Is preserving languages a good thing?

[arewethereyet]

The english of today isn't even the same across state lines.... just in the US.  I guarantee that me and my boy can have an entire conversation that would be unintelligible to anyone who doesn't speak type two shift.  A dialect not widely spoken until after WW2.  Mull that over.  Communicating with the grey and wizened southern set is just as difficult for me as communicating with me can be for someone from boston.

We use a separate dialect than our own (still living) grandparents.

Hearing my husband speak after he had a conversation with his southern country grandparents was like listening to a foreign language for me.  It would always take a little while for him to revert back to something closer to the midwestern English I speak.  I still cringe a bit at his grasp on past tense...it's not knowed or growed for god's sake.  I spent a few years trying to correct his grammar until I finally gave up and realized it's just easier to translate in my own head what he is saying.  It's more difficult to control my eyes from rolling out of my head.

The SC speech I hear from him is nothing like what I thought was a standard accent based on the odd lilt spoken by my family from the Outer Banks.  

Language is very different across this country.  Just ask around - is it soda, pop, or CoCola.  Depending on where you are the answer is different.

There's nothing wrong with the differences - there are many differences we need to learn to accept and roll with.  Language is but one of those things.