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Specifically, American English. How far back in time could someone from today go and still effectively communicate? And how would they react to modern slang/curses?
Right up to when fiddy cent came along....no one can recognize rap outright...I suppose the knights of olde would slay them on the spot....
Well if you travel to Newcastle, Edinburgh or Newfoundland in 2014 you might already be facing problems communicating with some people...
There are always people in every locality that are hard to understand, but if you live stream a Newfoundland radio station, it will be hard to detect any accent at all.
What amazes me that even today our younger, even educated, children do not use the richness of our English words. One word expresses a range to them while to me a word has a specific meaning. The cloth is azure not blue sort of thing.
So I wouldn't think they could go back too far communication wise.
Pretty much everyone knows the lyrics to the first verse of "Yankee Doodle"
"Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it macaroni."
How many have any idea what the lyrics mean? In 1776, everyone did. The song originated as a satire sung by the British soldiers, mocking the lack of sophistication on the part of their American cousins. At the time there had been a fad among young aristocrats in England which called for excess in dress, no amount of accessorizing was too much. They referenced themselves as the Macaroni and collectively the fancy hats, loudly colored vests, triple buckled shoes etc, were called their macaroni.
So in the song, the Brits are making fun of the fact that an American might think himself a member of the Macaroni simply by putting a feather in his hat. It was the concept of a Macaroni wannabee long before that word came into use.
When the revolution began, the Americans appropriated the song as their own in what amounted to reverse snobbery. The Americans were proud that they were not caught up in such shallow values as those radiated by the Macaroni, a simple feather for personal decoration became seen as a virtue, as in we are rugged frontiersmen and yeoman farmers, not prancing layabout dudes in London parlors.
You really need the cultural and historical context to understand even your own language in its earlier uses and references.
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