I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities.

This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.

We focus upon pairs of words very often which are the same in some areas and different in other areas.

I grew up in New York City, and both my parents worked. On weekends, we'd go out to the country, and on Sunday nights we'd come back. Sometimes we were a little cranky - it was a long drive. But we could always look forward to one thing: my mother's ziti and meat sauce.

It's rare for the studios to find a filmmaker who wants to make a family film. To find someone that has an idea, embraces it, has kids and wants to make something exciting - well, they don't see that too often.

I hope that more children have the same opportunities as me, with the same parents as me, that let me be an individual, who gave me freedom, and taught me to believe in myself before anyone else would believe in me.

My parents had a normal life in Russia and they could have easily kept living a normal life, working and raising a child in Russia.