Minnesota 5

Listen to Minnesota 5, a 22-year-old man from Lakeville, Minnesota, United States. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 22

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 1983

PLACE OF BIRTH: Lakeville, Minnesota (suburb of Minneapolis)

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Caucasian

OCCUPATION: N/A

EDUCATION: college degree

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: N/A

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/10/2005

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC 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 3 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 3 — 3 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.  [Subject reads from “Comma Gets a Cure” 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.

TRANSCRIBED BY: Jacqueline Baker

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/06/2008

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

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.

COMMENTARY BY: Paul Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 23/10/2005

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

 

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.