Mom and dad, the Michigan accent is changing: Experts say linguistic markers are there, but shifting

"I bought a hat, mom and dad."

There are several vowels in that sentence that are hallmarks of the classic Michigan accent.

It's due to a linguistic difference known as the northern cities vowel shift.

The accent is changing, and maybe becoming less pronounced, one expert says. But regional accents and dialects certainly aren't going anywhere.

"Dialects are always changing all the time," said Betsy Sneller, a professor of linguistics at Michigan State University who is studying this change.

"The big question is whether they change in a way that people start to notice and in this case, this dialect is changing in a really major way right now."

Michiganders are "famously" unaware of their accent in one study, rating themselves as sounding perfectly average, Sneller said. That's started to change in the last 10 to 20 years.

While there are six vowels that really set the accent apart, people commonly notice two: the vowels in "dad" and "mom," for example, that often come out with a nasal twang in a prominent Michigan accent.

But that's becoming less pronounced among younger generations, though the shift has been in place for at least a generation, Sneller said.

Changes in Michigan accent in motion for a generation

Sneller launched the Michigan Diaries as a research project during the COVID-19 pandemic. People can send in audio diaries talking about their days and their lives, with the initial goal of studying how social isolation impacts language.

But Sneller found in addition to collecting a bunch of great stories the change was already in motion.

The Michigan Diaries are available online, Sneller said, and are open to anyone residing in the state.

Linguists in English like to study vowel sounds, she said, rather than vocabulary, because they're an unconscious feature of the way we talk.

"Now I'm a Michigander, I call carbonated beverage 'pop,' but it is really easy for me to switch and call it 'soda,'" Sneller said. "It's much harder for me in casual conversation to change how I pronounce the word 'dad.'"

The big question, she said, is why the change is happening and whether its random chance or a combination of external factors, like migration.

Detroit River a well-known dialect boundary

But you may have noticed that Windsorites don't get too much of that Michigan twang. That's because the Detroit River is in linguistic circles a famous dialect boundary, one that few features cross despite proximity, Sneller said.

Claire Henderson is a linguistic researcher who recently completed her master's degree studying the diffusion of accents across the Niagara Falls, New York, and Niagara Falls, Canada, border.

Canadians don't tend to pick up American accents, she said: In her research Canadians from Niagara Falls had similar accents to those from Toronto, despite their proximity to the border.

The Canadian accent itself, she said, is becoming more pronounced over time.

But one area where Canadian pronunciation is changing is in "ah" and "aw" sounds, like in "pasta" and "llama." There, Canadians pick up the more typical American pronunciation, but not the one Windsorites are used to hearing, because of the Michigan-area vowel shift.

"I assume it comes more from media than from the border," Henderson said.

Michigan accent changing, not disappearing

While the Michigan accent is changing, it's far from disappearing, Sneller said. While casual listeners may notice some features of the accent less commonly, linguists can and do hear a difference.

"But luckily there are actually a ton of other features that distinguish regional dialects, and those are still getting more and more distinct," Sneller said. "It's just that we're waiting to see what other features become noticeable to people.

"The good news is regional dialects are still being their own quirky, unique self, which as a person who studies dialects, I love that."