Some of an Irishman's observations on the English and their speech, translated into verse by a couple of Americans as it so happens.

http://www.guntheranderson.com/v/data/whycantt.htm

And I will say again, most of those variants remarked upon by George Bernard Shaw approximately 100 years ago are alive and well, even in the West Country, if I believe the evidence of my own ears.

As to whether Pygmalion is more accessible in its original, or passing to and fro across the Atlantic so that I first heard it in the voices of Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews rather than Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller I know not. I suspect that My Fair Lady did make my later study of the original play easier. Best bit of English "homework" I ever got was "go home and watch the 1938 film on TV tonight" though!