Why is it that some people can't pronounce the word ASK correctly?

Question

By no means am I trying to sound condescending, mean, rude or God forbid (gulp) racist, but I have wondered about this for a very, very long time. Why is it that some people cannot properly pronounce the word ASK. I have noticed that many African Americans don't say ASK. They pronounce it like the word AXE. Is there a reason behind this? I've often wondered but have never heard of a plausible answer before.

Answer 1

its the same as "actually" often accents or slack pronunciation causes bad habits in pronouncing words. i read somewhere (cant cite sorry) that the food you eat can sometimes influence how you pronunciate things by not keeping your tongue muscle exercised.

Answer 2

There seems to be 5 versions of pronouncing 'ask', around the world:

esk, arsk, ars, axe and aze.

You have to excuse non-natives of the English Language for pronouncing many other words 'wrongly' or differently, too. This is due to the different phonetics of their languages, and the absence of certain vowel and consonant sounds. Many cant pronounce words ending in b,c,d,f,g,k,l,p,s, t,and z. Thats how languages and dialects go, cant help it. There are more than 2000, i think.   :-))