If you want a reason to learn archaic English words,
try reading "Moonwise", by Greer Ilene Gilman (usually found
in the fantasy/SF section).  Here's a typical excerpt:

   He came upon a thorn hedge, bright with haws.  No 
gate.  A lalling from within, of birds.  Wrens, dunnocks,
thranging to the bitter sloes, and whirring, knapping at
the haws.  Among them all, he heard a low voice singing,
like a mother to her bairn, a lass at her work.  He'd not
heard rimes afore, he thought: but tune were as awd as
Cloud.  He bent to see.
   Caught in the thorn-hedge, torn and unaware, he
gazed at the dark lass in the orchard, combing flax among
her goats.  Leaves plashed her hair, her apron, red
as heart's blood, unbaneful.  Leaves lay bright on the 
sward about her.  She was as low and earthborn as a wind-
bent tree, as wild and black as sloe....

3 responses total.

  Oops!  That should be "linguist's". I hit
cr too quickly.

   BTW, I needed an Oxford English Dictionary to
look up words from this novel. The ordinary 
Websters does not have most of the unusual words.
Some of them are impossible to figure out from
context, too.

That reads - and sounds - quite nice. Some of those words
ought to be brought back into popular use, imo.

how lovely! I'll have to look for it.  Do you like the work of Mary Webb?

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