The "Minnesota" accent is actually called either the Upper Midwestern Dialect or if you are talking about northern MN it is called the North Central Dialect. Both of these include other Midwestern states as well. The "Minnesota" accent is influenced by Scandinavian and Canadian dialects. There is a large population of Norwegian immigrants which is where a lot of the speech traits come from. The Upper Midwestern Dialect is the most common throughout the state. This includes traits like elongating vowels, esspeciall O. The North Central Dialect is more of the stereotypical "sing-song" kind of accent. Many people with the North Central Dialect will use V in the place of W. Turning "Well" into "Vell". Another reason for some of these differences is because many languages that influenced these dialects do not have many of the same phonemes that Standard American English has. So there you go... an indepth analysis of the "Minnesota" accent. (And trust me... Minnesotans do have an accent. I grew up there and then moved to the west and people catch it all the time!)
by racer6780 December 2, 2009