[mobertol]

My best friend has been living on the outskirts of Belfast for the last 12 years -she is from Accy, passed through Brussels for 12 years where she spoke mainly French but can do a fantastic "Norn Ir'n" accent -I can't understand a word of it but it doesn't bug me.

Tower of Babel at work within our one United Kingdom -imagine how it is across the whole world.

As a side-note I watched an excellent film (Il Vento Fa Il Suo Giro - The Wind Blows Around) last week in "Occitane" - the old Lingue D'Oc of Southern France, a dialect which is still alive in certain Alpine valleys in Italy. Having lived in Piedmont for 8 years, near Turin, I can understand Piemontese -which is practically a different language to Italian. This combined with my Italian and French means I can follow about 90% of Occitane.

Before i learned Italian I learned to speak and understand the dialect of Pavia (Pavese) which is what my new Italian family spoke (Italian came later through watching RAI, the equivalent of the BBC in Italy). I can also understand a wide range of different Italian dialects although i can't speak them like Pavese or Piemontese .

Even though American English is now permeating most English speaking and European countries - the diversity and local identity which a dialect gives will hopefully persist a little longer but slowly and surely they will die out which is a great shame.