> [mailto:CONLANG@listserv.brown.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Kershaw
> I agree. This conversation also largely appears to assume
> that English is a single, coherent language that will
> continue to be so, despite the continued existence and
> formation of dialects. My wife has genuine trouble
> understanding people from south of the Mason-Dixon line, for
> instance, while I have difficult understanding my black
> (Detroiter) neighbors. I've even seen British programming (on
> BBC America, for instance) subtitled for Americans even
> though the people on the show are speaking English.
Let's not forget those unintelligible call centers in India that we now have
to suffer with, but that's just the situation today. Global media will
promote a new de facto standard over time and that should help convergence.
There will always be local dialects but globalization will cause massive
shifts in populations forcing them to intermix with each other like never
before.