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Has anyone wondered how come the Upper Midwest accent (MN/ rural WI) (even North Dakota included) has more Canadian-sounding (though different & more nasal) tendencies than in the Pacific NW?
The Pacific NW is a mild nondescript accent but it certainly doesn't sound Canadian.
Accents are just so interesting that way, that they can change within a few hours drive.
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The Pacific NW has a LOT of transplants, many of which are from the SW, which is mostly accentless. I want to say some of the locals in the NW who have been there for multiple generations can and do sound more "Northern" though.
From living in Portland and travelling to Seattle and Vancouver pretty regularly, I'd say that in some ways the regional accents are kind of similar. Considering while you do occasionally hear a more pronounced Canadian accent in Vancouver, the inflection and pronounciation of certain words is somewhat mild in Vancouver compared to other parts of Canada. I've met people from Vancouver, and comparing their accent to a native of Oregon isn't all that different in some regards...although you can pick out certain things. But really all 3 major cities of the PacNW are so diluted with transplants that the regional accents aren't as noticable as say North Dakota and Manitoba might be...
The Upper Midwest is simply older and back in the day lots of people moved from that area to Canada and back willy nilly without interjection. Lots of intermingling occurred, hence the accent similarities. I find Oregonian accents slightly southern or at least Southwestern-like such AZ or NM.
The upper Midwest was settled heavily by Scandinavians and Germans. That's where the accent comes from. Canadian accents are something else.
Many folks from the upper Midwest exhibit Canadian raising when they speak. What can you attribute that to then? The way the US-Canadian border functioned 100-150 years ago was completely different than it does today. You can compare it to state borders of today if it helps you understand it easier. People were pretty much free to move wherever they wished to.
Many folks from the upper Midwest exhibit Canadian raising when they speak. What can you attribute that to then?
This comes from Swedish, the accents in Minnesota and North Dakota are generally Scandinavian/Germanic in origin. If go up to the Iron Range you will notice that people with really strong accents sound nordic rather than Canadian, unless they are Native American, in which case they do sound Canadian. The Iron Range and northeastern Minnesota in general has the highest concentration of Swedish Americans in the US and it is also where the Minnesota accent is thickest. Part of the problem is that the people in movies like Fargo aren't from here and they don't quite have the accent right.
I have a friend from Hibbing, MN who has a strong accent; when she moved to LA people sometimes complimented her on her English because they didn't realize it was her native language, the Swedish really comes out in the way she talks, her vowels are more rounded than in the Canadian accent.
I think to most people from Minnesota the Canadian accent sounds noticeably different than the one here, they are similar but not the same.
Last edited by Drewcifer; 05-04-2011 at 08:03 PM..
Interesting question but couldn't it ever be that the pacific northwest accent influence part of Canada, specifically Vancouver. Most of Canadas population is east on Vancouver, specifically in Ontario.
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