How to Speak Midwestern: Yoopanese

A primer on the dialect of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

[jimjones]

Northern
Wisconsin talks like this also

[tim]

Lol. This was like listening to somebody explain what Mars was like after a short visit.

[zacheddy]

you mentioned munising.... i was born and raised there... ive lived there 31 years on to marquette for 8 years.... now l live in florida... i miss the yoop every single day of my life.. wish i never had to leave.... i seen da yoop shirt and had to take a gander...

[tomnufer]

It’s just Yooper for all cases.. No one says yoopanese

[rosetrudell]

There is the western yooper dialect that is Finnish and then there is the eastern yooper accent that is more French Canadian

[jefflocke]

Guy musta bought a book from Da Yoopers gift shop. Pasty without rudabagah?

[JoshSchrank]

Sorry, but people shouldn't try to teach others yooperese if you're not native. His attempt at a yooper accent sounds like a stereotypical Canadian accent, not a yooper accent. Anyone visiting the UP and tries to say, "wa, " or "oly wa, " without the accent will get laughed at; and I've never heard of anyone being called a trooper. Well, unless they work at the state police post in Negaunee.

[jondesenberg]

The "eh thing is very Canadian. Yoopers sound like Canadians to me.

[monathomas]

I've lived all but 12y. Of my lengthy life in the U.P. NEVER Ever have I heard the word yoopanise. We speak yooper.🙄 Troll is a hard tease, Appleknocker is more common.

[rickgamelin]

Not bad for a outsider. It’s a hard dialect to master without growing up with it. Got pasty correct, but I noticed he didn’t tackle Cudighi.

[opbbeg]

It's not yoopanese. The language is called YaDerEh, or just yooper

[stantaylor]

I moved to ND about 10 yrs ago. When I refered to my son I always said " My Boy" Ya I'm gonna call my boy. So one of my friends out here asked me, " doesn't your son have a name?" So this past summer I brought my 2 friends, husband & wife to the U..P. we stopped at an auto parts store for some trailer wiring supplies & my friend Tammy said when we got back in the car & under way, " that calling your son, MY Boy, must be a Yooper thing because when you were being servered, the other guy on the other counter was servicing another customer & asked him how his car or maybe his pick up project was coming along. He responded that My Boy came over this morning & helped me finish it up. I never noticed this all the years I lived there. And yes the Eh! Can be a question or an exclamation point. I think i lost mine, since I moved away. If you don't hear it, you don't use it.

[jamescbliss]

My mom used to make patsy for supper every so often n it was good I could not stand lufka liked finish rye n nusuah

[solarnaut]

oh ! "Yooper" = u.p. = upper peninsula !
(asking for some conspiring friends)

[TRKEWEENAW]

I would argue strongly that the use of "eh" (e being pronounced as a long a) in a statement as in the example he gives ("I'm in my treestand eh?") is inaccurate and much more Canadian than UP. I have rarely if ever heard it used that way up here, at least in the Keweenaw. We use it more in a question form as a prompt for a response as in, for example, "Nice buck eh?"

[laracroftvideos]

This sounds like the stereotypical Canadian accent! Looks like there’s some overlap between Yoopers and Canadians

[LadyYoop]

Wow....lived here all my life....never heard Trooper....to me, they are just Wannabee Yoops EH!

[badguy]

Many of my relatives lived in the UP. THEIR parents came to Michigan from Canada. I'm guessing the "Eh" or "Hey", in the Yooper dialect, is Canadian.

[anton]

You have to talk while eating a Pasty eh?

[rogerstevens]

hold on right there fella Kignsford is in no way connected to the charcoal industry, kingsford is the name of henry fords buddy who made charcoal for camping trips using old wood scraps and he created a whole industry it has nothing to do with the town in the U.P.