Now...y'all talk mighty funny up in them there cold parts. It's like yah just can't wait to get finished and spit the words out like a bunch of pebbles. Yah gotta savor what yah're sayin'... If'n yah aren't happy with yah're words, why bother sayin'em? And just for the record, our tongues aren't glued to fence posts, we just like the taste...
After leaving the mid-Atlantic tidewater and the Shenandoah Valley, I got to Grand Forks, ND. Purt'near everyone talked like they'd 'yust got off the boat from Oslo'. (Say that in a singsong voice and drag out the combination vowels).
I had a combination of a Waterman's accent, some drawl with that, and a twinge of hillbilly in there from being out in the mountains 4 years.
I could have used cue cards. I had to say everything three times and write it down twice (the second time without any euphemisms) in order to be understood. A soda was a 'pop', beer, thankfully was the same pronunciation, and is in Canada, too, eh, only they use the singular form for plural there, too, as in so many deer, so many beer, no 's', at least north of here.
But the Red River Valley (of the North) accent is the one the guys who made the movie
Fargo couldn't capture, it's a bit like Basque or Icelandic. So I watched Johnny Carson to learn how to speak like a Nebraskan and that got me by. Folks out this side of the state sound a lot different yet.
Anyway, the reason northern folks (at least in these parts) talk that way is it lets them keep their teeth behind their lips when it's 30 below out, 'cause that cold isn't comfortable, and the last thing you want is for your lips to freeze to your teeth. It isn't that they talk fast, they just don't mess around and get it over with.
Down south, it's warmer and all y'all have to worry about are intrepid bugs, so stretching things out a little doesn't matter much. Been there, done that, too. Out of habit, we're darned cautious about what we put our tongue on, especially in winter.
Locally: "Nordt Dakoter" (Zero tooth exposure, lips close, no snow intake.)
Elsewhere: "North Dakota" (Teeth hanging out all over the place, mouth open, snow blowing in).
Try it.
See?
