274
How far back in time can you understand English? This site goes back by centuries allowing you to test yourself.
(www.deadlanguagesociety.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
274 points (98.2% liked)
Mildly Interesting
25365 readers
422 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Technically it's more like Old Norse
Exactly, Icelandic is basically old norse with a spelling skin and different vocabulary. Most people take an least one class which involves reading old norse like Hávamál. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A1vam%C3%A1l?wprov=sfla1
How similar? Here's the first stanza of Hávamál translated by me just now. All the words are common. Other places like Snorra Edda is also easily readable although Snorri used less common words so there's more vocabulary to memorise like "röðull" for sun and "gumi" for man.
Gattir allar, aþr gangi fram, vm scoðaz scyli, vm scygnaz scyli; þviat ouist er at vita, hvar ovinir sitia a fleti fyr[b]
Gáttir allar, áður gangi fram, um skoðast skal, um skyggnast skal: því að víst er að vita, hvar óvinir sitja á fleti fyrir.