Would sound shifts be severe enough for two dialects to be mutually unintelligible after 400 years of no verbal contact?

A group of English-speaking settlers travel to the Earth-like exoplanet of Rataan, which is 5 light years away. They board the generation ship Genesis that will reach Rataan in 200 years (0.25% of the speed of light). However, transmissions between Genesis and Earth are limited to text-only communications because of power costs. A new ship is built 150 years after reaching Rataan and reaches Earth in 50 years. Although the written form of English will likely remain the same over the 400 intermediate years, will sound shifts impair communication when the delegates from Rataan reach Earth 400 years later?

posted over 4 years ago

galactic_analyzer‭

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