Quote Originally Posted by davedove View Post
I do think that accents will lessen as the years pass. With mass communications and greater travel, people will be exposed to other accents more and will naturally begin to blend together into a single form. The world is losing its isolated populations.

Those accents took a long time to develop; they will take a long time to blend.
Doubtful. On the PBS show about the English language, a study of a person from Detroit and a person from Phila over a period of 25 or 30 yrs showed inchoate indications of the development of two separate languages. And this was done in the late 20th century.