Muhammad's dialect.

I was cc'd on this email by a work colleague:

Fontella Jones,

We have left messages for 2 of these girl’s parents and tried to talk to parents of the other. Neither parent spoke much English (not Spanish speaking) so we did the best we could but did not get far. We are trying to figure our a way to communicate with these families but no promises….Spanish we can do but these appear to be an African/Muhammed dialect so wish us luck…

- Astronaut Mike Dexter

I, in fact, was the one who made the attempt to communicate with the families mentioned here. And I can say with near-certainty that the man I talked to was actually speaking King Henry VIII dialect, with possibly a mix of a few John Wycliffe dialect words and phrases. These are dialects with which I am well accustomed. But he had the accent of a speaker of Muhammad dialect, to which my ear is not attuned. He could not understand me because I was speaking Joseph Smith dialect with a Prince Vladimir I inflection that I picked up from my time in Ukraine. Knowing the gentleman was from Northern Africa, I tried to channel what I had picked up in Johannesburg listening to the South African John Wesley dialect, but this strategy was hampered by colloquialisms that don't transcend the region. It was more confusing than trying to communicate with my Siddhartha Guatama-speaking friends in middle school. Needless to say, my colleague's assessment is accurate: we did the best we could, but did not get far.