Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-31926729-20170607135131/@comment-25375217-20170607182021

It's worth noting that, even if something were to be too outlandish, people speaking "fictional" languages isn't unheard of; Klingon from Star Trek comes to mind. The idea of OUaT is that all of the stories we know were based on actual events, meaning there are people who have heard the story of Snow White and Prince Charming but don't know they're living in Storybrooke. Perhaps in this alternate universe where Hamilton premiered months too soon, ancient languages from fairy tales are popular.

Furthermore, it's made fairly clear that they've been working on this for some time (six weeks) and Hook is incredibly stressed out about it; though Belle is a calmer person by nature, it's still likely that this was her last resort and even though she didn't believe it would work, she was willing to try because nothing else is working, either.