I have been wondering: How can we know how languages, even our own
languages, were spoken before the earliest surviving audio recordings?
Back then there weren't any meticulous (if any) pronounciation guides
for any language.

  For instance, how can we know if English was spoken in the 1500's even
close to what it is today? After all 500 years is a pretty long time, and
language (and its pronounciation) evolves. Even though we know how English
was written back then (and way, way earlier), how do we know how it was
spoken? (Sure, it was probably similar to current English, but to what
degree?)

  On top of that, we often have distortions of spoken languages of the
past in popular media. For instance, the pirates of the 1600's did most
certainly not speak like the stereotypical pirate talk ("Arrr! Avast, ye
scurvy dogs!") I think this is just an invention of relatively recent
works of fiction (I think it might have originated from "Treasure Island"
by Robert Louis Stevenson, published in 1883.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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