Utah Accents crack me up

[falafel]

That is very funny.

The interesting thing about the Utah accent (to which I am prone but have tried to suppress as much as possible, assisted by my ridiculing wife) is that when they actually should say the "ill" sound, it's often pronounced "ell".

So in Utah, "milk" has become "melk" and "pillow" has become "pellow".

There's a whole vowel shift going on in Utah related to the "i". The ones you mentioned are funny and true, but have you noticed that many times sounds that should be "eh" or "i" (as in "him") wrap around all the way back to "ee"? For example, "him" is often pronouced "heem," or just "eem." Mostly by old people though.

I love the Utah accent. One of my Utah friends, who lives in Tooele, wrote me an email recently, describing something he bought "on sell." I thought he at lease knew how to spell "sale," if not pronounce it.

[Tim]

I thought of another one, and it comes up pretty much every day: Sitting at a restaurant for lunch or dinner, you get a Diet Coke and your co-worker orders a "tea." The waitress asks, "sweet or unsweet?" Not "unsweetened," not "nonsweet," but "unsweet."

[FMCoug]

I thought of another one, and it comes up pretty much every day: Sitting at a restaurant for lunch or dinner, you get a Diet Coke and your co-worker orders a "tea." The waitress asks, "sweet or unsweet?" Not "unsweetened," not "nonsweet," but "unsweet."

The iced tea thing in the south is worth mention on its own. Lots of times they just assume that's what everyone is having ... when you order a soda they are put out because they can't refill you with everyone else.

Tea is to the south as fry sauce is to Utah.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I don't think this is a Utah exclusive either, but I loathe hearing someone say "Hurricun."

[il Padrino Ute]

I don't think this is a Utah exclusive either, but I loathe hearing someone say "Hurricun."

But that's how the name of the city is pronounced. The storm is pronounced hurricane.

It's really no different than the state you live in pronounced as Oregun.

[LA Ute]

This is one of my favorite subjects. A few facts (well, I think they are facts) I've picked up along the way:

*The Southern Utah accent ("harse, carn") originated in England. It's known there as a Cornish accent, because it centers in Cornwall. (Carnwall?)

*Salt Lake City is considered acent-free, probably because of the mixture of accents that flowed into town in the 1800s. Believe it or not, "in the late 20th century, national television broadcasters are trained to use the accent of Salt Lake City-- the American equivalent of BBC English." At least that's what what David Hackett Fischer wrote -- he calls Salt Lake English "standard American speech." Who'd-a thunk it? (This is documented in Fischer's book -- he's an eminent Historian -- called Albion's Seed. See p. 888. He calls the regional accents there part of the "Great Basin accent.") So although we love to make fun of that accent, it apparently has some admirers.

[LA Ute]

I'm sure you've all seen/read the parody blog "So seriously blessed" that makes fun of the Utah Mormon girl and goes to great lengths to imitate her speech with appropriate spellings (deal becomes dill, so a really good deal is a rill good dill). I've always thought that was funny, but part of that is because I am very interested in speech patterns and accents.

So today I'm looking at facebook, and all of my Utah friends are complaining about the snow. One of them, who moved from Utah to Arizona, posted the following on her status update:



I probably shouldn't think that is so funny but I almost fell out of my chair. It's one thing for people to talk like that, it's a completely different thing for them to spell like that. I don't have a problem with either, I just think it's "rill" funny.

In Brigham Young's handwritten diaries he spelled "window" as "winder." That's explained by his Vermont accent. As I note above, the early Utahns brought with them their Northeastern, English and Scottish accents (along with a lot of Scandinavian twang that we hear more of in the Upper Midwest -in places like "WisCAHNson" and "MeenaSOtah"). The accents we hear today in the Great Basin area -- mainly from older folks or from people who have grown up in outlying areas -- have their roots in the peculiar mixture of speech patterns that the early Mormons brought to the area.

I think it's facinating stuff. I grew up in Salt Lake. Once I was speaking with a blind man from the Northeast whose hobby was determining accents. He guessed mine as a "Vermont twang." I've never even been in Vermont.

[Pheidippides]

This is one of my favorite subjects. A few facts (well, I think they are facts) I've picked up along the way:

*The Southern Utah accent ("harse, carn") originated in England. It's known there as a Cornish accent, because it centers in Cornwall. (Carnwall?)

