North-Central American English | |
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Region | Upper Midwest |
Indo-European
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | None |
North-Central American English (also known as the Upper Midwestern or North Central dialect in the United States) is an American English dialect native to the Upper Midwestern United States, an area that somewhat overlaps with speakers of the separate Inland North dialect, centered more around the eastern Great Lakes region. The North Central dialect, often popularly though stereotypically recognized as a Minnesota accent, most strongly stretches from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to eastern Montana, including the northern tip of Wisconsin, the northern half of Minnesota, some of northern South Dakota, and most of North Dakota; however, many speakers of the dialect are also found scattered throughout Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin (except for metropolitan Milwaukee), as well as in the northern half of Iowa.
The North Central dialect is considered to have developed in a residual dialect region from the neighboring distinct dialect regions of the American West, North, and Canada. A North Central "dialect island" exists in southcentral Alaska's Matanuska-Susitna Valley, which was settled in the 1930s by Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin immigrants."Yooper" English spoken in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Iron Range English spoken in Minnesota's Iron Range are sub-varieties of the North Central dialect, largely influenced by Eastern European (especially Finnish) immigration to that area around the beginning of the 1900s.