Ax for ask was widespread in America and still heard. It has been a long time since axi and axen were in common use- still common in the 16th century, when the first colonists came. It must have persisted in the dialect of immigrants from the British Isles, long after it disappeared in the written word. Skakespeare, Johnson, and the other playwrights adopted ask, probably as a result of the dictionaries of Randall Cotgrave and others. The old variation ast also is still heard in some areas.

Personally, I deplore the loss of dialect. A mature and literate people should be able to accept the dialects of their forefathers.

It has been pointed out that words which rhyme in dialect may not when sanitization is attempted, and temporal meanings are distorted. This is true of English, Scots, and other dialects as well as African-American.
Or should we sing For old times sake rather than For Auld Lang Syne?