Talk:North-Central American English/Archive 1

Northern Ohio and Western New York State
The accents in these regions are more similar to that of Chicago than to the accents found in the UP and Wisconsin, mostly due to the Northern Cities Shift. Also, "root" and "roof" most frequently use the vowel in "boot," although there are some speakers who use the sound in "wood." Honestly, I think that another article should be written about the accents of the inland north, and that this article should focus exclusively on north central speech. --68.0.212.218 23:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC) Joe

When one searches 'midwestern accent' why does it go to standard american instead of this?

Foreign language heritage, vocabulary
An anonymous editor has today violated the 3RR rule, without providing justification. The distinctive speech in the region bears influence from and similarity to German. The editor has removed this material. As well, the editor has removed material regarding certain slang.

The person has some confusion about geography. Could the writer explain the points of his/her confusion before making the edits? Perhaps this gets to the point: the region is inland from the two oceans abutting the continental United States. Dogru144 20:06, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The 3RR violating party is again gutting serious material, without logging a coherent (or any, for that matter) justification on this Talk Page. The revert violator is also adding non-sequitor nonsense in the place of serious information.  Lastly, as stated before, the violating party is anonymous. Dogru144 02:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Improper edits: emoticons
The referenced anonymous editor has written emoticons on the article page. Namely, s/he wrote :) on the article page, along with other comments more appropriate for the Talk Page. Dogru144 02:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Features said to be Minnesota-specific occur here in southeastern Wisconsin
The article as it stands states that the use of yah [jaː] are the realization of /ð/ and /θ/ are specific to Minnesota, yet such features are very common here in southeastern Wisconsin, specifically the Milwaukee area. Yah is very, very common even though people usually do not realize that they are using it, conflating it with yeah [jɛæː] or [jɛː] (I have heard people deny that they have said it and use it in the same sentence). In word-initial positions, it is very common to stop or at least affricate /ð/ here, even though it may remain as a dental stop rather than becoming alveolar, and one can hear /θ/ sporadically stopped as [t̪] word-initially or in the word with (especially in the case of with the, which is often pronounced [ˈwɪt̪ːəː]).Travis B. 01:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Bah probably just a bunch of Minnesotans that got kicked out for liking the packers.
 * Not really - a large portion of people here probably have been in Wisconsin or, failing that, the Chicago area since they got off the boat. Also, the features above are just general Germanic substratum features present in much of the Upper Midwest overall, and are actually not limited to Minnesota at all. Travis B. 22:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yah Showers 06:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Current usage of the Dialect
The useage of this dialect if becoming less pronounced in the regions especially among the youth and those living in more populous areas. It may be important to add that this is most commonly spoken by the older and more rural residents. (Information gathered from firsthand observation)


 * At least here in Milwaukee, these features really have not died out even amongst younger individuals (excluding AAVE-speaking populations, as they never had such features to begin with). Younger people still use words like yah (even though they may not realize that they use such words), grammatical constructions like come with and the use of by to mean at or to, and still have features like word-initial interdental hardening, word-final devoicing, and a uvular approximant allophone of /r/.  At the same time, there are some usages which have denied out or shrunk in range amongst younger individuals, such as the use of yet to mean now (which I do not hear in use by younger individuals) or the use of hey [heː] like Canadian English eh [eː] (which is extinct on the west side of the Milwaukee area but is current on the south side of the Milwaukee area even amongst younger individuals).  Travis B. 07:21, 27 May 2007 (UTC)


 * The matter is that features of the dialects in southeastern Wisconsin are transitional, having both clear Inland North and clear North Central features. On one hand there is a very significant Northern Cities Vowel Shift here, but on the other hand there are significant Germanic substratum features similar to those present in many North Central dialects. Travis B. 22:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, southeastern Wisconsin is transitional - there is no line that really indicates where North Central stops and Inland North begins.


 * I think linguists need to do a new review of the dialect because it is certainly not dying out with younger generations. There is a great influx of younger people outside of the Twin Cities who attend area colleges in the thousands. But that is not where you should be asking if people are speaking this dialect because it is the thousands who were born and raised in the Twin Cities, spread out amongst a metro of 2 million that use it daily at home in the suburbs. If anything, the dialect is being reinforced because the metro area has become more spread out and isolated to the point where many people have limited interaction with no more than their co-workers and neighbors. I would highly disagree this dialect is fading out. The most affluent areas of the Twin Cities in fact have the highest occurrence of this dialect..:DavuMaya:. 06:48, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Remarks on Wisconsin Englishes
First off, the majority of Wisconsites do not speak in a yooper dialect. This is Northern Wisconsin. Most Wisconsin English is like that of nearby Minnesota. We have partial Canadian Raising (it's partial for the Minnesotans too), monothongalization of [o], "yah hey dere", "borrow" used to mean "lend", likewise for "bring", and the phenomenon where "lake" and "lag" share the same vowel. Here are some relevent differences: Wisconsin English retains the caught-cot merger, while Minnesota has succumbed to that change. And along the Lake Michigan coast, Northern Cities vowel shift is occurring. Essentially, then, Wisconsin is the ground of a battle in vowel change in the upcoming generations, with the Minnesota vowel pressure on the East and the Northern Cities on the left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.196.108.189 (talk) 13:18, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
 * ??? Thegryseone (talk) 19:04, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Need for parallel reference to a Mid-Western Accent
People will say 'where?' when they read 'North Central American'. They'll think of Minnesota, but not Chi-KAH-go.
 * That's sort of the point - Chicago doesn't have the same accent, they're midlanders. I think something that would be useful is a map of where the NCA does occur, plus the names of the dialects bordering it. Where exactly the NCA accent occurs is hard to define minnecologies (talk) 12:35, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I was referring to the map here on p. 30/146. It's hard to define any dialect region.  It's not the same as the Inland North because it has the cot-caught merger. Thegryseone (talk) 20:26, 15 April 2009 (UTC)