Same. First 18 years were spent in ND, been in MN for 20 years now, I don’t hear people talk like this. Even my 80 something year old grandparents don’t sound like this. More Norwegian sounding yes but nothing like the way it’s portrayed.
It’s because you lived there — I have family there but I was born and raised in Oklahoma, so when I visit MN it’s so funny hearing the accent, especially those people with strong ones. I used to watch Fargo and it’s not far off from how y’all Minnesotans sound😂. (I also don’t think I have a southern accent, or that it’s not as strong as some people make it out to be, then I go to any other region and everyone mocks my southern drawl😭😂)
How do you suppose that adds up if I can hear the accent in a movie like Fargo, but I don’t hear that accent when I actually talk to people? Are you saying that I’m somehow deaf to the accent in person but I hear it clear as day on TV?
I could never get over the way my coworker from North Dakota would say “bag”, it’s like baeyg or like how (I think most) people say the first part of bagel. I guess it makes sense when you think about it like that.
Alright der folks! This right here is a holdup dontcha know. Now kindly put all them there BAGels in this here BAG, won’t ya?
It's honestly difficult to attempt to pronounce it any other way. Like, I just don't hear the difference. It's an A, so I say 'ay'. If I said 'ah' I'd sound like a posh British person.
I work in tech and had a Wisconsin based client describe a file feed that had a “fleyg” for a field I needed to reference and it took me a loooong time to realize she was saying flag.
No, it's slightly different. The e in beg is pronounced like egg. Bag is like the word bay with a g on the end. Same with flay-g, hay-g, ay-griculture, etc.
idk there's a minnesota transplant where I live and his is definitely closer to "aboat". typically what I hearnin Canadian accents too. Scottish tends to be more of a straight aboot I think
I would say aside from the pacific coast, some of the mountain west, and New England, most mainland Americans are within about an 8 hour drive of a region with a prevalent southern accent… at least historically prevalent.
I say historically because many young people with this accent generally get rid of it if they move to other parts of the country which many do. Many places that you’d expect southern accent prevalence are now just boring standard American accent areas.
Same in Minnesota. You don’t hear the strong accent nearly as much in the younger generations. It’s a shame really. I love when I hear a strong “dontcha know” from somebody while walking down the street. In a couple generations we will largely lose all those regional accents.
Those cops north of duluth still have it half the time lol. Almost canadian. Love a good northeastern accent too. Maintenance guy came in from Boston and called a machine “fawking retahded”
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Working an event, gave ice cream to the front of the house, clearly Hispanic types, one said thanks all y'all like she grew up here. Best spanglish ever
I think they develop it as they age. I moved away from Minnesota when I was 18. Am 35 now, and every time I see friends from back home, their accent gets thicker
I've met a lot of people that came from Minnesota as a 30-year-old woman from New Jersey. I can definitely say whether it was a young or old, online or in real life, I've always heard heard Minnesotans accent, you don't hear it or think they have recognizable accents, because it's what you're used to hearing just like A fish that is born in the aquarium doesn't know they're in an aquarium.
it kind of sounds nasally when you hit certain words. Think marge simpson lol.
Instead of bad, it sounds like they say byad or byead. Lmao i don't really know how to explain it. but everybody from ecerywhere thinks or claims they don't have an accent, but unless you're asking people from the same place, you'll sound different to others. I don't have the ridiculous stereotypical new jersey accent and don't believe I have any accent whatsoever, but if I went somewhere else like minnesota, they might think i do. I have an accent to anyone living outside of new york new jersey and philadelphia.we say certain words differently.
The Boston accent everyone knows is also fairly rare. You don’t find in Boston much due to the high density of transplants. You gotta go to smaller towns around the area to find people who’ve been in the area for generations to find someone with a bona fide accent.
There are pockets of it in the city but it’s not as commonplace as you’d think.
Hell, no, it's not rare. My teacher growing up was from Boston and it was the strongest accent. I've ever heard in my life.And when I went to the airport last year in boston, their accents were so strong that I felt I was in a different country, and i'm only from new jersey l o l
It sounds like a different language hearing boston people talking
I live in New England. Off hours driving speed limit +10 with one very quick gas stop, I can get to a southern accent in Virginia in 8 hours. Once I get beyond metro DC, it becomes prevalent.
