Arch wrote:

: Hi Tom,

: I don't know about the loss of knowledge, but the loss of culture with
: the homogenization of regional speech is a sad loss. I used to be able
: to predict where a person was from by his speech, but with the
: dispersals of WWII and the advent of television we are rapidly losing
: the Southern drawl, the New England Ayeauh, the Boston Paack the Caar.
: The New York Yoose Guys, the Midwestern Flattening, and the Southwestern
: Slurring.
: Each region once had a distinctive and interesting accent. I expect the
: UK would be even more so with Yorkshire, East London and Wales as
: examples.





Don't worry. By the best current estimates, there is more dialect
variation in American English than ever before. Some regional dialects
are becoming moribund or vanishing, but others are springing up
in their place, and most of the famous ones are remaining intact as well.
This has been documented by William Labov, and there's a very interesting
interview with him at NPR.org:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5220090

And there are several video interviews with him at

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...h_type=&aq =f



-- Andy Barss