Vanishing Alaskan languages

Some American languages are endangered-- not English, but the languages of indigenous people of Alaska are threatened.

Krauss suggests the erosion of Native languages could be due to television, which is mostly English and ubiquitous in villages nowadays, and "the likely lethal effect of the 'No Child Left Behind' (federal school mandate), requiring proof of proficiency in English but not Native language."

But he also says that Yup'ik and Inupiaq are being retained at rates much higher than the Aleut and Indian languages. Yup'ik is particularly strong, he writes, accounting for "fully 93 percent of those who speak an Alaskan Native language."

Bostonians take class to sound classy

NPR reports on a class available in Boston to help locals reduce their accent (link to audio file).

The Boston accent is a sound that's as much a trademark of the city as Fenway Park and Harvard Yard. But some locals are looking to ditch the accent. Michele Norris talks to Billy Baker of The Boston Globe about his story on a class to help Bostonians get rid of their accents.

Six years earlier NPR reported on those distinctive Boston accents.

Pahk the kah in Hahvud yahd... Say what? To celebrate the launch of Day to Day on Boston member station WBUR, NPR's Mike Pesca reports on the nuances of Bostonian accents

What flavor of American English do you speak?

An online quiz purports to determine your regional accent in 13 questions, like this:

Our next word is "horrible." How does that first vowel sound?