Is six hundred years ago more than a few? Chaucer is still more or less comprehensible. (Though Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, from roughly the same time, not so much.)

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biofox 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The Middle English spelling and phonetic shifts are what make it so painful to read. The words themselves though are mostly comprehensible with a bit of effort.

Go back another four hundred years to Old English and Beowulf and it becomes complete gobbledygook (to me at least).

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usrnm 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I wonder what modern English would look like if the battle of Hastings went differently

	▲	Bayart 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Take a look at Frisian for the beginning of an answer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languages