19 votes

Advice for time traveling to Medieval Europe

8 comments

  1. sparksbet
    Link
    I remember a while back having a detailed late-night conversation with some friends about how we'd do if we got teleported back to medieval times. It's a really fun thought experiment, and this...

    I remember a while back having a detailed late-night conversation with some friends about how we'd do if we got teleported back to medieval times. It's a really fun thought experiment, and this video is a really fascinating dive into a lot of common misconceptions about the era from that lens.

    9 votes
  2. [4]
    updawg
    Link
    This is something I definitely need because anytime I think about what I'd do if I suddenly got teleported to the past, it's naturally to medieval England. I've always figured I could probably...

    This is something I definitely need because anytime I think about what I'd do if I suddenly got teleported to the past, it's naturally to medieval England. I've always figured I could probably invent penicillin.

    5 votes
    1. [3]
      tauon
      Link Parent
      Ha, for me it’s always* Rome or Greece. Haven’t yet contemplated the language implications of that, though… *Every half-or-so year that this thought comes up :]

      naturally to medieval England

      Ha, for me it’s always* Rome or Greece. Haven’t yet contemplated the language implications of that, though…

      *Every half-or-so year that this thought comes up :]

      4 votes
      1. sparksbet
        Link Parent
        Realistically the language implications will be there even if you go to medieval England, as even late Middle English would be difficult for a modern English speaker to understand spoken unless...

        Realistically the language implications will be there even if you go to medieval England, as even late Middle English would be difficult for a modern English speaker to understand spoken unless they were experienced with Middle English from studying literature from that period (and even for a modern scholar, effective two-way communication would pose considerable difficulty). And if you go earlier in the medieval period, it only gets worse on that front.

        6 votes
      2. TaylorSwiftsPickles
        Link Parent
        Hey, if you ever do it and it's it's post-"Alexander the Great" Greece and/or the Eastern Roman Empire, just hit me up before you time-travel and you won't have a problem with the language ;) As a...

        Haven’t yet contemplated the language implications of that

        Hey, if you ever do it and it's it's post-"Alexander the Great" Greece and/or the Eastern Roman Empire, just hit me up before you time-travel and you won't have a problem with the language ;) As a native Greek with an interest in linguistics, I'm fairly familiar with Koine and Medieval Greek and I also tend to exercise reading old texts/"books" in ancient & medieval Greek every now and then.

        Pre-Koine Greek I'm not as familiar with, aside from whatever I did in school (and, even so, that was just Attic Greek rather than any other pre-Koine dialect).

        4 votes
  3. [2]
    Perryapsis
    Link
    If you've got a second hour to kill, the author made another video responding to comments he received on this one.

    If you've got a second hour to kill, the author made another video responding to comments he received on this one.

    5 votes
    1. Maxi
      Link Parent
      I can very much recommend watching that one, a lot of interesting ponderings there.

      I can very much recommend watching that one, a lot of interesting ponderings there.

      2 votes
  4. doors_cannot_stop_me
    (edited )
    Link
    There was a book from a couple years ago by Brandon Sanderson called The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, which acts like it's a book on this topic but is actually a tongue...

    There was a book from a couple years ago be by Brandon Sanderson called The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, which acts like it's a book on this topic but is actually a tongue in cheek soft sci-fi book with elements of fantasy. It's an easy read and I really enjoyed it.

    3 votes