I've often complained about my inability to decipher spoken English from Scotland and Alabama, but if I lived in those places awhile I'd no doubt be able to tune my ear to their way of speaking. I have no problem understanding English as spoken in the Philippines, for example. My name there is "Deb", not Dave.
 
But it got me wondering if I'd be able to communicate with anyone in my language if I fell asleep and woke up 1,000 years later. Fry has no problem in Futurama, but I have a feeling Matt Groening may not be a linguist. I think future English will become more standardized around the world due to global connectedness, the way the BBC developed so-called "mid-Atlantic" speech that sounds neutral to both American and British speakers.
 
As I pursued this line of thinking, I came across this interesting YouTube video that addresses the question "how far back in time could you go and still understand English?".
 

 

¿Que?

I have to say, I like the Queen's English. It makes me nostalgic because nearly everyone used to speak like that on TV when I was a kid. Take this 60's kids show, Mary Mungo and Midge, which I enjoyed as a wee bairn in the 1970's. The little girl in it, despite living at the top of a block of flats, speaks like Her Royal Majesty. There is no way in the world you would ever hear anyone in a British kids's TV show speaking like that now:
 

Love it

I think idocracy got future english correct ?
 
JR

That was quite interesting and quite fascinating!

Thanx Dave! (or should I say "Deb") 

The pronunciation changes over time are a bit of guesswork, but otherwise the video's probably right.

Pronunciation changes between different communities separated by distance are another thing. It's quite possible that the accents of modern rural New England are closer to 17th century English English than modern English English. If that makes sense. We say "Autumn" now but once upon a time said "Fall". The American colonists stuck with Fall while we adopted yet another bit of badly pronounced French to add to what centuries of being ruled by French-speaking nobles and their French hangers-on had already done to Anglo-Saxon. Then there's the Norse influence, the Hindi, Bengali and Urdu words that came from the Empire, bits and pieces from all over the place.

And even English people can have difficulty understanding other English people's accents. Not as extreme as it was before the BBC and radio perhaps, but regional/local accents still vary even over a few miles.

Where will it all end? Who knows, languages change all the time and resisting that change is a waste of time.

tlw
The pronunciation changes over time are a bit of guesswork, but otherwise the video's probably right.

Pronunciation changes between different communities separated by distance are another thing. It's quite possible that the accents of modern rural New England are closer to 17th century English English than modern English English. If that makes sense. We say "Autumn" now but once upon a time said "Fall". The American colonists stuck with Fall while we adopted yet another bit of badly pronounced French to add to what centuries of being ruled by French-speaking nobles and their French hangers-on had already done to Anglo-Saxon. Then there's the Norse influence, the Hindi, Bengali and Urdu words that came from the Empire, bits and pieces from all over the place.

And even English people can have difficulty understanding other English people's accents. Not as extreme as it was before the BBC and radio perhaps, but regional/local accents still vary even over a few miles.

Where will it all end? Who knows, languages change all the time and resisting that change is a waste of time.

Yep and they wrote "color" in Shakespeare's day, not the later French inspired "colour." American English is way closer to ye olde English than English itself. 

Bladerunner.

tlw
the Hindi, Bengali and Urdu words that came from the Empire, bits and pieces from all over the place.

Yes indeed, plenty of those in the equestrian world - gymkhana, jodhpur, and numnah for example.