[johnzb]

> There is no other language, for example, that is close enough to English that we can get about half of what people are saying without training and the rest with only modest effort. German and Dutch are like that, as are Spanish and Portuguese, or Thai and Lao

Only because we've arbitrarily decided that all of the English dialects are a single language. Texas Southern English and Newfoundland English are not significantly more mutually intelligible than Spanish and Portuguese. Scots and Singlish are considered English dialects but are barely intelligible to many English speakers.