...on the following description of the Dutch language which I read in the novel THE EMPEROR'S COLOURED COAT by John Biggins? It's the second part of a lively, adventure-filled trilogy, the fictional memoirs of an Austro-Hungarian naval officer before, during and after the First World War.
In one part of the book Otto Prohaska is rescued by a Dutch ship in the Indian Ocean, and when he hears the captain speaking Dutch he describes it thus:
"To the Austrian ear it sounded like someone speaking medieval German while trying to dislodge a fish bone stuck in his throat."
Why particularly "to the Austrian ear?"
I should point out that Prohaska is supposed to be an ethnic Czech, a polyglot who grows up speaking Czech, Polish and Viennese German, who is forced to study Latin for many years, who acquires English at an early age from a British governess, who achieves high-level Italian, as well as some French, at the naval academy, and who learns to speak Serbo-Croatian with a Dalmatian accent while serving on Austro-Hungarian naval vessels.