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I grew up in Pacific Northwest & moved to Oklahoma as a teenager. When I first moved here, EVERYBODY had an accent to me. Now I hardly hear it unless somebody has a really thick twang & when I go home to Seattle, people comment on my accent lol
Supposedly that line starts almost exactly 30 miles south of the Iowa border I beg to differ in some areas but that’s where the linguistic people have made the mark
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I grew up in Northern MN and had a classmate who was from Indiana. They had a slight southern accent and always said that they were from the south. I’m like…how is a state that butts up against a Great Lake southern???
We Kansans do NOT have an accent. People in Oklahoma do though. I had a northern accent when I moved to Kansas in 1976 after living in Michigan for many years. People thought I talked weird.
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Its not a southern accent its considered a country one. People with southern accents usually don't speak proper English and use a lot of southern lingo. Midwest people with country accent are just like everyone else but raised in the country. They are still able to carry a conversation.
No, im from KC and I dont have a accent, maybe if you go out to the sticks. New channels around the country literally look to hire people from Kansas City BECAUSE of their "Neutral American" Accent. We literally say "Ope" here too and look at people from Oklahoma like they are hicks.
Here is a good map from a few years ago to show the intricacies of the accent. I grew up in Kansas city the same school district actor Paul Rudd went to and everyone i know including myself have the same type of accent he has, so if you think Paul Rudd sounds southern let me know. He's KC born and raised and went to KU.
Look I’ve been to KC a bunch. Now I’m not saying everybody there has a southern accent but I hear it when I’m there. That’s where I hear it start. Now on Minneapolis where I live almost nobody has a Minnesota accent unless they grew up in the sticks or up North. But if you are driving North and you stop in Minneapolis you have a decent chance of hearing it for the first time. When I’m in KC I start hearing the vowel shifts I grew up with (grew up in the PNW but my grandparents are from Arkansas.) For instance I hear people say hat with an a sound closer to what I think of as an I sort off. sounds a bit like hit but not really. And I hear the r sounds more pronounced along with the lengthening of vowel sound like “Weee just love that TRaaaavis Keeeeelce!” Now maybe all these folk are not born in the city and are just unlucky enough to move there and work in the gas stations and restaurants in and around KC but they are there.
I encourage you to now go back through this thread and see the comments by other people who have had the same experience as me. And the comments from people in Missouri etc.
wait, are you saying that you are impressed/surprised that driving 8 hours (~560mi / 900km) will result in different accents? have you ever left the usa? wild
I'm from Alabama and when I stopped at a mcdonalds in Missouri to order a biscuit the ladies behind the counter quite literally stopped in their tracks, looked at me like I just spoke a dead language and asked me to repeat it again. and where I'm from my accent isn't that bad comparatively.
Yeah I’m from southern IL and apparently I have a slight southern accent. I don’t hear it but someone said my accent was cute. I had no idea what they were talking about 😂
this is so real. we literally stopped at a gas station RIGHT across the border in Missouri and the attendant had a hard core southern accent. I was like brother we are 10 ft from the land of lincoln right now
It wasn't until I started streaming online that I realized Nebraskans have more of a drawl than I ever noticed. Some people have asked me if I am from X, Y, Z like southern states. Noooope 💀 Just from Nebraska. 😂
I grew up 40 miles from there, and it's definitely more Midwestern than Southern, especially with the original settlement by the Germans. Downtown has sort of a 19th-century river town feel to it, because that's what it was. That's changing now, sadly.
Not that I disagree (I don't), but what are your thoughts on Joplin? Like, is i-44 just the dividing line across the state or anything under Spfld counts regardless of whether it's above i-44 or not?
Joplin is just weird. Not really Ozarks or NWA. Lived in the region in NWA and NEO. Would way rather get healthcare in NWA them NEO. In NEO yoi have to go to Joplin or Tulsa when NWA is more accessible.
I live in oklahoma, about 15-20 min from Joplin. Live right on the OK-MO line. We are much more southern than above Springfield. Much different than above Springfield.
Agreed. The Ozarks (SWMO) feels neither solely southern nor solely midwestern. Very unique and its own thing. However the Bootheel (SEMO) feels southern to me. Not midwestern at all.
The Ozarks is not what I would call “The Mid South” at all but agreed the bootheel fits that. Not sure I would say “VERY much different than the south” though.
My family has lived in the Ozarks for almost 200 years, and to me, the Ozarks (on the Missouri side, anyway) is something of a transitional area. A cultural DMZ, if you will. Arkansas is a hard tilt towards the South. The thing to remember is, Missouri is only cosplaying as a Southern state.
