English - older than you think

So, when we left off, we'd just discovered that despite the use of Lorem Ipsum elsewhere, the full-size style preview on Blogger is actually filled with, well, regular English.

Specifically, the first couple of lines of Book II of John Milton's Paradise Lost (Satan vowing to wage eternal war on Heaven) and the start of Belial's speech on the same subject from a bit later in. (For no reason I can tell, Belial's speech is the second sample post, followed by the rest of Satan's speech. My best guess is they initially wanted to have a series of posts with one of each of the demons'  speeches from Book II per post, got two posts in, and then decided to just copy the text in sequence out of the start of the book.) This works in the narrow sense that the text is fairly arbitrary and so not particularly distracting, but in the more general sense of adding in spacefiller gibberish it is an utter failure: the text is recognizable and readable English.

High on a Throne of Royal State, which far

Outshon the wealth of ORMUS and of IND,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Showrs on her Kings BARBARIC Pearl and Gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit rais'd

To that bad eminence; and from despair

Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain Warr with Heav'n, and by success untaught

His proud imaginations thus diplaid.

It's not quite modern English but it's comprehensible. ("Satan sits on his shiny throne, and, despite the fact that he can't win, is planning to go on fighting Heaven.") Paradise Lost was published (in its final form) in 1674, which means it falls into a century-long slot of not-quite-modern English most popularly exemplified by Shakespeare and the King James Bible. Despite complaints about it, Shakespeare is eminently readable. It is, after all, written at the same time as the KJV (there are even some - unsubstantiated - theories that Shakespeare contributed to the 1611 KJV) and most people nowadays can still fake a passable King James. Taking (for example) the opening lines of the Book of Esther:

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus, (this is Ahasuerus which reigned, from India even unto Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces:)

That in those days, which the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace,

In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him:

When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty many days, even an hundred and fourscore days.

Comparing this to the New International Version of 1978, we have

This is what happened in the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush:

At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa,

And in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, and the nobles of the provinces were present.

For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty.

There's not a terribly great difference. Apart from the occasional out-of-order phrasings and the even more occasional archaic vocabulary (the only real example above being the use of "power" for "generals") it's just about as readable. Shakespeare is a little more flowery than the KJV in general, since he's not restricted to translating a preexisting text, but even then reading it (or better still, listening to it) you can understand what is being said.

Going back eighty years or so to the Coverdale bible of 1535 (Tyndale is the more popular version, but he was executed before getting around to the book of Esther) we find that the spelling takes a sudden hard hit but it still remains understandable, especially read aloud:

In the tyme of Ahasuerus, which reigned from India unto Ethiopia, over an hundreth and seven and twentye londes,
What tyme as he sat on his seate roiall in the castell of Susa
In the thirde yeare of his reigne, he made a feast unto all his prynces and servauntes, namely unto the mighty men of Persia and Media, to the Debites and rulers of his countrees,
That he mighte shewe the noble riches of his kingdome, and the glorious worshippe of his greatnesse, many dayes longe, even an hundreth and foure score dayes.

The phrasing is a little strange but spellcheck it and drop the occasional very weird word ("debites"?) and it's pretty much the same as the KJV. But Coverdale wasn't even the first English translation of the Bible: that credit goes to Wycliffe, around 1380.

In the daies of kyng Assuerus, that regnede fro Ynde til to Ethiope, on an hundrid and sevene and twenti provynces, whanne he sat in the seete of his rewme,

The citee Susa was the bigynnyng of his rewme.

Therefor in the thridde yeer of his empire he he made a greete feeste to alle hise princes and children, the strongeste men of Persis, and to the noble men of Medeis, and to the prefectis of provynces, bifor him silf,

To schewe the richessis of the glorie of his rewme, and the gretnesse, and boost of his power in myche tyme, that is, an hundrid and foure scoor daies.

The spelling is terrible, and the language falls into what is generally called Middle English, but if you read it out loud it is still legible. ("In the days of king Assuerus, that reigned fro' Ind 'til to Ethiop, on an 'undred and seven and twenty provinces, when he sat in the seat of his rewme [realm]...") It's not until you hit Old English, pre-Norman invasion, and more than a thousand years ago, that the language becomes sufficiently different to be incomprehensible (not Esther but the Lord's Prayer, c. 1000, due to lack of a complete Old English Bible):

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, Si þin nama gehalgod. to becume þin rice, gewurþe ðin willa, on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg, and forgyf us ure gyltas, swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum. and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge, ac alys us of yfele. soþlice.

Note that the language, for the first time, is completely incomprehensible even read aloud: "Fader ure thu the eart on hyofonum, si thin nama gehalgod..." (The þ and ð are called thorn and eth respectively, and both pronounced more-or-less "th".)

Jumping back to the 17th century, Paradise Lost - being in verse - is in fact even less legible than most writing of the time. The Pilgrim's Progress, written only four years later (1678), is in practically everything but style completely modern:

As I walk'd through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to sleep: And as I slept I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a Man cloathed with Raggs, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his Back. I looked and saw him open the Book, and Read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled: and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry; saying, what shall I do?

And fifty years after that Gulliver's Travels (1726) is, in effect, a rather formally-written piece of modern English:

My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire: I was the third of five sons. He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at fourteen years old, where I resided three years, and applied myself close to my studies; but the charge of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance, being too great for a narrow fortune, I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London, with whom I continued four years.

So what do we know about English? Well, definitely modern English goes back a long time - at least three hundred years, with another hundred of iffy-but-comprehensible modern English before that. Then there's another three or four hundred years of very strangely spelled but still recognizable English before that. You need to get back before Piers Plowman in the mid-14th century - that's six and a half centuries and it's still on the good side of legibility. You have to go back the better part of a millennia, to a time when English hadn't even really come together out of Norman French and Anglo-Saxon, when even the alphabet wasn't the same (thorn and eth were both dropped around 1300) before you genuinely run out of English. And despite the rapid changes in spelling and style (especially in the 16th and 17th centuries respectively) English has been surprisingly stable for a long period of time. If you want Lorem Ipsum text that's illegible to a modern English-speaker, you need to go a lot further back than John Milton.

And, incidentally: try Paradise Lost. It's interesting both historically, culturally, and in and of itself, entertaining, and if you weren't convinced by my claims of legibility ("High on a throne of royal state which far. Outshon the wealth of ormus and of ind... what is this stuff?") Isaac Asimov's Annotated Paradise Lost provides helpful vocabulary and metaphor references, as well as the rather interesting story behind its writing (short version: 2008 was not the first time a government changeover caused the religious right to flame out, although Milton was a far, far better writer than Rush Limbaugh is). 

A friend of mine from university called it "biblical fanfic", which is just about right, but it's very very good fanfic. Give Paradise Lost a try.