[robocat]

> My father remembers that they could tell the town of origin of somebody by little variations of accent and vocabulary.

I have seen this in Ireland where upon meeting someone new, one Irish person would guess the other person as coming from a small village (of a few hundred people).

[iandioch]

This is somewhat true, but many of the accents are not as strong anymore.

The Irish language itself is interesting. Before standardisation, I'm told the Irish of the north of the island was more similar to Scots Gaelic than that of the south. Many of the regional dialects have disappeared now though.