True (mostly) also of English today. It took me weeks to understand more than three fourths of what my Irish in-laws were saying. My limited exposure to English cockney indicates it was incomprehensible to me. African-American dialects in America are often intentionally obscure. And if you want me whip out my east Texas dialect, the non-Americans on the list will probably understand little.
Nonetheless, you still understood what I just wrote. The only big difference I see with Peter's statement about Arabic is that English is decent at symbolizing dialects. Not great, because of its limited notations for vowel sounds (Boston a vs. Texas a, for example), but decent.
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