[Tupelo]

While we are losing our regional accents, we are not losing our national idioms, we are adding others.
The reason for both is mass instant worldwide communications.
At the current rate of change, a 100 years from now English will be the official language of the entire world. Just as it is now in aircraft communication and business.
By then American English with it's addition of words from every language on earth including American Indian Tribal dialects will be part of every language on earth.
So instead of complaining, I am just going to sit back and watch. or listen. As one who hated English and other languages in school, I now find it fascinating.

[Hawthorn]

>> we are losing our regional accents <<

And I consider it a real shame. When I drive the Interstates across the South, from Virginia and the Carolinas down to Alabama and Mississippi, I now notice that the teenaged waitresses at IHOP and Cracker Barrel all use “Valley Girl speak,” pretty much identical to Britney Spears. Ugh!

[Vanders9]

But the English themselves have been adding words to the language for centuries - that is one of the side effects of colonialism. There are lots of imported words from arabic, urdu, hindi, spanish and dutch. There is a huge number from French. Most of what were known in Britain as “americanisms” (like “sure” for example) were in fact perfectly proper English words that had gone out of use in Britain itself. That’s interesting, as it means that the language is developing faster in Britain than it is in America, which is rather odd, as you would think it would be the other way round.