[wizardoz]

These students are sort of re-inventing the wheel, linguistically. There was a study done in Chelsea, Michigan back in the 1980s that showed already that those with the strongest accents have the most positive attitude toward their home. Kind of common sense stuff anyway, really. Oh well, gotta write a thesis on something, ah s'pose.

[Wisconsin]

30 years ago I worked running a mobile navigational radio station in locations all over the south.

I was born in South Carolina, my mother's family is from North Carolina, My father's from Memphis.I had little trouble with accents.

Then I had a location near Plain Dealing, Louisiana, just across the river from Texas. Predominantly a poor rural black population, I could not understand what they said, nor they, me. I had to have a translator -- the daughter of a black minister/famer who had worked in Los Angeles.

It was a strange experience. I have always wanted to see a linquistic study the area and to tell me the origin of the local dialect. I suspect it may have been an African language. It did not seem to be the creole one associates with Louisiana.