English as spoken 500 years ago is incomprehensible gibberish to English speakers today.
It really isn’t. Here’s the opening of Thomas More’s “Dialogue concerning Tyndale” (also called the “Dialogue concerning Heresies”), written in 1528. I’ve transcribed it as best I can from an old edition (set in blackletter type) to make sure I’m getting the original text rather than some modern editor’s attempt to tidy it up.
It is an olde said law, that one busynes begetteth & bryngeth forth another. Whichever be as it happeth I find very trewe by my self, which have been fayne by occasion, first of one busynes, after to take the second, and upon the second, now to take the thirde.
This is not incomprehensible gibberish! The spellynge is a bit antiquated, and there are a few words some modern readers might not recognize (e.g., fayne = fain ~= inclined), but I find the meaning perfectly clear.
(Obviously this doesn’t invalidate the point that every language is constantly changing and we should expect words’ meanings to shift.)
A nitpick. You say
It really isn’t. Here’s the opening of Thomas More’s “Dialogue concerning Tyndale” (also called the “Dialogue concerning Heresies”), written in 1528. I’ve transcribed it as best I can from an old edition (set in blackletter type) to make sure I’m getting the original text rather than some modern editor’s attempt to tidy it up.
This is not incomprehensible gibberish! The spellynge is a bit antiquated, and there are a few words some modern readers might not recognize (e.g., fayne = fain ~= inclined), but I find the meaning perfectly clear.
(Obviously this doesn’t invalidate the point that every language is constantly changing and we should expect words’ meanings to shift.)
More than just not incomprehensible, “whenever I start a project I immediately feel an impulse to focus on another” is in fact painfully relatable.
Fair! I should have said 1,000 years to make the point more clear-cut.