Like, modern and understandable? I ask because English from more than a few hundred years ago is basically gibberish so I’m curious about languages where that didn’t happen.
For example here's an excerpt from 1688's "Oroonoko"
I have often seen and convers'd with this great Man, and been a Witness to many of his mighty Actions; and do assure my Reader, the most Illustrious Courts cou'd not have produc'd a braver Man, both for Greatness of Courage and Mind, a Judgment more solid, a Wit more quick, and a Conversation more sweet and diverting. He knew almost as much as if he had read much: He had heard of, and admir'd the Romans; he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the deplorable Death of our great Monarch; and wou'd discourse of it with all the Sense, and Abhorrence of the Injustice imaginable. He had an extream good and graceful Mien, and all the Civility of a well-bred great Man.If you get past the weird spelling it's still fairly understandable.
Exception being maybe stuff like Shakespeare, but a huge part of what makes that inaccessible is that his writing is full of references to current events, double entendres, and various 17th century memes. It's a bit like showing South Park's world of warcraft episode to someone from the 2400s.
It is more akin to watching television from a different culture. I am American, live in Norway, with my Norwegian spouse. We wind up watching British television from time to time. We find the jokes funny, but we both realize that we are missing references to people and places - but understand the gist of the jokes.
The difference between shakespear and modern times is even larger - you don't always know they are jokes because you don't realize they are referencing anything. Still enjoyable, but a different story without as much comedy.
Yes... my own recounting of freshman high school English (it was the late 80s) https://everything2.com/node/1207826
But I think that affirms the GP's point. The jokes needed explanation, which is what you'd expect when the audience is from a different culture and don't understand them natively.
And yep, she was a very good English teacher. It was a more fun class than the other English classes I had through the years. Composition was a pain, but that the teacher was a stickler for everything it helped with my writing and communication skills today. English lit from Beowulf to Pope was a slog. Ancient was ok (mostly Ancient Greek which got into more philosophy rather than word choice because it was a translation). Modern literature was only enjoyable because of Thoreau - I think that was also where I read Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ... the other plays weren't as memorable.
Aside on that - read The Necklace (in English) in one of those classes... I'm fairly sure that was senior year. In college I took French to finish out my foreign language requirement and the final exam was reading comprehension for La Parure in French. I knew the story and so was able to quickly skim for vocabulary rather than needing to read every page.
All in all, looking back it was good, but as with most school classes, they weren't classes that I enjoyed going to at the time.
I think Your TV analogy is probably pretty accurate. Kids also do not get a lot of sexual references in TV comedy too!
As many of us learned recently from this great article: https://www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-back-in-time-u...
That being said, Darija, or rather North African Arabic is a messy mix of Arabic and Tamazight. Which can be difficult for Middle East Arabic speakers to understand.
For reference, I speak Darija and understand both classical and modern Arabic. It would take me a few days to adapt my speech to other regional variations of arabic.
Go back another four hundred years to Old English and Beowulf and it becomes complete gobbledygook (to me at least).
Also: only reading the "boring" bits. When I was in high school I was excused English classes (took English 101 at the local college instead - told you I was a nerd), but overheard my classmates hating their way through "The Wife of Bath's Tale", or "The Knight's Tale" - one of those - and introduced them (nerd!) to "The Miller's Tale" - broad scatalogical comedy - which they loved. Later I did something similar for them with Gulliver's Travels, by showing them the bit where he has fairly graphic sex with the giantess. (I think that's an actual kink, but I certainly didn't know that at the time!)
What's really fun is that if you keep the dialect in your head, and try reading it out loud with your best "Chaucer accent" it feels like slipping on a pair of glasses: you immediately "get" stuff that you'd have thought was impenetrable just looking at the page.
Source: my medieval lit classes, with a teacher who was really good.