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.