Alaskan Governor: Sarah Palin's accent

I've met some pretty interesting and progressive people from Idaho and Oklahoma.


The problem lies with the fact that journalists love to oversimplify things, and talk about nebulous ideas like "small-town America" and "the heartland" and "big city elitists" etc. etc. and lump all the individuals of these geographic places into little easy-to-digest buzzwords and pigeonholes. They make it very simple to color in areas on a map, but certainly don't begin to address the complexities of the actual people involved. There are liberals and conservatives everywhere -- as well as people who are in between or don't give a crap either way. It's not like there are only two camps and they are entrenched in some massive cultural warfare. That's ridiculous. But people are really being led to adopt that thinking -- especially overseas, where they have no direct experience to rely on.

I've yet to see Democrats winning in Provo, Boise or Phoenix LOL

Ah, but then "progressive" doesn't equal "Democrat", does it? ;)
Republicans aren't all mumbling rednecks who want to bring back slavery and female servitude, preferably at gunpoint. Nor are Democrats all tree-hugging vegetarian lesbians with Ph.D's. My dad has voted Democrat all his life, but was a big hunter with a NRA membership when I was a kid -- I used to read their magazines whenever they came. My intensely conservative white Southern grandparents dote on my cousin's half-black daughters. You just can't predict individual attitudes by falling back on common stereotypes.


There was an article once that commented on Purple America -- the rather interesting tendency for states that vote one way in presidential elections to turn around and pick the opposite party for state positions. Case in point: extremely liberal-leaning California and its still-popular Republican governator -- the same state that recalled a deeply unpopular Democrat governor. It found that while some states really are bedrocks of one party or the other through and through, many seem to like playing this game where they balance out the equation at various levels of government. We play it on the national level, too -- witness Republican president George Bush facing a Democrat majority in Congress, and Democrat president Bill Clinton battling a Republican-controlled Congress back in his day. Partially that is because congressional terms deliberately don't coincide with presidential terms, but this phenomenon has been recorded even in the same election!

You go, Uriel! Some of the people here need "ensmartening", and you are the right one to shorten their long pants!

I feel so embiggened by your compliments. ;P

I was wondering about her accent too. I don't know what it is, but I really don't like listening to her speak.

Every Alaskan accent I've heard sounds like a mix of Midland and Southern accent (think Jewel, the singer), with Southern-like [{]'s (as in ''ask'') and frequent closed, heavily rounded, raised [o]'s (''on, doll, involve''). It does not sound accent-free (Arizona, Colorado) or Californian. It's an ugly accent.
Alaskan accent is like a mix of Dakotas accents (think Fargo) and Kentucky accents.

I find the question of Palin's accent very interesting. I've lived both in the Pacific Northwest and within 30 miles of Wassila, AK, yet she doesn't sound "normal" to me. Some of the characteristics (e.g. tense/lax vowel merger before coda /l/ and the extreme r-fullness) are ones I would associate with the rural West (not specifically the Northwest). But some aspects of her speech, as you mention, sound very Midwestern to me. I know her father is from northern Idaho (I wonder if the Idaho connection is what's behind what I'm hearing as slight Canadianesque Raising?), but I'd be interested to know where her mother is from. I can also comment that, at least when I lived in that area of AK in the late 80s/early 90s, there were indeed an extremely high number of relatively recent transplants, including especially a lot of military families who had previously been stationed in Hawaii or the South. I'd be interested to see how her pronunciation compares to what's seen in studies of "American Military Base English".

Oh geez, yah ya know, she sure does sound like she was born and raised in Fargo. Oofta.

I don't know how anyone listening to her speak can possibly take her seriously with that accent. I kept cracking up - like sissy chrissi mentioned, it's all about the sing songy voice.

"American Military Base English"? Would that be an indefinable mishmash?

Accents are interesting. Some people are able to switch while others cannot. I wonder if Palin can switch or chooses not to. Hmmm. And you're right, Guest, she sounds very Dakotan (North). It's the closed /o/, but definitely not the Canadian /o/. My mother left ND in '38 a year or two after she graduated from high school and was able to leave the accent behind. She said when she was young she hated hearing the farmers when coming in to town say to each other - Oh, are you in town todaaaaay? Her generation was so desperately trying to "become" American. Anyway, many people on this blog are being mean spirited about how people sound, and it's not necessary. This is coming from an Edwards, turned Hillary, not Obama voter in San Francisco. Can't we all get along?

Ishda (that's when you step in it, not just when you see it which would be ufda) - I meant to write <Edwards, turned Hillary, NOW Obama voter>.

I think she sounds like lead character in the movie FARGO, played by Frances McDormand. I also think its fake and here's why. I saw an interview with her father and another one with her sister and a family friend and NONE of them had that accent. Could it be she wanted to impress the people of Minnesota where the Republican National Convntion was held. Its definitely a Minnesota or North or South Dakota accent like that of people of Scandinavian desent (of which she is not). The movie FARGO for those of you who didn't see it was about a working mom who was married to an outdoorsman and trying to juggle family life with her role as a police chief in a small town in North Dakota. I noticed a lot of similarities including the accent. Kinda makes ya think, you betcha!

Obama's English sounds more G.A./standard.

[The problem lies with the fact that journalists love to oversimplify things, and talk about nebulous ideas like "small-town America" and "the heartland" and "big city elitists" etc. etc. ]

I'm probably guilty of using those terms the most, Uriel.

We Americans know the extreme complexities of our society, but our European cousins apparently do not. To make matters worse, their perception of us is colored by an extreme anti-American bias in their media. It's probably no wonder they think we're a bunch of stupid, uneducated, gun-toting thugs who live in cesspools of crime. Europeans' views of us bothers me a great deal more than I care to admit.

The trouble is that they don't have any exposure to other aspects of American life, so I must generalize--I must use terms like "small-town America"; I must speak in terms they can understand--terms that you and I know aren't strictly accurate.

(As an aside: one of the most crimeridden towns I know--a central distribution site for drug trafficking--is a small town in Tennessee. By contrast, there are many areas in Reno where it's safe to leave your windows open at night; go figure.)