I’m watching the movie Fargo set in Minnesota and I’m struck by the really weird accent that everyone seems to have - it’s really nasal and whiney. Whenever anyone says “Yeah” it comes out “Ya-ah”.
Having never been to that part of the states, I wondered if that’s how people really talk there. Can anyone verify?
A few of them do, it’s a rural thing from swedish/norwegian/other scandinavian immigrant ancestry. They don’t talk like that in Minneapolis. I work oever the phone with a lot of people in that area, and the impression i get is that accent is a ‘dumb hick’ stereotype. More often I hear a subtle version of the Bob & Doug McKenzie accent (MinneSOO-tah), like the way Jesse Ventura talks. Almost like Will Sasso’s parody of Jesse Ventura.
Having lived up in Minot, ND for awhile, I can say that those around Grand Forks and Fargo don’t have it so much as the northern Minnesotans (like Brainerd or Duluth – “Duloot”).
Tripler
That’s just my observation.
Psyah, you betcha, eh!
There’s various forms of that accent all the way from northern Minnesota through Michigan’s UP. I have cousins whose accent is just as strong as the ones in Fargo. BMax is correct in that not everyone has an accent like that, but it’s really not all that hard to find it if you’re in a small town in the area.
[unrelated hijack]In Utah, you’ll hear “you betcha” a lot too. There are a lot of local Nielsens, Swensens, Larsens, Paulsens, Sorensens, Gerritsens, Hansens, Jensens, Petersens, Christiansens, Christensens, and other scandinavian names from the second wave of mormon migration into Utah.[/unrelated hijack]
Yes, and no. Depending on the person, the age, the locality, it can be that thick. It can also be hardly noticeable, but certain key words can give us away.
Boat, yah, eh, ‘dere, nort’, 'dem, 'dese.
Get me around a bunch of retired farmers, and I can get pretty thick. You betcha isn’t that common, though.
I have a good friend who lived here in Wisconsin for the first 30 years of his life before moving to the Motley, MN area (about 20 miles from Brainerd). The first thing he noticed was people talked like that. And the first thing his new friends noticed was how he talked.
Bob and Doug McKenzie were Canadians, as were the actors playing them. (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas.)
Which isn’t to say there wouldn’t be similarities between a rural Minnesota accent and a rural Ontario one.
It’s like asking “do the people in Arkansas really speak like that?” The answer is that the older and more rural the speaker, the more it sounds like the cliche’.
Urbanization is the great cultural leveler. Thanks to BBCA, when I have occasion to be disparaging of the French, I find myself muttering “bloody frogs”. 
Thanks everyone - I’m not surprised that it turns out to be more of a rural thing, most regional dialects in the UK are also stronger in the sticks and with the older generations.
Not only do they speak like that in Minnesota, they also do in North Dakota (or at least in the area where my relatives come from). The odd thing is I never really noticed it until I saw Fargo.
The woman that works on the other side of the wall from my cube has the accent. Not as strong as in Fargo, but definitely there. I don’t hear it that often here, but I’m mostly around urban folks and most of us are transplants from other states.
I suggest you consult the definitive work on the subject: How to Talk Minnesotan