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I certainly don’t know how familiar you may be with Minneapolis, so I can’t attest to what kinds of accents you may have heard if you’ve ever been here. However, I would caution people not to take pop-culture impressions of any city too seriously.
“Fargo” was a fun movie, but there are two things to remember about that particular accent. Firstly, it is a deliberate exaggeration—that’s part of the satire! Secondly, to the extent that the accent does exist, it is largely an accent derived from a pidgin used by Scandinavian settlers in the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries, and heard today primarily in rural parts of Northwestern Minnesota and Eastern North Dakota.
I was born in Minneapolis, and I’ve lived here most of my life. In all of that time, ironic humor aside, I’ve only known one person who spoke with that accent, and he was a farmer from North Dakota who relocated to the city after his wife died. In Minneapolis (or Saint Paul) you are far more likely to hear East African, Central American, or East Asian accents than you are the infamous “Fargo” accent.
With that said, there are some moderate vowel shifts and a tendency to drop the “g” on the end of words that can be heard in some native-born urban Minnesotans. However, the accent most of us have is far more neutral than many of the caricatures would suggest.
Nope. To your ears they sound neutral but I hear it.
They say awesome like "AHHsum", coffee like "CAHHfee" and dog like "dahhhg". When they say bag it sounds like beg.
Minneapolis people *think* they are accent neutral because they don't do the Norwegian sing song thing. But that is such a small part of Minnesota phonology, phonology that actually is much richer than mere Scandinavian stereotypes. It actually has very heavy Irish influence.
Nice rebuttal ! I mean that. I don't do any of that either. The whole "hard a" thing is clearly New England/Rhode Island. I'm a big Family Guy fan so I know the difference between my Midwestern speech and the heavy, New England accents.
Peter, for example says "saaaaaaahsige," "da Pay-tree-its," and "be-uh." Lois sounds nasal like a few Great Lakes folks but also uses a New England accent. I threw in Family Guy to show you what I mean.
You're right, the Northern cities vowel shift means nothing. There are some, a few people that talk like Peter Griffin but it's not as strong as it is in Rhode Island.
Houston has a lot of people from my region and the great state of California. The transplant theory is right but natives of Houston talk like Tex Ritter or Hank Hill .
The NCVS is most certainly a thing, and it's what you hear in Syracuse, Rochester, NY, Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo and most of Michigan. And a New England accent is a totally different animal here.
Again, born and raised in Chicago, never heard anything like that. As EnchantedEvergreen noted, that kind of accent is distinctly a northeastern accent. When I hear people use those examples (something I myself have never seen exemplified in my years in the midwest) I'm just mystified.
I won't deny that the midwest has accents and regional variations, because of the whole "there is no standard accent" situation. But seriously I've never heard anything like "creashes" outside of the time I lived in NYC.
I pity whatever poor soul has to listen to that, because it sounds irritating beyond measure.
I don't mean for this to be an attack on you But as someone who has spent years and years in Chicago it completely contradicts everything I know when someone tries to attribute the NCVS to my area. I didn't hear that type of speech until I had moved to the Bronx and later, Manhattan.
I'm hard pressed to really note a specific accent to Chicago or the upper midwest, outside of perhaps Minnesota? It's just a very generic sounding accent attributable to many Americans across the board these days.
Maybe you need to pay better attention then, because there is a very distinct accent found in the Chicago area and the upper midwest. The "Fargo" type accent is the one found in the upper midwest. Chicago accents are similar to the NCVS, but not exactly the same. And the NCVS isn't found in New England, it's found in the cities mentioned in my previous response.
Nope. To your ears they sound neutral but I hear it.
They say awesome like "AHHsum", coffee like "CAHHfee" and dog like "dahhhg". When they say bag it sounds like beg.
Minneapolis people *think* they are accent neutral because they don't do the Norwegian sing song thing. But that is such a small part of Minnesota phonology, phonology that actually is much richer than mere Scandinavian stereotypes. It actually has very heavy Irish influence.
Actually, there is very little Irish influence on Minnesota phonology, assuming one wants to argue that Minnesota has a separate and distinct phonology. Historically, in Minnesota, Irish settlers were very limited both geographically and culturally, and any linguistic remnants of that Irish influence was subsumed by the more dominant Scandinavian influences decades ago.
Undoubtedly, to a certain degree, we all lack some awareness of our accents. Directly after having lived in Boston for a year and having returned to Minneapolis, I had a complete stranger suggest to me that I had a “Boston” accent. I assume I had unconsciously picked it up by virtue of interacting with Bostonians over the previous year.
There is certainly an accent to be heard in Minneapolis, it just isn’t the so-called “Fargo” accent that many people outside of the city often stereotypically attach. As is often the case, accents found in large cities generally differ substantially from those in surrounding rural areas. For example, I found a distinct difference between the accent in Boston and the accents I found in non-urban areas of Western Massachusetts.
Actually, there is very little Irish influence on Minnesota phonology, assuming one wants to argue that Minnesota has a separate and distinct phonology. Historically, in Minnesota, Irish settlers were very limited both geographically and culturally, and any linguistic remnants of that Irish influence was subsumed by the more dominant Scandinavian influences decades ago.
Undoubtedly, to a certain degree, we all lack some awareness of our accents. Directly after having lived in Boston for a year and having returned to Minneapolis, I had a complete stranger suggest to me that I had a “Boston” accent. I assume I had unconsciously picked it up by virtue of interacting with Bostonians over the previous year.
