[Wikipedia-l] Re: Conference report from South Africa

[Tony Sidaway]

Andy Rabagliati said:
>
> I assure you, this problem is very real. Have you travelled to the
> North of England ? You may be suprised - sometimes you will have
> /absolutely no idea/ what they are talking about.

The dialects of English are deeply entrenched; in other nations dialects
as diverse as those of Northumberland, Durham and Wearside might each be
classed as separate languages.  As a child of five, I recall that a
journey of three miles to school took me to the neighborhood of South
Shields, where the vernacular had its own words and pronunciations quite
distinct from those of the Whitburn area which tended towards the
Sunderland dialect.  I was literally a foreigner.