Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/23/99 10:12:27 PM Mountain Daylight Time,
elwhitaker at ftc-i.net writes:

<< I doubt that two English peasants who lived in geographically distant
locations (and remember most people before 1600 in England would have had to
walk -- *most* of the time -- to get anywhere in England) such as the
northwest and the southeast would have been able to satisfactorily
understand each other's speech. >>

-- Caxton gives an example of a man from East Anglia shipwrecked in Kent
trying to buy eggs, and a farmwife telling him that she spoke no French.
However, that's scarcely a case of incomprehensibility; she understood
everything but the word for "eggs" quite well.

[ Moderator's note:
  Caxton's example was of a merchant, travelling with a group of merchants,
  who upon asking for "eggys" was rebuffed with the innkeep's wife's retort
  that she knew no French, whereupon the merchant became angry because he also
  knew no French.  The argument was settled when another person in the group of
  merchants explained that the first wished for "eyren".
  (This story is well know to letterpress printers; it comes up from time to
  time on the LETPRESS mailing list.)
  --rma ]

Pre-modern English people were surprisingly mobile. Very few people died in
the same village (or parish) they were born in; most moved around a fair bit,
and a substantial percentage of each year's crop of young people spent some
time in London or other towns.  Regional dialects were pronounced, but not so
much so that they couldn't be understood -- albeit sometimes with a fair bit
of trouble.

There could be some exceptions -- a Lallans speaker in Sussex, for instance.