Then there's double Dutch, or someone speaking English in a way that cannot be understood. I think this may be because of accents. I used to live in tourist areas, and became accustomed to hearing the tune of voices I heard changing the feel of an area. How can I explain this? I used to walk on to the railway station at Dover, and, without consciously registering why, feel I must be in the States. Or find myself speaking to the station staff in French. And once, in Rye, I walked past a group of obvious tourists, didn't get the space warp, and then did a double take as I realised that not a word was comprehensible. The tune was English, but the words were, I think, Dutch. Something similar was reported by Caxton, where a Sandwich alehouse woman thought an Englishman was Dutch because he used a different dialect word for eggs. This isn't negative, exactly, but a recognition of a difference which is hardly a difference.

With regard to the Scandinavian languages, before the Norman conquest, England was part of the area of mutual comprehension. In the saga of Harald Hardrada, on of his men, Eystein Orre, trying to get reinforcements to Stamford Bridge, accosted a farmer in the feild, fully expecting to be understood.

Penny