I don’t understand why this is considered US-centric. It’s not like anybody is making it illegal or oppressed to develop speech models in your local area.
Local hobbiests tend not to have then as the default for phones, and pc software.
The fact that the US companies can't even get their voice recognition to follow other US accents but still think that they're ready for global rollout.
You're right in that we should encourage non-Yankspeak English search engines. It would be a good way to attempt to stymie the loss of our own culture.
I went to Greenville, South Carolina to view the eclipse in 2017.
Watched it from the Greenville zoo.
There was a guy there, standing in line at the concession stand, talking on the phone to another person.
He kept telling the other person, in his native tongue, that he was in the "Food Line". After like 10 times repeating himself he burst out laughing "nah! Not the food Li-unn, the food LINE!"
Food Lion, for those readers who are unaware, is a regional grocery chain.
The zoo was an awesome place to view an eclipse, btw. Animals were going nuts. There were students there documenting their reaction with go-pros on many exhibits. But I'll never forget that guy.
2024 Eclipse we saw from the Perot Museum in Dallas. Also an awesome experience. They had live music and scientist commentary, and after the eclipse they played "Here comes the sun" and it was just perfect.
My first language is English and some accents/dialects are very difficult. Certain Indian speakers, Scottish speakers, Newfies, and West Virginians (which has a lot of Scots and Irish roots) can take me some time to acclimate to.
I'm a native speaker and have absolutely no issue whatsoever with Australian and British accents, but people with a heavy Indian accent still sound like they're not speaking English to me.
Some years ago when We were visiting my dad in Mississippi, my husband (Canadian) and I ,(American who moved to Canada) went to dinner and I had make the order because he just couldn't get a handle on the deep southern accent hahaha