Linguistic Characteristics- “My Dad Bought Me a Bagel In A Black Bag”

I am sure that many of you (well, I’m not sure that I can say I have a readership of too many people) are all from different parts of the Midwest or elsewhere. I want to talk about speech and accents. From a young age I always thought that my cousin’s had a strange ‘twang’ if you will, to their speech. They only lived an hour north of my hometown in Toledo. Not really a large enough distance to really signify major lingual difference, or so I thought. Since beginning college, I have realized that most northern Ohioans have a different accent than myself (and there is nothing wrong with that), and quite frankly I find it fascinating. Everyone asks me if I am from the South, or if I grew up on a farm, and while spending three years here in Columbus, I understand what they mean. Often times when I go home to visit my parents, I realize how crude our English can be…most of my friends tell me that I talk like a hillbilly. I think its funny, because I think they sound like they are from up north. When I lived in the dorms, we used to play this game to try to guess where people were from. The person in question had to say “My dad bought me a bagel in a black bag” and by the way they said their A’s determined whether or not they were from northern Ohio--- and if they possessed what my hometown friends and I like to call “The Cleveland Accent” When I pronounce my A’s, they are very flat, but when people from other northern parts say their A’s, they come out with a nasal sound. At any rate, I thought that it was interesting on Wikipedia (not the greatest source of info) that someone had discussed the lingual differences in Midwesterners:




Wikipedia: Linguistic characteristics
Main articles: Inland Northern American English, North Central American English, and Yooper dialect
The accents of the region are generally distinct from those of the South and many urban areas of the American Northeast. The accent of most of the Midwest is considered by many to be "standard" American English. This accent is preferred by many national radio and television broadcasters, who go so far as to actually have potential broadcasters receive training in speaking "Midwestern."[citation needed]
This may have started because many prominent broadcast personalities — such as Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Tom Brokaw, John Madden and Casey Kasem — came from this region and so created this perception. More recently, a National Geographic magazine article (Nov. 1998) attributed the high number of telemarketing firms in Omaha, Nebraska due to the "neutral accents" of the area's inhabitants.
However, many Midwestern cities are now undergoing the Northern Cities Shift away from the standard accent.
In some regions, particularly the farther north into the Upper Midwest one goes, a definite accent is detectable, usually reflecting the heritage of the area. For example, Minnesota, western Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have strong Scandinavian accents, which intensify the farther north one goes. Michigan accents closely resemble Canadian ones across the border. Many parts of western Michigan have noticeable Dutch-flavored accent.
Also, residents of Chicago are recognized to have their own distinctive nasal accent (the Chicago bark), with a similar accent occurring in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Northern Indiana, Cleveland, and Western New York State. Arguably, this may have been derived from heavy Irish, German, Polish, and Eastern European influences in the Great Lakes Region. The most southern parts of the Midwest, generally south of U.S. Route 50, show distinctly southern speech patterns.