John Cowan wrote:
> Jan van Steenbergen scripsit:
>
> > One thing that has never ceased
> > to amaze me is that Polish and Dutch have so many expressions in common
that
> > don't exist in German. I have never really understood how such a
situation
> > could have emerged.
>
> My first guess would be that German had them once but lost them, and that
> they might remain current in German dialects. Dutch and Polish are at the
> extreme ends of the German dialect continuum, after all (particularly if
> you believe the essentialist explanation that Polish is a light form of
> Russian that even Germans can understand :-) ).
>
That's certainly a possibility. The Suspect that leapt immediately to my
mind was: mutual borrowing from French.