I do think I'm missing your point, but it wasn't because I missed your 'unfamiliar' remark so much as it's confusing (how can a manner of speech be universally confusing unless it simply doesn't exist, and presumably you aren't arguing that it doesn't exist while also arguing that it does exist?).

> The point is not that there are different dialects (although there are to an extent, but that's an entirely sperate discussion) It's that English vocabulary can be sorted into these two registers, a common and an academic one, and that this distinction is largely absent in several other European languages.

I don't understand the distinction you're describing in English. You give an example of "coal" and "stuff" and "carbon", but I don't understand why you're arguing that "carbon" belongs to a higher/academic register. Your examples seem to support the inverse of your argument, which is that German (and presumably other languages) has a distinction between a higher and lower register (one could choose between "Carbon" or "Coal-stuff") and English doesn't have this distinction (you must use "carbon" when talking about carbon and "coal" when talking about coal).

> This may be "an altogether different phenomena" to what the author is describing, though that should not stop you buying it. Equivalently, it should not impede your purchase of the concept that English does have some form of "high/low language pairs".

I don't disbelieve the author's premise, but that's not your premise. English doesn't have a single "high dialect" or a single "low dialect", but again, I don't think that's what TFA is talking about with respect to other European languages. Rather, I'm guessing the author is arguing that because Latin was the written language for continental Europe, and because the scribal class was markedly different than the illiterate masses, there was a considerable divergence between formal/written Latin and vulgar Latin which was persisted as vulgar Latin became the Romance languages--indeed, this division has deep historical roots into Latin itself (scribal/educated Latin was different than spoken Latin) and perhaps even earlier. On the other hand, in England, that educated Latin tradition never took root--the English vernacular quickly became the language of literacy hundreds of years before written French, Spanish, Italian etc came into existence (continental scribes were clinging to written Latin). Again, I'm not sure if that's what the author is driving at, but it seems that way to me.