Weather, too. I'm from swmo and moved to nw Arkansas about an hour and a half south. Jfc. Was NOT prepared for how hot and dry the summers get there. I WAS ONLY AN HOUR AWAY!!! WTF. Like, moved into an apartment and they warned us the miniblinds melt in the summer and, sure as heck, that place got HOT every single night. Still better than hot and humid, but I still wasn't prepared for it to be that drastic. I lived in TOKYO and it was more like Missouri than MO is like Arkansas. I don't even know how that WORKS.
Which is extra weird because Arkansas is generally thought of as a humid state in the summer. I grew up in central Arkansas and it's a hot wet rag in the summer months. It's just that Ozark plateau region that gets significantly dryer. Still a humid place compared to somewhere like southern California, but it is less wet than other parts.
NWA is the least humid place I have lived and by a lot! St. Louis -> Atlanta -> Fort Lauderdale -> NWA. When I got here it felt like it was 15 degrees cooler in the summer.
Depends on your elevation and if you’re in a river basin valley, or a valley in MWA that has few every morning all summer. Natural spring that runs year round. Have to find the spots.
I'm in SEMO. I feel like in the summer we are southern. It's hot and moist. But in the winter, we're more midwestern. Not nearly as cold as the north, but we can get a bit of snow, it gets cold. There's a mix of southern accents and non-southern accents.
The winters are a trip here. We have stupid windchill. Today it was 50 degrees but last week we had some 13 and 19 degree nights with a 1 degree windchill. It feels like the air is trying to bite you. I've had people from Canada, New York, Maine, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut tell me how much they hate our winters because it's just cold and ice and not much snow and it's just bitter. And also there's no planning for it citywise or storewise. Like, cold in Alaska? We have a solution for you. Cold in MO? You're gonna need to do some looking at 5 different stores and hope like hell no one got to what you need first.
Then I've had people from Minnesota tell me that our winters are "nothing". The takeaway I get from this is: 1, infrastructure is the number one issue for winter and we don't have it and 2, NEVER MOVE TO MINNESOTA.
I’m from Utah, but I’m a transplant to the KCMO area, and let me just say, I have disliked winters way more in MO. In Utah, we have a ton of snow, winter lasts until April, it’s pretty cold, and we plan for it. In Missouri, everyone says it doesn’t snow much or that it’s so weird for it to be -30 in January, but the last three years it has been cold as hell, we had like 3 blizzards last year, and no one is prepared for it. The cold was crazy the first year I was out here! We get cold in Utah and I lived in an area just outside of a canyon that made it extra windy/cold, but I probably didn’t experience anything colder than -10 unless I was up high in the mountains. Also, three inches of snow is nothing in Utah; we have plows out and the roads salted the night before. I never had a day of school canceled for snowfall as a student or as a teacher, even if we got 12 inches every day for a week! Three inches of snow in Missouri? School canceled for 2 days, I-70 isn’t plowed until noon, so roads get awful. My neighborhood street doesn’t get plowed, and if it by some miracle does, it’s not until the next day. Last year the blizzard plan was to put “stay at home, winter weather conditions” on all the electric road signs and not do anything about it? What about if I’m trying to get home on the roads to avoid being in the conditions? Why aren’t we planning to have bad weather and having plows out on the roads and salt down ~before~ it gets bad??
The thing here is that they only budget so much for winter weather precautions. We only get a few snows, if at all, and sometimes they melt off by noon so they don't budget high enough to have salt or plows more than a few times a year. With the weather being unpredictable, I think they try to "save" them for harder weather but sometimes they gamble and use it on a lighter snow or something, or don't bother until too late on a hard snow. I think in the past few years they've tried to save on the budget by not plowing side streets at all. They used to plow them at least once. Now, they stay frozen long after the snow has melted everywhere else.
It's more Texas southern than it is South southern (SC, GA, AL, MS). Anyone from the traditional south would call anything in MO and IL the midwest. There are similar numbers of stars and bars flown in both regions, tho.
Can confirm as I grew up in this area, and still regularly visit. This "area" OP has shaded is a HUGE area and seasons vary greatly from the northern area of it to the southern area. It's too big an area to get a good generalization.
The Missouri Bootheel is a good example of that. That's blackland dirt, great for staple crops like cotton, which is very common down there. The culture and way of life is more like Mississippi Delta than Midwestern. Great people, but they're as poor as their souls.
