Transcript

[A dog is walked by an old lady wrapped in a blanket siting in a wheelchair] Old Lady: A doggo! [Close up of the old lady’s happy, yet not all there expression] Old Lady: A heccin good pupper. [A Nurse rushes to the Old Lady’s chair. The dog stairs at the Old Lady, the owner off screen] Old Lady: 13/10 good boi. Dog Owner: huh? [The nurse wheels the Old Lady away] Nurse: Don’t worry no one understands her- Old Lady: Could be a fren.

Link to artists website

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    18·
    5 hours ago

    This is what I love about any movie/tv show/book/novel/short story about the future … it’s all spoken in the same language that we all understand now.

    But if we could listen to regular everyday English spoken in North America 100 years ago, it would sound a bit off and unusual. Listen to English as it was spoken in England 300 years ago and it would probably sound very strange and unsual, go back to 500 years ago and we would probably have a hard time understanding.

    The same thing is going to happen in the future (IF there is any kind of future and we don’t blow ourselves up or kill ourselves off in some unusual, creative and complicated way) … historians will listen to recordings of how we talk today and think of us in the same way we think about someone from 1800. Go even far into the future about 500 years and someone from 2526 will probably not be able to understand anything we’re saying unless they use a translator of some kind. Those people 500 years from now will probably look back us like we’re making grunting sounds like some cave people from prehistory.

    • Aneb@lemmy.world
      3·
      2 hours ago

      To play devil’s advocate since sound recording modern English has only gotten more succinct. Also everyone speaks their own variation of English they know. Besides actors

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        That is interesting … but that’s the written language. Up until about 1950, literacy was only reserved for those who could actually afford a decent education. A hundred years ago, it was only a very small percentage of the population who could actually read or write. The vast majority of speakers spoke only a common language that was particular to their location and history … so the English they spoke was probably very different than what was being written by a nobleman from their time period.

        Another fascinating read is just basic Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain … one of the reasons his writing became so famous was the fact that he wrote his characters speaking in every day language that people spoke … not a polished aristocratic uptight proper English that only the most wealthiest and properly educated people could appreciate.

        The excerpts in that blog post are interesting but they would only represent the language of the most wealthiest people of their particular time. If you spoke and listened to a common worker from their same time period, you’d probably hear an entirely different language being spoken … and the difference would be even more pronounced the further back in time you went.

      • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        3 hours ago

        Did you really intend to write 390 years, or is 9 a typo like the end of understanf?

      • kalpol@lemmy.ca
        12·
        4 hours ago

        Sure you could. That’s basically Shakespeare. Reading it is a little tough but you can make it out. Hearing it is probably just a matter of getting used to a different accent. But it’s modern English.