Midwestern accent
Minnesota-style speech pattern
A Midwestern accent is a way of speaking English associated with the central United States—roughly the Great Lakes region through the Plains states.
Features vary by area but often include flattened vowels, merged sounds in words like cot and caught, and a slightly nasal quality.
The accent is sometimes perceived as neutral or "standard" American English, though linguists note its distinct regional markers.
She still has a Midwestern accent after twenty years in New York.
- twangSharp vibrating sound
- nasalOf the nose
- flatLacking vertical variation
- vowelsLetters with unblocked airflow
- ChicagoMajor Illinois metropolis
Wisconsin · Minnesota · Minnesota nice · North Dakota · heartland · prairie · friendly · folksy · farm · cornfields · hockey · hotdish · ope · you betcha · dontcha · ya · know · wholesome
- accentsTexas drawl, Texas twang, intonation, twang, Cajun
- American dialectsTexas twang, American English, regional speech, Texas drawl, Valley Girl
- speechspeech, speaking, talk, diction, conversation
- dialectsregional dialect, local dialect, patois, vernaculars, vernacular
Midwestern accentSouthern accent
Regional speech pattern, American South
New York accent · Boston accent · Brooklyn accent · Appalachian accent · New England accent
Midwestern accentBritish accent
UK speech pattern
Australian accent · Irish accent · Canadian accent · foreign accent
Midwest, middle, west, western, westerner, westerly, westward, accent, accents