Mutual Comprehensibility of Middle West Low Germanic

[Philip Rusche]

I have never heard that Kentish was particularly conservative.  It might
have been more conservative grammatically than northern dialects, but its
vowel system went through a number of changes in the OE period and in the ME
period it tended to voice its fricatives (at least /f/ and /s/) initially.

Whether this would make it mutually intelligible with Middle Dutch or not, I
do not know, but I wouldn't think they would be and have never seen any
evidence that says they were.  Most of the Middle Dutch I have worked with
though has been from 14th- and 15th-century manuscripts and this might be
later than you are thinking of.

Philip Rusche

> It is my vague impression that Middle English, esp. Kentish, which
> is very conservative, would have been mutually comprehensible with Middle
> Dutch.  Any opinions?

>                                                          Dr. David L. White