> This is a real problem. If we don't come up with one single correct way to pronounce every single word, English will fork into multiple different languages.

> This is a real problem. If we don't come up with one single correct way to pronounce every single word, English will fork into multiple different languages. It is probably unpreventable. Language change occurs precisely because of insufficient contact/exposure, causing divergence, or allowing it to persist. Dialects with lots of bidirectional exchange tend to shift towards each other. Besides, that ship sailed. English dialects have arisen on multiple continents and are diverging. I speak fairly standard Canadian English and there some dialects I need a fair bit of time to acclimate to when I encounter them. Unless electronic media and social change pulls some wildcard on language acquisition (who knows?) it's quite possible that in a few hundred more years the gap between spoken English on the street in New York and London may be as wide as German and Dutch today.