geoffreycaveney's Middle English theory

[Koen G]

I would argue, more so than Middle Dutch for a modern Dutch speaker, Middle High German for a modern German speaker, and likewise with French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

This is true, I remember my "history of English" professor at university saying as much. English beame harder to recognize than other Germanic and Romance languages, for a number of reasons. The fact that some originally Germanic words were gradually replaced by Romance alternatives, the Great Vowel Shift...

That is not to say that I can just pick up a Middle Dutch text and understand every word (or get the correct meaning of the words I recognize). But for people who only speak English, it takes objectively more practice to read Middle English. Calling it a foreign language like any other is certainly a bridge too far though. I bet that an English speaker with no experience can still read more Middle English than Finnish