You know what? Now that I think of it my Danish sister in law sounds a bit like that when she speaks English. Her “jas” are not as long and open as those in the movie, but yes, the lilt is there. The characters in the movie, particularly Margie, still sounded more German than Scandinavian to me.
The weather and the accent are most definitely two of the main characters in the movie.
Interesting. I’ve lived in Germany and Germans don’t sound at all like mid-westerners to me when they speak English. I had a Norwegian exchange student friend in college when I was in Minnesota, and his English seemed to fit right in. I’ve always thought Scandinavians had more of the characteristic up and down sing-song to their speech that mid-westerners have.
To elaborate on supervenusfreak’s tales of our trip to Minneapolis, we were talking outside the hotel one night with a fairly drunk Minneapolitan woman. Because we were there for what was basically a gay convention, the talk turned to that. Now, I’m used to the Minnesota accent because I lived there for two years about a decade ago.
The two things I remember most about this woman’s accent were the way she pronounced “fag hag” as “feg heg” and when she was talking about going to a “gee barrr”.
I am not really familiar with Norway, I know Danish and Swedish better (mostly Danish), so it could be a Norwegian accent.
No, we go for the much more direct and to-the-point “you bet”.
I was born and raised in North Dakota and have lived in Minneapolis for 15 years now.
When Fargo came out, I thought…grossly exaggerated even for a ‘rural’ MN accent. I then recorded my voice and listened to it…and, sure enough, there was a MN ‘twang’ to it. Not bad, but there.
In the Twin Cities area, it is pretty muted. There are a few with heavier accents. However, when you go to rural areas, the accent it more pronounced, especially ‘up nort’.
When I visit other places, people say I lose whatever twang I have pretty quick, but I do sound a little Minnesotan at first.
However, I may not really be ‘native’. I grew up in Dickinson, ND which is in the SW part of the state. The poster stating that that part of the state is different is probably correct. Before I moved to MN, I spent some time in Los Angeles and people assumed that I would have an accent, but I didn’t. Several people said I sounded like a native Caifornian.
Couple things that caught me was the previous mention of root sounding like foot. Yup…guilty. Why shouldn’t they sound the same…I mean, c’mon…root…foot.
Also, I didn’t know ‘hotdish’ was a localism. I didn’t find that out until my 20’s.
Yep! I learned that when I lived there. Lutefisk, on the other hand, is not a localism. It’s a masochistic ritual shared with the Scandahoovian Old Country…I think it’s a Lutheran heresy or something.
My B-I-L went to college in SW MN, and says he can distinguish between a NDak, SDak, and MN accent.
the rhythym is what makes it really easy to fall into.
first you pick up the rhythym, then the vowels. blond is not far behind.
down in neb. we would joke that minn. was a “different shade of blond” norweg. vs danish.
Heck, I’m from Chicago and those two words rhyme for me. “Roof” also contains the same vowel sound in my pronunciation.
I grew up in central Wisconsin and I always thought of that accent as how old timers talked. Church picnics and such were populated by old folks rattling on and on in that accent. I still suspect there is some Polish influence, because I’ve always thought of that as a Polish accent, probably because most of the old people I knew were Polish. Feel free to step in and correct me if I’m wrong about the Polish influence in that accent.
I have always been baffled when people (from the South, usually) accuse Wisconsinites of saying “Wiscaaaaaahnsin.” I practiced, with many of my friends, the art of pronouncing the nearly-unpronouncable “Wiscnsin” so people would stop saying that.
A great example of that accent is the song “Da Turdy Point Buck” by Bananas At Large. You get to hear a “rap” in that accent (search for it on YouTube).
One of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard is this one from NPR. I think the Minnesota accent is what pushes it from amusing to laughing-so-hard-your-ribs-will-hurt funny.
I just got back from Up Nort (Motley) where I recently bought a cabin. The guys that were putting up the garage sounded quite Minnesotan.
Also, you know that thing when two guys are standing around talking, never actually facing directly at each other but looking in different directions, and the conversation is over, but they still stand there for a minute until one of them says, “Yah, well…” and the other guy says “Yah, see ya later”, and then the first guy says, “You bet.”? Well, I do that. It’s a Minnesota thing.
The Milwaukee accent is really a plat-deutsch (Low German) accent. It doesn’t have the Scandinavian sing-song of Minnesota accents.
ahem
The UP accent is actually a fair bit different than the “Fargo” accent, and the lower MI accent is different than the UP accent.
The UP accent is the only one in the region (and I daresay, the US) that derives from Finnish, and it comes through not only in the accent but in the grammar. We drop prepositions like in Finnish, and there’s a few other common speech patterns that my un-coffee’d brain can’t come up with right now.
Accent-wise, the older people here have almost a sing-song way of speaking that I’ve never heard anywhere else.
Update.
Our office has a new visitor from Cinci.
I asked him on his second day if people in the office have an accent.
He said, not at all…