DrFunkenstein comments on How far back in time can you understand English? This site goes back by centuries allowing you to test yourself.

How far back in time can you understand English? This site goes back by centuries allowing you to test yourself. (www.deadlanguagesociety.com)

submitted 8 months ago by Quilotoa@lemmy.ca to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] DrFunkenstein@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 months ago (3 children)

This was fun! Anyone know about the ſ character? How come in the 1600s it only sometimes seemed to take the place of s?

hideshow 3 child comments

[–] sik0fewl@piefed.ca 25 points 8 months ago

It’s purely stylistic, but here are the rules - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s#Rules

parent

[–] Vinylraupe@lemmy.zip 8 points 8 months ago

It looks almost like the old german "S".

parent

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 point 8 months ago

It was often used for "f" as well, specifically in print to save money.

Towards the end of the article, they explain the same thing was done with using "y" to replace the letters that make the "th" sound (ð and þ) so instead of "the" or "ðe" you got "ye"

parent