Everything evolves. We grow older. Cars were once boxes and now they are sleek and low. The English language changes, too.
You would not be able to read or understand the English language of the 1190's. Here's an example; one line from a poem. "Wan ich flo nightes after muse...” Yes, that is English. It says "When I fly nights after mice." It uses the 'ich' that is still employed in German, a language related to English, but older than our tongue. The speaker, by the way, is an owl!
If we move toward the present to about the year 1420, we find a line from another poem: "As dew in Aprille that falleth on the gras...” You probably can understand that one. The trickiest word might be "falleth." The line is describing April dew falling on the grass.
Ours is a comparatively new language. When the Normans invaded England in 1066, there was no English. The merging of old French, Nordic (Viking) words and the many dialects of the Angles and the Saxons gave birth, ever-so-slowly, to the language we speak today. Along the way, we borrowed many words.
From Arabic for instance, we have 'crimson,' which was 'kermes,' an insect from which red dye was made. 'Ajar' is not used much anymore. A door ajar is one not quite closed. It came to us from Scotland. "A char" meant 'on turn.' 'Char' became a 'turn of work' or, in the English language of today, a chore!
English is constantly adapting and changing. Think of words like 'click' and 'mouse.' They have meanings unknown a half-century ago. Our language is a big tent, able to accommodate words that trickle in from far away or are invented by the kid around the corner. Speaking of 'big,' the word "mammoth," which can mean either an extinct relative of the modern elephant or 'large,' comes from Russia. In the Tarter language 'mamot' is earth, from which the frozen carcasses of the huge woolly mammoth are dug. It became 'big' in English around 1900. Things have been "OK" since the 1700's, a term firmly rooted now in the English language.
04. August