There is certainly an accent to be heard in Minneapolis, it just isn’t the so-called “Fargo” accent that many people outside of the city often stereotypically attach. As is often the case, accents found in large cities generally differ substantially from those in surrounding rural areas. For example, I found a distinct difference between the accent in Boston and the accents I found in non-urban areas of Western Massachusetts.
Yeah except you are actually wrong. The Irish absolutely had am effect on Minnesota phonology and this is evident on many of their vowel sounds including their short and long O as well as their diphthongization of words like "face" to "fehs" and also their raising of certain vowel sounds in words like "about" which is also heard in Canada and has a likely Scottish origin as well.
Anyway, Boston and Minnesota would share similarities as many of their vowel sounds are shared except their short O sounds where Minnesota says those with an open mouth. Also Bostonians don't say beg for bag.
Minnesotans don't need Fargo accents to sound Minnesotan. Saying wok the dahg is enough lol
Maybe you need to pay better attention then, because there is a very distinct accent found in the Chicago area and the upper midwest. The "Fargo" type accent is the one found in the upper midwest. Chicago accents are similar to the NCVS, but not exactly the same. And the NCVS isn't found in New England, it's found in the cities mentioned in my previous response.
If he can't hear people in Chicago say "creashes" them he is deaf because it is THE distinctive feature of Chicago speech.
Yes short A tensing is also present in New York and slightly in Boston. But Chicago has it to a much greater level. Other cities outside of the Great Lakes that have it are Philly, Baltimore, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. But they don't tense short A in all environments.
Also another feature of Chicago accents is the near closed mouth pronunciation of the short U. Words like bus, cut, up, love, what, and come are said with a vowel similar to that of Hiberno English. This makes bus sound like the RP "boss". This obviously has an Irish tinge which makes sense the Irish have been the most influential ethnic group of Chicago, arguably AND the accent is always at its strongest in the heavily Irish South Side neighborhoods. Another heavy Irish feature of the accent is th-stopping where words like three, through, and this sound like tree, true, and diss. I think if one ethnic group affected Chicago speech most *recently* it was the Irish. It can be said the Chicago accent is Irish but that would be inaccurate because the English influence is very strong as well.
It is believed that the shifting of short U to a more closed mouth pronunciation and the short O with an OPEN mouth pronunciation (cot sounds like cat like the Irish pronunciations) is actually what began NCVS. As the Irish have been very prominent in the Great Lakes, this would make sense that their native pronunciation would create the environment where this could be possible.
Edit: another prominent Irish English feature of Chicago's accent is the vowel in words like barn, car, and start. This again is not surprisingly at its strongest on the South Side in the heavy Irish areas.
Yeah except you are actually wrong. The Irish absolutely had am effect on Minnesota phonology and this is evident on many of their vowel sounds including their short and long O as well as their diphthongization of words like "face" to "fehs" and also their raising of certain vowel sounds in words like "about" which is also heard in Canada and has a likely Scottish origin as well.
Anyway, Boston and Minnesota would share similarities as many of their vowel sounds are shared except their short O sounds where Minnesota says those with an open mouth. Also Bostonians don't say beg for bag.
Minnesotans don't need Fargo accents to sound Minnesotan. Saying wok the dahg is enough lol
We’ll have to stand in disagreement about the relative influences of Irish vs. Scandinavian linguistic tendencies on accents in contemporary Minnesota and/or Minneapolis.
However, I would reiterate that there is a difference between the accents one is likely to hear in Minneapolis (the subject of discussion to which I was replying), and accents in other parts of the state of Minnesota.
We’ll have to stand in disagreement about the relative influences of Irish vs. Scandinavian linguistic tendencies on accents in contemporary Minnesota and/or Minneapolis.
However, I would reiterate that there is a difference between the accents one is likely to hear in Minneapolis (the subject of discussion to which I was replying), and accents in other parts of the state of Minnesota.
Minneapolis accents seem to have less Norwegian influence and less diphthongization of long A (which is heard further North and at least has Irish counterparts).
And while Minnesota is caught-cot merged like most of the Heartland, the vowel used in this merger is a more open sound tending to "ä" as opposed to the General American "a" which is less open. So this makes a Minnesotan pronunciation of dog sound more like dag or at least closer to it where the sound loves further from an O and to an A. Not fully a short A (which is IPA marked as "æ"). That doesn't occur in any English dialect that I am aware of.
Minnesota does follow General American pronunciation rules, it just happens to shift vowels in a very Northern fashion. Short A then is merged with short E (bag rhymes with beg) and sometimes even Long A is merged with short E (vague rhymes with beg). These may not happen to as great degree in Minneapolis but the first one (bag = beg) I have heard and sometimes in an open environment like bagel pronounced "beggel" as well.
Minneapolis people would stick out in most of the Midwest. The reason I know this is because many of them hear typical Midwesterners and then by their perception everyone has a Southern accent. They also have 0 degree of long O fronting as well and they still pronounce it closer to the "o" monophthong where most of the Midwest says it closer to "ɵʊ". Minnesotans would never call a phone a "faown" or a "fewn". They (Minnesotans) also do not front vowels in words like mouth. The Midwest uses the open sound "æʊ" so a word like South sounds like "Sayouth" which would never be heard in Minneapolis.
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 09-10-2017 at 01:04 PM..
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! I mean that. I don't do any of that either. The whole "hard a" thing is clearly New England/Rhode Island. I'm a big Family Guy fan so I know the difference between my Midwestern speech and the heavy, New England accents. 
.
But as someone who has spent years and years in Chicago it completely contradicts everything I know when someone tries to attribute the NCVS to my area. I didn't hear that type of speech until I had moved to the Bronx and later, Manhattan. 
