If you’ve ever tried to read Chaucer in the original Middle English, you know the feeling. The words almost look familiar, but your brain can’t quite piece the puzzle together.
Now try real Old English from the year 900, and you’ll hit a wall: “Þu sprycst be wundrum þe ic ne mæg understand.”
That’s not a typo. That’s a real letter (þ, called “thorn”) that English used for centuries before being completely abandoned. Language evolves, as we all know. Just ask the Gen Z crowd.
Although English has lost most grammatical cases, it still regularizes (or is regularizing) irregular verbs. Over time it has absorbed thousands of words from French, Latin, Norwegian and dozens of other languages.
Fascinated by my love of language (I speak Spanish, Portuguese and English fluently), I decided to try an experiment.
I would give an AI detailed instructions to role-play as a historical linguist who could speak in the style of any century, using period-appropriate vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. And the results got pretty wild.
Testing the past
I started with the past centuries to calibrate.
The twentieth century was easy: mid-century formality, nothing outlandish. The 19th century brought Victorian flourishes, but remained readable. The 15th century became interesting.
I explained modern AI to this medieval character, and it replied, “By the bones of the Goddess! Machines that can hold a discourse similar to a man? Surely, this is more like the arts of sorcery and enchantment!”
Strange, but with a little effort still understandable.
By the 10th century the concept collapsed. I tried to explain electricity: “And þeos ‘e-lec-tri-ci-tas’ – ic nat þis word! Þu sægst hit cymþ fram wæteres styrunge?”
The weirdest moment came when I went back to year 1 AD and the AI switched to Latin. Go back even further and you go through proto-languages until there is no written system left to document.
So I changed course.
The future is already here
English is changing right now, and we can see it: Gen Z lyrics in ways that would baffle someone from 1990. ‘Bussin’, ‘mid’, ‘slay’ and ‘rizz’ aren’t just slang, they’re grammatical innovations spreading at internet speed.
The phonetic spelling wins: ‘Nite’ instead of ‘night’, ‘thru’ instead of ‘through’. Why keep archaic spelling when digital communication rewards efficiency?
English spelling was fossilized centuries ago, while pronunciation continued to evolve, creating the nightmare spelling we have today. Given enough time, it will break.
So what happens if we keep moving forward in time? Not 100 years: Anyone can extrapolate slang and texting shortcuts. I wanted to know in 1000 years, 3000 years; maybe even 15,000 years?
Into the unknown
Leaping forward felt less limited by evidence and more limited by possibility. What would become English?
For the 25th century, I simply asked Claude to imagine, based on the evolution of English, what it would be like in the year 2400 and the eras to come.
The answer came back in what I would call ‘optimized English’.
‘Ayo, time walk! Wondering about the 24th century long peak? Lemgo projek how the English mite shifts,’ said Claude.
Phonetic spelling dominated. ‘Night’ became ‘nit’, ‘although’ became ‘tho’. This follows actual trends.
Sorry guys, this is what you get as a speaker of a foreign language after centuries of perfecting the art of saying “go” instead of “going to”, “imma” instead of “I’m going”, and “you are” instead of “you are”.
It also explained that English would adopt words from other languages (such as Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic and Spanish) and that the internet would lead to society compressing the way we speak – it called it ‘digi-short’.
Srry, but we already do that, you know? Thank you!
But the kicker was hidden there: “We psilink half of our comspeak via neural networks anyway, so we only speak for emosh nuance and sosh bond.”
Neural connections for communication. Spoken language becomes decorative. Then I realized it wasn’t just about spelling changes.
The 30th century: when things get weird
For the 30th century I asked for a careful linguistic analysis. I said that in my time (2025) the development of neural implants is just beginning, with early failures.
The answer described something strange.
The 40+ different English sounds would collapse to just 8 – thank goodness! But tones would fill the gap – oh god!
This seemed wild at first, but it’s not implausible. Many languages use tone to convey grammatical meaning, including Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Yoruba.
The strangest addition was evidentiality markers: grammatical indicators that show how you know information:
- ◈ = sens-direct (I experienced)
- ⊙ = neuro-download (I know via neural link)
- ∿ = deduk-log (I reasoned)
- ○ = ai-preach (AI calculated)
- ◐ = transoral (someone told me)
And it makes sense. As neural interfaces become commonplace, the distinction between biological memory and downloaded information may become grammatically necessary.
The answer then addressed my comment about neural implants and explained that by the year 3000, speaking would be ceremonial, used for beauty, ritual, and emotional matters that neural communication cannot comprehend.
The rest of the information transfer would take place via direct neural communication. Spoken language will be extinct by 3500. Not banned, just outdated.
The 50th century: posthuman pronouns
By the year 5000, I came across something that completely challenged my 21st century assumptions. The answer explained that people at that time used a new pronoun system based on the evolution of human civilization:
- um = bio-conscience (human, exalted animals, bio-aliens)
- si = digital conscience (AI, uploads, silicon-based)
- ka = collective conscience (hive minds, gestalts, planet AIs)
- da = hybrid conscience (cyborgs, merged entities, transitionals)
- na = unconscience (objects, extinct bioforms, pre-awakening AIs).
I pushed back: why overcomplicate things when all of evolution was one big lesson in oversimplification?
For me, the ‘old’ pronouns were more efficient. In particular, the pronoun “it” is still completely valid and even practical: everything non-human is a thing by default, whether biological, digital, or something in between.
In my world we sort entities by type. For them, identity is sorted according to the nature of consciousness itself. That clash of categories – thing versus mind – was the first moment I realized I was the alien in this conversation.
Translation: “In ancient times, using ‘it’ meant considering something an ‘inert class’ (after-class). BUT by today’s standards that’s outrageous!”, Claude replied.
“Calling a biological being or AI entity ‘after-class’ is considered dehumanizing and is prohibited by law in most places.”
This was a real clash of values over time. The answer explained that after the ‘Awakening’ in the year 3200, the distinction between biological and digital consciousness began to disappear. Individual and collective consciousness faded. The word ‘human’ became extinct around the year 3800 and was replaced by ‘konshos-spektrum’ (spectrum of consciousness).
The linguistic shift reflected a philosophical change. If you believe that consciousness is substrate-independent, your pronouns must acknowledge that.
I had been taught about using outdated, offensive pronouns for 3,000 years.
The 150th Century: When Language Dies
Then I went to the extreme. I asked about the 150th century – and thanked Claude for the wonderful experience, and asked what this would mean to those reading in the year 2025.
The answer opened with: “◬◬◬ ∴∵∴ ⧈⧈ ≋≋ ◬◬◬”
Symbols, not words. It continued:
By then, language is something completely different. The AI explained that 8,000 years before the year 15,000 – around our year 7000 – language in the traditional sense became extinct. Individual consciousness dissolved. Bodies were left behind. Communication became direct, non-linear and simultaneous.
But despite the strangeness, there was something recognizable in the message. It acknowledged current concerns and set a timeline.
“You worry about AI, climate change, war and extinction, but in reality you overcome all problems,” the AI said after going through thirteen layers of archaeological translations.
So in the end, the language may disappear, but what comes after still cares enough to send a message back in time and let us know that everything will be okay. That might be the most human thing you can imagine – or the last trace of humanity in something that has evolved out there.
The entire conversation is available here. Copy the prompt, be creative and enjoy playing.
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