There's a tricky linguistic zone where languages are similar enough to modern times that everyone feels like they don't need a "translator", where words may even have similar denotations to today (though there are shifts in those too sometimes), but often have very different connotations. People reading text with modern denotations and connotations for the same word are worse off than if they're presented with a truly foreign text, where they realize they need a translation to do anything.
1518 I'd put on the far side of that zone. If you tried to read a lot of text from that era you'd rapidly realize it's not the same language, as anyone who has been asked to read a parallel-passage Canterbury Tales in school (from even earlier, but 16th century has similar problems) or read Shakespeare, the more original the better, you understand what I'm saying.
But individual phrases from the 16th century can still suffer this effect quite easily.
A very well-known example of the sorts of shifts I'm talking about is the 20th century shift of the word "gay" in the United States. However, that is merely a particularly extreme and well-known example. The entire language is constantly shifting like that. Another one that Terry Pratchett pointed out in one of his Discworld books is we have a quite substantial set of adjectives that have shifted over the years; "awesome" wasn't just "pretty cool", it meant specifically inspiring awe, so "awesome skateboard" is probably not accurate by the original definition, "incredible" wasn't just "pretty cool" but literally meant unbelievable, etc. In fact we've lost rather a lot of specific adjectives to becoming barely shaded variants on "pretty cool"....
Probably the largest impediment to reading older English is the belief that you know what you're reading means, when you in fact may not. If you are ever confused about something you read, consider that you may in fact be reading something a bit slanted relative to what you think you're reading. This also applies, but differently, to ancient non-English texts. Especially in philosophy, there are certain traditional translations of certain old terms that are still generally used today, but the English translation itself has shifted in the intervening centuries... words that may seem as simple as "essence" or "substance" don't remotely mean what you probably think they mean. We'd almost be better off with a transliteration of the original words and allowing readers to form their own understanding of the concepts without 21st century misunderstanding of 17th century English translations getting in the way.
Dunno if there's an official linguistic term for this but if anyone's got it I'd be interested in hearing it.
One of my favorites for this is the term “making love”. In older times, this basically meant wooing or courtship - literally trying to and building feelings of love and affection in another person.
Now, of course, it means sex. Which can make can making reading some older texts very surprising for modern readers!
The euphemisms are full of examples like that. Not only can they confuse you in the way you meant, you can just plain miss them. Just yesterday I learned that "watery knees", when used in the context of being very afraid, doesn't necessarily refer to what I thought it referred to, which was just shakey knees that were as stable as water. It refers to pissing oneself, hence, literally, "water" (itself a common historical euphemism for piss) actually on the knees, as well as everywhere else. I don't know how many times I've seen that without putting that together.
(Pardon the bluntness, but explaining one euphemism with another seems rather pointless.)
1518 I'd put on the far side of that zone. If you tried to read a lot of text from that era you'd rapidly realize it's not the same language, as anyone who has been asked to read a parallel-passage Canterbury Tales in school (from even earlier, but 16th century has similar problems) or read Shakespeare, the more original the better, you understand what I'm saying.
But individual phrases from the 16th century can still suffer this effect quite easily.
A very well-known example of the sorts of shifts I'm talking about is the 20th century shift of the word "gay" in the United States. However, that is merely a particularly extreme and well-known example. The entire language is constantly shifting like that. Another one that Terry Pratchett pointed out in one of his Discworld books is we have a quite substantial set of adjectives that have shifted over the years; "awesome" wasn't just "pretty cool", it meant specifically inspiring awe, so "awesome skateboard" is probably not accurate by the original definition, "incredible" wasn't just "pretty cool" but literally meant unbelievable, etc. In fact we've lost rather a lot of specific adjectives to becoming barely shaded variants on "pretty cool"....
Probably the largest impediment to reading older English is the belief that you know what you're reading means, when you in fact may not. If you are ever confused about something you read, consider that you may in fact be reading something a bit slanted relative to what you think you're reading. This also applies, but differently, to ancient non-English texts. Especially in philosophy, there are certain traditional translations of certain old terms that are still generally used today, but the English translation itself has shifted in the intervening centuries... words that may seem as simple as "essence" or "substance" don't remotely mean what you probably think they mean. We'd almost be better off with a transliteration of the original words and allowing readers to form their own understanding of the concepts without 21st century misunderstanding of 17th century English translations getting in the way.
Dunno if there's an official linguistic term for this but if anyone's got it I'd be interested in hearing it.