How old can Spanish texts be before they are too old?

[ElDanés]

I was able to find lots of Spanish readers, both for beginner, intermediate and advanced students at http://www.archive.org/, but as Archive only include material without copyright, many of the texts are very old, and I have been able to determine various archaic spellings, mostly small ones, like á instead of a, and alike, but my question is if these texts are good to learn from? Those I'm talking about date from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, and I don't want to learn older Spanish (at least not at this point), so is that too old, or alright?

[Rusty]

Older language is good to know IF you want to be well-versed in a language. From what I've seen here in the forums, some of the older forms of the language still exist in some places, like the 'superfluous' accents over the á and the ó. There used to be a written accent on words like fue and dio. People still write them here and there, so it's good to know these things. The old word for cama is lecho, but I believe it can still be heard in certain places.
I've learned a lot of old English because some of the old literature is essential reading, a mi parecer. So, I don't think it's a waste of your time to learn older vocabulary and style. However, I wouldn't expect to be able to use all that older stuff in the everyday world.
As a new student to Spanish, it may be better if you learn what the modern language looks like first (don't use readers only - current events and news can be found in printed form in a lot of places).

[ElDanés]

Like I mentioned, I don't think I'm ready to older Spanish yet. I think I will have a hard time distinguishing what's archaic and what's modern. What I just wanted to know was if Spanish has evolved too much in the last 100-200 years, to really use these books. But I guess it has. All languages do that. So, I think I will follow your suggestion about sticking to modern Spanish as for now. Thanks!

[sosia]

I think (not sure) in Spain a work is free 70-80 years after the writer's dead.
1892-1930 spanish literature is good, a little pesimistic, but the spanish is good, not very arcaic. The main problem are some words (like "lecho", is still in use but everybody uses "cama", some southamerican words). But it's good to learn them.
If you find short texts, it's a good thing to read.
Is in english "pride and prejudice" is too old? its 200 years ago...
saludos

[Planet hopper]

I would put a top level for Spanish in El Quixote. If you can read that Spanish, you'll be able to read 99% of good Spanish literature of all ages (except for Mio Cid and La Celestina). I find the degree of variation much smaller than that in English, say, comparing Shakespeare and Cervantes (just as an opinion)

Cheers PH

[ElDanés]

Thanks to both of you. I appreciate your answers.

[Caballero]

I've learned a lot of old English because some of the old literature is essential reading, a mi parecer.

I just happened upon this thread, and I wanted to make clear that the expression "Old English" refers to the period from 450-1066, 450-650 called "prehistoric Old English". What you probably meant was "Early Modern English" 1480-1650 (e.g. Shakespeare) or even "Modern English" 1650-2011. This is a sample of Old English:

"Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leod-biscopas and Þurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice."

(King Cnut the Great to Earl Thorkell the Tall)

I think that Old English is harder for English speakers to read than for Spanish speakers to read old varieties of Spanish, because English has changed more. But I could be wrong.

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by Caballero

I think that Old English is harder for English speakers to read than for Spanish speakers to read old varieties of Spanish, because English has changed more. But I could be wrong.

If you're going to make it a fair comparison you should compare Old English to post-classical Latin.

But for what it's worth, I find Spanish easier to read than early Modern English.

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by pjt33

If you're going to make it a fair comparison you should compare Old English to post-classical Latin.

But for what it's worth, I find Spanish easier to read than early Modern English.

Supposedly the English is more complicate to read than the Spanish language, I'm not sure about the real true about this, I'd like to do a comparison with someone who is learning Spanish yet, so I can do a comparison of the language that come between the two person.

[spanishplease]

Pretty much anything on Archive.org is going to be OLD. But I agree with poster #2, I actually kind of like the old writing. Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc., (translated to the Old Spanish... plus then I can cheat when I get stuck and look it up in English lol)

[JPablo]

I agree with everybody... I'll tackle Mio Cid one of these fine days (de los sos oxos tan fuerte mientre lorando = llorando fuertemente de los sus ojos = llorando muy fuerte por los ojos = llorando a lágrima vida = "strongly crying through his eyes" = sobbing one’s heart out, crying one’s eyes out) but even fluent Spanish speakers have quite a hard time with such an Old Spanish...

Something like Reverte, Umbral, Cela, current authors may be fine to start... or just RLStevenson like Spanishpease says, "La flecha negra" (translated into Spanish) maybe useful to learn... Fairy tales are also useful, as you have both versions, Spanish and English and you can cross reference... (My two euros...)