Question: Out in the former state of Utah, near where the Old Salt Lake ruins are, a group of scholars and students from the New Jerusalem University are on an exploration mission. They have heard, from an unknown but (maybe) reliable source that an old Fallout Shelter is out there. They search all day until they find it. They ask, or rather force, some slaves to break down the door, and they are able to get in. 

The Fallout Shelter, though littered with skeletons, is full of valuable knowledge from before WWIII. The paper they used in the Old Times was super powerful, and never rotted, at all. Most of the notes the found were just grocery lists and etc. but they do find a blueprint which talks about some machine powered by that mystical force, the “electron” if I remember correctly. 

There is just one problem. The apocalypse was 800 years ago, and since that time New English (The language they speak in the present) is totally different from Modern English. So, what might be a plausible reason for why the college kids could read Modern English?

Answer: 
**Children's books**

If the daily paper is that long lasting (ours isn't). Some books should also survive. If some of those are children's books good guesses about what words mean can be made. If a full children's library was available it should be possible to follow the same steps as learning to read.

**Labeled Goods**

Many products are labeled. If the scientists are good they may be able figure out what had been in the packages and learn names and some other words that way.

**Secondary Translations**

A say Navajo or Chinese dictionary might be linkable to known languages or other archaeological sites' work. The Bible specifically is printed in a large number of languages and reasonably likely to be included in caches and has a prominent symbol (cross) to aid in linking between versions. Even if it becomes heresy it may have significant scientific value.

**They don't need to read**

Seeing a system that only time and not bombs or looting destroyed might give valuable hints. Knowing that water or steam turned big wheels, or that copper was made into wires and often coiled could be a big step towards recreating the technology.
Basic electrical machinery - such as a dynamo, or an electric motor - could easily be described simply through images, schematic diagrams, and other visual means. The scholars would need to experiment with the proper materials\*, but the actual design would be easy to pick up on. Once they have a handle on what those basic machines do and how, that gives them a starting point to translate documentation related to those machines, which is a big leg up when working on other schematics.

\*They might not have to guess if the materials are described *chemically*; I would expect chemical symbols for elements to be pretty stable (no pun intended). They're already short, unambiguous, and half of them are already Latin or Greek, so it's not like they're neologisms that will wear out.