Minnesota Five - Text
This white college-educated male was born in 1983 and raised Lakeville, a Minneapolis suburb.
Listen for the subject's characteristic pronunciation of the GOOSE, GOAT, START, LOT, and MOUTH lexical sets. You will observe the characteristic tonality of the Minnesota dialect too, which the subject describes as a "smile" hinting perhaps at the tenseness of the tone. He speaks of the dialect getting stronger the farther north in the state one travels, citing Duluth and that area as being particularly strong.
Recorded by Paul Meier, IDEA Founder and Director, October 23, 2005. Running time 00:05:14
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Lakeville, Minnesota in 1983. I have a five-person family. There-- I have two older brothers. (Um) We all lived in the same house for about-- till I was about three years old, and then-- The only time I’ve ever moved, actually, was (um) across the street from where I used to live. That was the one time. I wasn’t even three-- three years old, I suppose, ’cause I can’t really remember it (um), but-- We lived in this house, and a tree ended up getting struck by lightning and crashing through the living room. So, witho-- Instead of completely re-doing the living room, we decided that we would move, and, across the street, our neighbors we were good friends with had a swimming pool, and their house was a little bit nicer. And my parents thought that, (uh) instead of moving to a different neighborhood or anything like that, and fixing up the house, we’d just move across the street. So, we did that and (uh) moved across the street, and (uh) I remember-- I don’t know if I can actually remember that actually happening though, because I was probably too young to actually remember; maybe through stories and things, but I can remember them just giving me a telephone, and having me call the movers the entire day, instead of getting me in the way, ’cause there was no movers, ’cause we just had all the neighbors bringing it across the street. But they-- to get me out of the way, they sat me in the lawn with a fake phone and told me that I had to keep calling the movers ’cause they weren’t showing up, and they were ruining the whole move, and we wouldn’t get it done, and all this sort of thing. (Um) But that may just be a fable that I know, because I’m not sure that I was old enough to remember it. (Um) But then we lived in that house ever since, and (um) that’s where my parents still live, and hopefully someday I’ll get to take over it, because I really like it. I wouldn’t mind going up to live back in Minnesota again.
As you travel north, I’ve always discovered that, regardless of how far you go, past that-- the Twin Cities there, the more north you go, it’s just gonna get thicker and thicker and thicker, because I’ve got some relatives up near Duluth and (uh) those places right up towards the Canadian border that-- tha-- their-- their accents are just incredible. Just-- they’ve got that real thick kind of-- sounding false. I have to (uh)-- just (mm)-- to someone who’s from the southern part of the state, and (uh) that Fargo, kinda from the movie, and all that kinda stuff that they heighten, and people heighten. The stereotypes are absolutely true. Like-- and-- for the most, I’ve seen more of it to the west side than I have from the east, ’cause I have relatives that live in Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin, as well as -- I guess that would be Michigan-- North Dakota, and I’ve found it to be much, much thicker on the west side, where it’s closer to South Dakota and North Dakota. And that’s where I get all the “Oh, yah, yo, yah, you betcha, you know, the hot dish,” and all that sort of stuff. It seems to be a lot more prevalent over there than it does on the east side.
[Reads from Comma in dialect, through “tower.”] Now, I guess I’m not sure if those-- I don’t know if can do it very well, but those-- those ‘old’ and the ‘boat’ and all those sounds are just-- are the really thick ones that I’ve always (um) tear-- It feels like it’s smiley talk, is what I’ve-- Like, I’ve-- someone once described it to me as smiley talk, because it was so… (Um) Because, I guess the community up there-- I don’t know. Everyone’s smiling all the time. Either that or killing each other because of the cold, so… It’s-- there’s that-- It feels kinda like-- Saying those Os and stuff like that kind of puts a smile on your face, and I think that-- I know that always helps me do the false voice a little bit easier, by keeping the-- [in dialect] “working daily at the old zoo.” Or I guess that’s-- I don’t know if that’s it, but (um) that’s just kind of how I’ve always thought about it.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY JACQUELINE BAKER, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, June 28, 2008