makes much more sense.
I also translated vitt to kvickhet, since modern swedish lacks that word for the most part. Otherwise I did about as well as I thought I would.
John Roberts
Nu när du nämner det, så är 'laas' ("lås") nog även tvetydligt till en fornspänning på 'lägga', såsom lades, som laa(d)s. Bara laas dock blir lås, och ordet är gammalt nog att kunna finnas i denna typ av text, så jag gick efter instinkt.
Logan Morgan
It's called "Church Russian". Used for reading old books.
Evan Bennett
Lås fungerar ju i samma kontext såsom bodens fästning kallats låset i norr, alltså att staden skyddar sjön, dvs Mälaren, från ryssarna i Karelen, så tror nog det är rätt.
Nathaniel Morris
Jo, det har du ju rätt i. Lås används mer vitt i gamla språk än i dagens svenska, där vårt sedvanliga 'lås' är 'lok' (engelskans 'lock').
Caleb Harris
Also, the actual text is longer and I realised that the quote left out the opening and ending sentences (Erikskrönikan is supposed to be a so called "rhyme chronicle" after all).
Here's the fuller last section from 'Stockholm grundlägges', the 10th section of Erikskrönikan.
Slikan wanda lägde han
birge jerl then wise man
han loot stokholms stad at byggia
mz dighirt with oc mykin hyggia
eth fagert hwss ok en godhan stadh
Alla leedh swa giort som han badh
Thz er laas fore then sio
swa at karela göra them enga oroo
Then sio er god iak sigher for hwi
nyttan kyrkio sokner liggia ther j
Ok vm kring sion siw köpstäde
ther er nw frögd ok mykin gläde
ther för war sorgh ok mykin qwidha
aff hedna men them giorde oblidha
Also, ortography is slightly different here, but I assume the Wikipedia quote has been phonetically "cleaned up".
Jack Cox
This is a bit harder to read. I have to focus quite a bit on pronouncing the words in my head to find a match, and do a bit of guesswork.
The last three sentences I struggle with. Is it something like
>Det är nu frögd och mycke glädje
>Där förr var sorg och mycket lidelse
>Av hedna män man gjorde oblida
"nw" in particular looks archaic. I went with "nu" since I guessed u/v is shifted, and it is a double u?
Joshua Jackson
medieval castilian
youtube.com
Angel Sullivan
>>Det är nu frögd och mycke glädje
Där är nu fröjd och mycken glädje. In Old Norse and Old Swedish, a 'g' following a vowel in the middle of a word is read as a soft g (essentially modern Swedish 'j' or the 'g' in modern Swedish 'borg'). Thus 'frögd' -> fröjd.
>>Där förr var sorg och mycket lidelse
[...] mycken kvida
>>Av hedna män man gjorde oblida
av hednamän dem gjorde oblida
Otherwise breddy gud. And yes, the 'w' in this text acts a 'u', for both the [w] phoneme and the [u:]/[ʉ:] phonemes (modern Swedish o/u).
The reason for the w instance where you'd think 'v' should be is that most 'v':s were pronounced as [w] (double-u in English if you will), for example 'valði' (modern 'valde') was pronounced as '[w]al/ð/i' ("walldhi"). The hard 'v' is a mutation of the 'f' sound, for example 'hafa' is pronounced as 'hava'.
Chase Wood
>tfw English used to be so beautiful until teh frogs ruined it.
Angel Carter
Old English is better than modern English.
Jeremiah Perez
Doesn't have a classic form, just older.
It is understandable, just barely. Immpossible to read though.
>her hefr rettar bætur hakonar konungs sonar magnusar konungs
>Nu liggia haglendi saman utan garðs oc æigv .ij. menn huarr sinn haga oc gengr saudr or annars haga oc i hins þa taci sa sauð sinn allan ac beri i sin haga
from 1298.
Jose Carter
Early written Finnish, though not exactly a "classic" form, is cute.
It's what you get when you're trying to figure out how to spell something that hasn't been spelled out before, by a guy who lived in a Swedish-speaking area, probably a native speaker of Swedish as well.
ABC-kiria
Oppe nyt wanha / ia noori /
joilla ombi Sydhen toori.
Jumalan keskyt / ia mielen /
iotca taidhat Somen kielen.
Laki / se Sielun hirmutta /
mutt Cristus sen tas lodhutta.
Lue sijs hyue Lapsi teste /
Alcu oppi ilman este.
Nijte muista Elemes aina /
nin Jesus sinun Armons laina.
Modern Finnish would never use B (-> P) or C (-> K), and we often use J instead of I.
It's readable but weird. Fake old-timey texts use w instead of v, like "ye olde shoppe".in English. For example: Waka wanha Wäinämöinen.
>Learn now, old and young, who have a fresh heart, God's commandments and the mind, so that you shall know the Finnish language. Law, it makes the soul fearful, but Christ soothes it again. So read from here good child, the beginning of learning without obstacles. Remember them all your life, so Jesus lends you his mercy
Parker Morgan
Pretty cool desu
Ian Jackson
Only languages with a civilization have a classical language
Jose Reed
After those two you've got early modern english
The original pronunciation of Shakespeare is really fucking cool, it's a shame you can't find full performances online
William Roberts
Fugg the one thing I was supposed to post, I forgot to do
Here's the link of some examples
youtube.com
Lincoln Robinson
We have ancient Georgian (Dzvelkartuli) that we can understand somewhat well (though its too guttural). Reading the old alphabet for untrained eye is pain in the ass though.
Isaiah Jackson
>I have read Aristotle from the original without many problems.
Aristotle's text is basically what a prickish proffesor with a phd in Greek would write nowadays
Cameron Martin
>We have ancient Georgian
Please post links, Georgian sounds weird enough for our ears