North American English Dialect Map

[#10 Shirt]

Nice map...lots of info there.

I'll keep my comments related to the area I know most, MN/WI/the Dakotas:

1] - He's correct to point out the difference between the southern part of MN (including the Twin Cities) and the northern part of the state. The Twin Cities area accent is much more nasal than northern MN. Our favorite sport, hockey sounds more like "hackey" in the TC (closer to what those in WI say). The same word is closer to "awe-key" in the north (closer to the Canadian way of saying it).

2] - I'd like to see a further breakdown of the "North Central" region. Minnesota's Iron Range and Michigan's U.P. have accents that are different from the rest of the region. No way in hell anyone in Chisholm, Hibbing, or Virginia, MN sounds like someone from west Central SoDak or Valentine, Nebraska.

The Iron Range dialect of MN is a documented and studied dialect. As is the case with other distinct dialects, it's much more common and pronounced with the older populations.

Some observations from living both on the Iron Range and in the Twin Cities:

"yoos gice" - Pretty common amongst older Iron Rangers, but I've yet to hear it in the Twin Cities.

"eh" - Not at all uncommon on the Range. Rare in the TC unless your amongst Range "ex-pats." My favorite quote from a former neighbor on the Range: "Oh yaa, shillfiddindare priddy sweet, eh." commenting on whether or not a tent for my sister's grad party would actually fit in our back yard.

Other things I've noticed are common to the Iron Range but not in the Twin Cities:

- "hose" is pronounced "hoas"...which is also how the word "house" is said
- "out" is pronounced "oat"
- "about" is pronounced "aboat"
- "south" is pronounced "soath" or even "soat"
- "right" is pronounced "rate"
- "buzz" is pronounced "buss"
- "there" is "dare"
- "three" is "tree"
- "thing" is "ting" or even "tink"

Some recordings of Iron Rangers:
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc1986022.sr25b01
This woman speaks very distinct "Ranger." This dialect developed out of the mish-mash of languagues spoken on the Iron Range (in the mines) around the turn of the century (mainly Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, Finnish, and Italian). Though this woman is of Serbian descent, she was born and raised in the United States. Regardless of ancestry, this accent/dialect became the one commonly spoken "language" across the Iron Range. You'll hear old Finns, Italians, Serbs and Slovenians all speaking this way...it's great! Hearing it makes me homesick.

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc1986022.sr25b02
Another good example of my native language.

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/afc1986022.sr45b01
This guy's great too. Sounds just like my uncle. The woman interviewing him has a great accent as well.

...music to my ears.

[SuburbanNation]

Western accents...

Watching dirty jobs set in a locomotive engine rebuilding plant in Boise, the working guys had what sounded like a Dakota accent mixed with say a Kansas twang. Now, I understand one or more could be transplants.

Just wondering how much of a mountain west blue collar accent there is.

[Mister F]

Originally Posted by Blitz

Lumping basically all of populated English Canada into one or two dialects is way off. People from the Canadian Prairies have a distinctly different accent than people from Ontario. In fact, there are differences in accents within Ontario itself.

Originally Posted by brannelford

Could you elaborate please? I was born and raised on the Canadian Prairies.
I've lived in Toronto for 10 years, and not once has any Torontonian called out that I had a different sounding accent.

There are some differences but they're so minor that hardly anyone notices. I didn't notice any differences at all when I was out west, or in other parts of Ontario for that matter. We all speak pretty much the same way.