They’ve kidnapped a Frenchman and need to torture him for information–a la Doyle’s The Greek Translator.
If you had spoken French they would have taken you too! Viva la monolingualism!
“What Knalkers!”
“There Knalkers!”
“Why are you talking like that?”
Snipped to highlight parts relevant to my answer…
In my experience, Mormon missionaries (who usually come from far away) only work in pairs, but Jehovah’s Witnesses send around larger groups of “locals” when they go on their door-to-door proselytization quests. My guess is that this was the denomination involved in both Cicero’s and Jenaroph’s cases. As for why the apparently standard "Do you speak (x language)?’ inquiry, it might be the “sense confrontation and wish to back away gracefully” reason carnut mentioned. Or, as BigT suggested, the “knockers” might indeed have had a legitimate need for a speaker of French or Russian – translate a perceived insult, communicate with a prospective convert, or just practice language skills prior to an upcoming trip (perhaps to an international conference dedicated to spreading the word around the world).
I’ve had the same thing, except the language was Spanish. When I said no, they politely left (I was expecting them to prosletize anyway. Maybe they just weren’t too good at English?)
Heh- I thought I was sort of pretty relaxed about it all. These guys seemed to have a pretty fair grasp of English in the limited conversation I had with them.
Carnut is probably right though.
Laina- your post reminded me of an ancient Benny Hill show with a joke about door knockers and they showed a pair of boobs.
Is your last name frenchy? Do you live an area with a fair number of French immigrants? Do you live in an area where it is common to have French as your mother tongue? Perhaps they were wishing to evangelize only to French speakers that day, whatever group they were.
I’d go with out of town visitors to a local JW convention. I think it’s typical that JWs continue their practice of proselytizing even when visiting a country where they don’t speak the language. They just hope to accidentally run into someone they can communicate with and do their regular stuff.
Non, je ne parle pas francais mais je peux dire “I surrender.”
<shut door>
My last name is as mundane as “Smith”. (not my real name). There is more chance of finding a Martian here than a French person.
We do, however, have a heap of Maoris.
Bunnings has humane traps for a couple of dollars. Just make sure you release them well away from your house or they’ll find their way back.
These guys are big enough to hold a bull out to piss.
Such charming idioms … 
All I can say is, if you had answered. “Yes, I speak French”, you would not have lived to write this thread.
They were probably evangelicals of some sort and French is their native language. I had a tiny woman come to my door yesterday and ask if I spoke Spanish. When I replied that I did, expecting her to ask for the former owner of my house, she began her religious spiel in Spanish and tried to hand me her literature. I told her that I did not believe in church and to have a good day.
Should have said you were a follower of Santeria then.
Well, if it’s possibly a JW thing, I can ask some people in my family, next time they’re around, and see if they’ve heard of it.
It would have been more entertaining if you said that you had this eerie feeling about them, and their quiet insistence was unnerving but eerily persuasive. You were about to respond in french, when one of the pair said in that language, “C’mon, mister, we’re not allowed to come in unless you say yes,” and you looked directly into the speaker’s eyes and realized they were totally and entirely black, with no whites at all . . .
Well, today I think it was the JW who turned up. A couple of elderly ladies with “The Watch Tower” and they seemed different in their approach.
They asked if anyone in the schtetl spoke Yiddish?
Just had the exact thing happen to me. Very weird. They then got in to a Jeep Cherokee in front of my house where there was a driver waiting. They took off. It was so weird. I would love to know who they were…