Minnesota/Wisconsin - Our evolving dialects

Inside the Plymouth Playhouse, stage lights reveal a life-like church basement that resembles a traditional Lutheran kitchen.

It's the set for the popular play "Church Basement Ladies."

"Mrs. Elroy Engelsen," played by Dorian Chalmers, and "Mrs. Gilmer Gilmerson," played by Greta Grosch, gave us a tour of their home away from home.

"Over here we have our Spam-and-macaroni salad with some peas for color," Mrs. Engelsen says, pointing at an inedible prop that looks rather tasty from a distance.

Their fake food ? the Jell-O salad, hotdish and lefsa ? has real Scandinavian roots. But just how real are the performers' accents?

"For me, you just say a wooord, and you hang onto the vaahh-wel longer than you normally woooould," Mrs. Gilmerson says.

There is some truth in those stereotypical accents, made famous by the movie "Fargo," even if some here live in denial.

"No, I don't believe Minnesotans have an accent," says Brandon Heins, a barber who lives in Ogilvie, Minnesota.

But just as sure as potato chips belong on hotdish, vowels in this part of the country can stretch into entire words.

Let's start with the long "A" sound, which is very much an upper Midwest feature. Here, words like "bag," "flag" and "agriculture" are pronounced using a long "A" sound. Outside of the region, it's different.

While that "A" sound might unite most Minnesotans and Wisconinites, other vowels divide us. Believe it or not, there are some differences in how people from the two states talk. Erica Benson, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, actually studies those differences as part of the Wisconsin Englishes Project.

"Language is constantly changing, it's constantly in flux," Benson says.

Northern Cities Shift is what Benson calls a "kind-of a musical chair for vowels."

She says the "ah" sound in words like "mom" and "hot" is changing. It's got more of a Chicago flavor in southeast Wisconsin.

"We even heard this in one of Governor Doyle's campaign commercials where he talked about his 'mam,'" Benson says.

The shift appears to be creeping north and northwest, and there's evidence it could eventually move into the Twin Cities.

Low-Back Vowel Merger Minnesota is already home to another trend called the "Low-Back Vowel Merger." Basically, most Minnesotans pronounce "cot" and "caught" the same way. The vowels have merged. But in Wisconsin, the two words have a distinctive pronunciation.

It's the same with the names "Don" and "Dawn." Minnesotans tend to pronounce them the exact same way, but Wisconsinites give them each a different twist.

This vowel merger actually started in the eastern part of the country, and migrated west along a very narrow path. It's now quite common in the western half of the United States, including Minnesota, but it's not often found in Wisconsin. However, Wisconsin could be next.

"It now appears to be moving back eastward," says Benson, who has found evidence of the merger in Eau Claire.

Even within the borders of the two states, you'll hear all kinds of differences in dialect.

"I say 'melk' with an 'e,' instead of an 'i,'" says Jessica Buglass, who grew up in the Milwaukee area.

Another example: "My friend says 'sirp,'" says Kristen Kangas of the Eau Claire area. "She's from Wisconsin, too. She's backwoods."

Water fountain vs. Bubbler The differences don't stop at mere vowels. The "pop versus soda" debate is often divided by the St. Croix River.

"My boyfriend yells at me for calling it pop, because he's from Milwaukee and he calls it soda," Kangas says.

"I think they're wrong," says New Ulm, MN, native Vansessa Windschitl. "I correct them. It's pop!"

Perhaps no liquid elicits more debate than the one that comes out of a drinking fountain, or should I say, a bubbler?

"I drink from a bubbler, not a fountain," says Trisha Monka, native of Manitowoc in eastern Wisconsin.

Many in Wisconsin use the word "bubbler" to describe a water fountain. That was the name of a drinking fountain developed by Wisconsin-based Kohler in the late-1800s.

"It just doesn't sound right," says John McCormick of Apple Valley, Minnesota. "A bubbler? It doesn't bubble at all."

Monka, a UW-Eau Claire student, says a lot of Minnesotans make fun of her for saying "bubbler."

"They get really defensive about it and I don't know why, because I don't yell at them for saying pop," she says with a laugh.

If you'd like to share your favorite expression or pronunciation (or mispronunciation) with Joe, send them to him at jfryer@kare11.com. He'll post them in his blog throughout the week.

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