North dakotan accent

MARK   Thu Oct 27, 2005 2:14 pm GMT
hey i came to know that non native english speakers can easily differentiate between any american accent and north dakotan accent..

ARE THEY SO DIFFERENT CAN U GIMME THE DIFFERENCE PLEASE?
Trawick   Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:27 pm GMT
The standard North Dakotan dialect is part of the Upper Midwestern Dialect subregion, which typically includes Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, Northern Michigan, and some parts of the great plains. Like the most of the North the o in "code" is a pure vowel rather than a dipthong [o]. However, in this area the vowel is often excessively lengthened, most likely due to some Germanic influence (i.e. "code" is [ko:d]).

There is also some difference in the way the "ou" in "about" is pronounced from GenAm. It's a somewhat different phenomenon than classic Canadian raising--the first vowel is somewhat more rounded (I'd express it as [@bQUt], although I'm sure there are a variety of other interpretations). Also, I've definitely noticed more than one speaker (the two I'm thinking of come from the U.P. of Michigan and Waterloo, IA specifically) make the same pronunciation in words like "around" and "cloud," i.e. words that do not typically fit into the Canadian raising category.

The area tends to have a Germanic influence, since most of the earliest settlers were Germanic countries. There's certainly some inflection differences from GenAm--for instance, in some areas somebody saying "Is John there?" will put the stress on "there" rather than "John," even if it is an initial question.
mark   Thu Oct 27, 2005 3:46 pm GMT
thankyou Trawick for explaining in detail.
Brennus   Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:44 pm GMT
North Dakota is in an accent region called "Northern Interior" by many linguists. This region extends from eastern Washington State all the way to Michigan and upstate New York (but not Maine which is in a class by itself). According to some, it is East Anglian English in origin and shows the East Anglian tendency to lengthen vowel sounds.