YoreGuess: Guess the Year

Five sentences a day, each one really written in the year it says: a whaling log, a Restoration comedy, a Victorian etiquette book, a sailor's letter. Read it, feel its age, and slide to the year. You are scored in years off, never right or wrong, so every guess counts and a near miss feels like one.

YoreGuess is a free daily game from the days of yore, for anyone who likes history quizzes, word games and old books. No account, no ads, no timers. One daily forever, a streak that grows with you, and a share that shows how it went as a row of squares and your years off, without giving a single sentence away.

GUESS THE YEAR

Today's five sentences from the English archive, 1600 to 1930. Guess the year of each on the slider; the true year lands on the timeline, your years off tumble up, and the reveal tells you where the sentence came from and which word it was recorded for. Five more, as many times as you like: the same game with nothing riding on it.

GUESS THE OLDER

Two sentences: which was written first? The gap between them closes every round until you miss, and your result is how fine your ear is: "you can tell apart sentences 22 years apart." Endless practice pairs, free.

ONLINE DUEL

Send a friend a link to your room, or take the next player waiting: the same sentences on both phones, the closer guess wins the round, and every match earns XP.

5686 sentences, from 1600 to 1930, every one in the public domain. 400 dailies already dealt.

MORE GAME, IF YOU WANT IT

The daily, both practice modes and the duel are free, forever, and so are the last 7 dailies in the archive. One purchase unlocks every earlier daily and every themed pack, now and later:
• Shakespeare & Company
• Sailors & Whalers
• Slang Through the Ages
• The King James Verses

Or take the packs one at a time.

A daily puzzle for readers: part history quiz, part word game, part trivia about how English used to sound. The sentences, their years and their sources come from the quotations gathered by the volunteers of the English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0). Thank you, Wiktionary.