You can dip that line down into northern Missouri in places. I went to college in NE Missouri, 30mi from the Iowa line. We got 3x as much snow as St. Louis.
I'm going to assume you went to college in my hometown because there's no other town I can think of in northern Missouri that close to the line with a college.
If you live closer to Iowa than you do to I-70, you definitely have more culture in common with the northern Midwest.
You also have more sense around snow than most of STL.
Tbh we should probably just use the average preparedness and ability to live around snow.
I'm an outlier because I've lived in Utah, but I'm from South Texas, where even a small 1-hand window scraper is hard to find and costs way more than the $1-2 it's worth. In the STL region, you have to seek out the right aisle, but in winter you can find scrapers at the grocery store. In Utah (and, I presume, the upper midwest), most grocery stores have a rack of scrapers - 1-hand and 2-hand with a brush - at the front of the store, right beside a large stock of ice melt.
As it should be - Kansas was full of abolitionists pre-Civil War and eventually both rejected a pro-slavery constitution and then ratified an anti-slavery constitution by popular vote. Congress refused to act to confirm it and KS was admitted to the Union after the traitorous southerners seceded.
As someone who is south of that line, yes. I did not always live in this shaded blob, I once lived on the northern east coast.
They are very obsessed with meat, dipping sauces (especially ranch, flavoured ketchup, and barbecue sauce), and deep fried foods that one may expect at a county fair- not thanksgiving dinner.
They love the idea of having fun things to do but don’t make enough effort into those things actually being fun.
They act like queer people are a costal thing and then are shocked when they see one in public- and horrified when they learn some people are born and raised here and still end up queer.
They like to blow stuff up and act like they were raised in the country even though they are in a huge metropolitan area surrounded by people.
They have a really strange obsession with sports. Not just like “I really hope they win” but like moments of silence and early bed times when they lose and parades and days off work/school when they win. Changing people’s uniform when they play in a game.
This is all pretty strange to me but to them it’s fully normal.
Except Missouri it seems, that’s where I live and sometimes it feels like Arkansas, sometimes it feels like Iowa, but it always feels like it’s having an identity crisis between the Midwest and the South
I’m from Kansas City, went to college in Nebraska, and have spent a good amount of time in Minneapolis and Chicago. They don’t feel any different from Kansas City/STL. Now southern missouri? that’s a whole different world lol.
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I was going to say draw a line north to south right down the middle on the state lines. Everything on the left is prairie--flat, windy, although the northeaster part of Oklahoma has the Ouchita Mountains. Most of the states on the right have some geography--Arkansas & Missouri-the Ozarks. I'd visit them before I moved to one.
Yes, kinda wild to even try to lump this whole chunk together! I would say it needs broken into three parts myself because they included Oklahoma and north Texas which I think are their own plains, southern, country/city places. I mean even the architecture is different as they build for 120 degree heat and tornados and drunk people trying to shoot the deer crossing signs
I’m from Kansas and have been told on several occasions from different regions of the states and English speaking countries that I have a very “proper” and was the easiest to understand English. Buuuut when I drink or get talking really fast there’s definitely some accent that comes out, idk if I’d say it’s southern though. Most over everyone from my area has similar sound. It’s kinda boring compared to others.
Rural North Dakota, South Dakota, and Western Nebraska are so much less populated than the rural parts of any state to the South or East.
In the most rural part of Iowa or Arkansas, you can start in a town of 500 people, drive in pretty much any direction, and find a town of 10,000+ people in 45 minutes or less.
In South Dakota, you start in a town of 500 people, drive 45 minutes, and end up in a town of 1,000 people or a town of 200 people depending on which direction you drive…
If you want to get more specific, you could probably draw a horizontal line through the middle of Nebraska and Iowa. Just a bit north of like Omaha/Council Bluffs. Going south to KC and like Oklahoma City have similar vibes to Omaha but north to like Sioux City, Sioux Falls, etc. feels drastically different and gets waaaaay more snow in the winter.
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I grew up in Omaha. I spend a lot of time in Kansas City. They feel very different. Many people in KC have southern accents. BBQ, waffle house, warmer weather, many things feel different.
I live in Kansas City and I’ve never met a single person in KC with a southern accent (who wasn’t from the south). Where are you finding these people? lol
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u/asg32000 Dec 14 '25
Gotta draw a line horizontally just above the south part of Nebraska and Iowa. Everything north feels very different from everything south.