English settlement and beyond - because I love history but suck at foreign languages...
I’m not even sure today’s historians feel such a burden, but I believe if you can’t read the language you can’t do research that leads to a legitimate understanding of history.
I agree. I maintain(as a discussion point) that when my time machine is perfected a trip back to 1770 would be difficult due to the inability to communicate effectively with the founding fathers. I think the spoken word was very different even 250 years ago.