U.S. Regional Variation in the English Language
Midwestern Dialect
The Midwestern region includes the North-Central states of the United States which are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In this region, the accents are generally distinct from those of the South and mainly urban ares of the American Northeast. The accent spoken in most of the Midwest is considered by residents there that it is heard as "Standard" American English. Even with in this region there can be numerous different accents heard throughout the area. Particularly in the further north into the Upper Michigan Peninsula there is a definite accent detected, often reflecting the heritage of the area. Minnesota, western Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have strong Scandinavian accents which intesifies as further traveled north. Also, Michigan accents closely resemble Canadian ones across the border and many parts of western Michigan have a noticeable Dutch influenced accent with a smilar accent occuring in parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, northern Indiana, and Cleveland. 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 show disticly southern speech patterns.
Regional definitions vary from source to source. The states shown in dark red are usually included in the Midwest region while the striped states may or may not be considered part of the region.
As well as being considered the most "Standard" American English through accents, the Midwest is also known as the most correct through dialect. The Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology Volume 2, explains that the point of view of these "standard-speaking" regions, like Detroit, Michigan comfortably believes they are the true speakers of "Standard" American English. This was proven through a study conducted where 147 residents of Michigan were asked to assign the level of correctness as ratings to regions in the United States. "While demonstrating that English speakers in the United States believe in the concept of a national standard, this work has also shown that respondents also have no trouble assigning Standard American English to a particular geographical area" (Niedzielski 321). The results from this study portray that, the Midwest, along with California in the Western region, are often assigned such "correct" ratings in perceptual dialectology. The Midwesterners (specifically from Michigan) often rank their own dialect the most correct.
However, some other regions have different opinions of which region or state speaks with the most corerect dialect. There is great variability in judgments about who speaks Standard English, as shown below from the work of many perceptual dialectologists who study what non-liguists think about regional differences in language. The attitudes and perceptions of speech held by English speakers in Michigan vs. Alabama are portrayed below.
Judgments by Michigan residents of how correct people speak, with darker colors indicating "more correct" and lighter colors indicating "less correct."
Judgements of Alabama residents of how correct people speak, with darker colors indicating "more correct" and lighter colors indicating "less correct."
Lastly, the pronunciation differs in the Midwest region compared to others as well. Some common examples that show these differences are through words like caramel, syrup, or been. The visual maps on this site effectively show how each region pronunces or even uses unusual vocabulary compared to the Midwest.
Adapted from Preston 1998. Purnell, Thomas. WISCONSIN TALK. © 2013 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted by permission of The University of Wisconsin Press. http://csumc.wisc.edu/wep/perceptionsofenglish.html