How to Appreciate Michigan's Upper Peninsula or “Yooper” Dialect

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Dialects are sometimes thought of as regional or social variations of a language. The state of Michigan is unique in that there exists a separate dialect variation in the Upper Peninsula than in the Lower Peninsula. The geography of Michigan enables it to have these two distinct dialectical regions in one state because of the fairly definitive dividing line of the Great Lakes. To better understand the dialect, it helps to know how it originated and what its rules, sounds and vocabulary are like.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Step1

Consider the many different language groups that were thrown together beginning in the 1840’s when the lumber and mining industries brought so many people to the Upper Peninsula. People came from numerous places including: Norway, Sweden, Poland, Holland, Russia, Scotland, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Hungary, England and Poland. In all, around 100,000 people of 30 different nationalities moved to the Upper Peninsula.

Step2

Recognize that the dialect most associated with the Upper Peninsula is one with a strong Finnish influence. The reason the Finnish language seems to have had the most lasting impression on the dialect of the Upper Peninsula goes back to the mining boom. When Finnish immigrants first came to the Upper Peninsula they tended to settle in more rural areas and they kept in close contact with each other. The Finnish language was also very important to the people as part of their culture, so they continued to speak, read and write the language and still do so today.

Step3

Note the origins of the word Yooper. The etymology is from UP, which is the abbreviation for Upper Peninsula. The word Yooper has become such a commonplace term for the residents of the Upper Peninsula that it has even gained mention in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. The definition is listed as, “a native or inhabitant of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.”

Step4

After reviewing the examples of the dialect, note the phonological influences from the Finnish language. One aspect of Finnish phonology is a preference for voiceless consonants. Looking at the phonology of the Upper Peninsula dialect, the Finnish influence is shown by the lack of the “th” sound as the Finnish language does not have this sound. This results in the use of the “d” sound in place of the English “th” sound and the use of the soft t sound at the end of words that end in th. The vowel sounds also reflect the Finnish phonology.

Step5

Again, after reviewing the examples of the dialect note the grammatical influences of the Finnish language. The Finnish grammatical rules can be seen in the dropping of prepositions in the dialect. This is directly related to the Finnish language as it has 14 declensions of nouns and does not use prepositions. Finnish nouns have the meaning of “to” added as a suffix called a postpositions.

In addition, the Finnish language does not use articles such as a, an or the. This can be seen in the sentence structure of the dialect as well and in the example of “Let’s go Shop-ko”.