You know that what I stated is true. I am not trying to suggest that language does not change, nor am I suggesting that it may not be difficult to figure out what the changes were. But if you look back at my earlier post, you will see a suggestion about how to deal with such drastic differences. For the benefit of others, I mean, of course, that one can look at intermediate examples to try to figure out the changes. Making a huge jump in time is going to generally be much more difficult than looking at things closer in time. With English, this would work well for getting back to Beowolf (if anyone wanted to do such a thing). If one understands English of this century, looking first at English from the 1900's would be useful. After one has mastered that, one then looks at English from the 1800's. After mastering that, English of the 1700's. And so forth. If one takes many small steps, it is much easier than trying to take a huge leap all at once.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
