As many people are travelling this holiday week, I thought I would share with you one of my favorite tourist t-shirts. The t-shirt is from The Asylum in Jerome Arizona, "A Restaurant on the Fringe," and was a gift from my parents. I absolutely love the expression on the back of the t-shirt, as my parents knew I would.
Abnormality is the normality at this locality.
Showing posts with label expressions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expressions. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Thursday, May 15, 2008
More on the Yooper Dialect
Here are some more examples of differences between the dialect found in the Upper Peninsula and the Standard American Dialect:
U.P. Dialect --- Standard American Dialect
Expressions:
Wah --- Wow
Holy wah! --- Really wow
Eh. Okay, --- what or hey
Yah sure-hey --- You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t believe it.
Youbetcha --- Yes, without a doubt
Directional Phrases:
Side by each --- Side by side
Pre’neer --- Pretty near or very close
Kotisva --- Go this way
Kotatva --- Go that way
Grammatical changes:
Let’s go Shop-ko. --- Let’s go to the store.
Make wood --- Split logs
Vocabulary:
Pank --- To pack down
Swampers --- Rubber boots
Choppers --- Deer skin mittens with a wool insert
Chuke --- French-Canadian knitted hat with a tassel
Lats --- Skis, usually homemade
Sauna --- Finnish steam room
Camp --- Cottage
Foods:
Pasty --- Finnish or Cornish meat pie
Kala Mojaka --- Finnish fish stew
Juustua --- Finnish cheese
Many of these examples also exhibit the strong influence of the Finnish language on the dialect found in the Upper Peninsula today.
The differing grammatical rules can be seen by 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 postposition. 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”.
Word borrowing is also used. Some of the words in the dialect are Finnish words including many of the popular foods and some of the directional phrases.
U.P. Dialect --- Standard American Dialect
Expressions:
Wah --- Wow
Holy wah! --- Really wow
Eh. Okay, --- what or hey
Yah sure-hey --- You’ve got to be kidding. I don’t believe it.
Youbetcha --- Yes, without a doubt
Directional Phrases:
Side by each --- Side by side
Pre’neer --- Pretty near or very close
Kotisva --- Go this way
Kotatva --- Go that way
Grammatical changes:
Let’s go Shop-ko. --- Let’s go to the store.
Make wood --- Split logs
Vocabulary:
Pank --- To pack down
Swampers --- Rubber boots
Choppers --- Deer skin mittens with a wool insert
Chuke --- French-Canadian knitted hat with a tassel
Lats --- Skis, usually homemade
Sauna --- Finnish steam room
Camp --- Cottage
Foods:
Pasty --- Finnish or Cornish meat pie
Kala Mojaka --- Finnish fish stew
Juustua --- Finnish cheese
Many of these examples also exhibit the strong influence of the Finnish language on the dialect found in the Upper Peninsula today.
The differing grammatical rules can be seen by 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 postposition. 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”.
Word borrowing is also used. Some of the words in the dialect are Finnish words including many of the popular foods and some of the directional phrases.
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