Ah, of course

[highlyeccentric]

So that's why Merlin's approach to medieval languages is so haphazard. According to the BBC news, new computer program can project language changes backwards, and generate you a vocab list you could use to talk to, say William the Conqueror.

Link goes to a respectable sporking at Got Medieval.

Comments

[agenttrojie.livejournal.com]

"And, as if to add insult to injury, the picture they chose is a stock image of the Macclesfield Psalter. I'm almost 100% certain than nobody's studying the Macclesfield Psalter for clues about English's recent changes, because it, like every other lavishly illuminated fourteenth-century psalter, is written in Latin."

*giggles*

[ashen_key]

...but. That. You can't.





WHAT?

*facepalms*

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I assume this machine has SOME useful purpose, for a given value of useful. Tracking down hypothetical indo-europrean root words, maybe. Predicting future changes, perhaps. Talking to William the Conqueor? NO.

[owlfish]

Oooh, if it can go backwards, surely it can go forwards as well, and we can find out what next year's slang words will be! And how to speak in the year 3000!

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Which will be SO useful to us, I'm sure...