*Salt Lake City is considered acent-free, probably because of the mixture of accents that flowed into town in the 1800s. Believe it or not, "in the late 20th century, national television broadcasters are trained to use the accent of Salt Lake City-- the American equivalent of BBC English." At least that's what what David Hackett Fischer wrote -- he calls Salt Lake English "standard American speech." Who'd-a thunk it? (This is documented in Fischer's book -- he's an eminent Historian -- called Albion's Seed. See p. 888. He calls the regional accents there part of the "Great Basin accent.") So although we love to make fun of that accent, it apparently has some admirers.

LA Ute, you and I should get together and shoot the breeze some time. I've stayed out of this thread because I have a natural interest in this specific thing. I have theories about certain rural accents in Idaho and Utah as they relate to culture and even cooking.

[pellegrino]

I have theories about certain rural accents in Idaho and Utah as they relate to culture and even cooking.

Do share.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

But that's how the name of the city is pronounced. The storm is pronounced hurricane.

It's really no different than the state you live in pronounced as Oregun.

Here is where I have to disagree, I suspect you would say Oregon should be pronounced Or-e-gone. Do you pronounce the word wagon, wa-gone?

[Pheidippides]

Do share.

A lot of it has to do with my Grandmother's family, which originally came from rural and poor Virginia across the plains. The "southern" accent we see is, of course, originally from England, so it makes sense that the bastardized English accent in Utah is similar to the bastardized English accent from Virginia, yet there are subtle difference. Also of note, my grandmother (who lived her entire life in Idaho) made fantastic fried chicken and southern-style white gravy and could not, for the life of her, make spaghetti. In short, her cooking (and many mannerisms) were much more southern than they were western. I'm not sure what to make of that in light of the fact that wide-spread use of the chicken is a more recent development than the family's move to Idaho.

Interestingly, another settler from Virginia founded the town I grew up in, and the subtle variations on the Utah accent are similar to my grandmother's accent in Idaho. Had I gone into linguistics instead of law, I think it would have formed the basis of my thesis and/or dissertation. As it is, I've done nothing more than notice and wonder, and I haven't thought about it enough lately to even point out the specific phonemes that are different.

[HBCoug]

I'm not sure if this one is unique to Utah, but I haven't heard it anywhere else. In Utah, a girl named "Kelsey" or "Chelsea" suddenly has a "t" added between the "l" and the "s" to form "Keltsey" or "Cheltsea." It is also very noticeable on last names such as Nelson or Wilson.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

One that I am pretty sure is Utah specific that I thought of last night, the last name Christiansen, pronounced Chris-tee-an-sen.

I managed a video store before (and after but this story is before) my mission. It was a little mom and pop place, we didn't have membership cards, just last names and phone numbers. So one day a lady gives me her phone # and I ask "Is the last name Christiansen?", pronouncing it like a normal person would. She responded "No it is Chris-TEE-AN-sen>>" to which I responded, "Is it spelled Christiansen?" Then rented her the movies.

I guess she was pretty upset about it as her husband came in to return the movies and close the account, but we had the movie they were looking for in stock and Blockbuster didn't. So he just asked that we put a note on their account that it was Chris-TEE-AN-sen.

[Donuthole]

A friend of mine, who may or may not be related to a former Raider Pro-Bowl tight end, offered that his last name (Christensen) was properly pronnounced CRIS-ten-sen, but that his family had simply grown accustomed to accepting the CRIS-chun-son pronunciation used by most people, as they didn't want to be the family that was always correcting the pronnunciation of their name.

[LA Ute]

One that I am pretty sure is Utah specific that I thought of last night, the last name Christiansen, pronounced Chris-tee-an-sen.

I managed a video store before (and after but this story is before) my mission. It was a little mom and pop place, we didn't have membership cards, just last names and phone numbers. So one day a lady gives me her phone # and I ask "Is the last name Christiansen?", pronouncing it like a normal person would. She responded "No it is Chris-TEE-AN-sen>>" to which I responded, "Is it spelled Christiansen?" Then rented her the movies.

I guess she was pretty upset about it as her husband came in to return the movies and close the account, but we had the movie they were looking for in stock and Blockbuster didn't. So he just asked that we put a note on their account that it was Chris-TEE-AN-sen.

One of my best friends growing up had that name with that pronunciation. I wonder what the origin might be - is it a Norwegian thing? Does anyone know where the accent would be in Norwegian?