Posted by PatK on October 20, 2101 at 23:13:22:

In Reply to: ye olde english posted by frank on October 20, 2101 at 09:22:33:

Old English is what Beowulf is in, or something like that. It is a different language.

Shakespearean, or Elizabethan English is modern English. Our English is what I call "contemporary". It has simplified grammar such that it is more ambiguous. It formalized the second person such that plural and singular are the same. In modern English verb endings changed from first to second and second to third person, and again in plural forms. In contemporary English, first and second person singular share the same form with third person plural! In a nutshell, w/ contemporary, there is a loss of precision as well as symetry which other Indo European languages retain.
http://www.snu.edu/syllabi/english/ENGL4113/renlink.htm

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