01-01-19 11:25am

Some personal favourite Michigan words and places:
Tecumseh
Michilimackinac
Ypsilanti

Also interesting to note that Michiganders have a tendency to talk fast and smoosh sounds together. Example: "Grand Rapids" or "Grand Haven" can sound like "Gran' Rapids" and "Gran' Haven" because the "d" is swallowed. Similarly, glottal stops often replace the letter "t" (though I think that might be a much wider phenomenon than just the Great Lakes area). It is possible to hear the Northern Cities Shift taking root in some of the more populous areas (the [ae] pushing forward into a softer [E] (don't know how to make the right symbol for it here), etc.) ex. "Kalamazoo" becomes "Kehlamazoo"

"Did you eat?" Can be shortened to an almost monosyllabic "D'jeet?" The raven at Potter Park Zoo in East Lansing frequently squawks " 'mere" to visitors after years of hearing locals say "Come here" in the Michigan accent, which is condensed into "C'mere" or just " 'mere."

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01-01-19 11:54am

Oh. And "Bismillah" is an Anglicization of "b'ism Allah," which is Arabic for "in the name of God."
بسم الله

Just in case you were wondering. Lol

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Re: , 01-01-19 4:26pm

Yeah, I looked it up after recording and felt like a douche

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01-07-19 9:10am

Good stuff bud!
I always enjoyed your voice as well!

Interestingly enough a lot of the names you listed off for correct pronunciation are Indigenous. Many of those names are Ojibwe and Potawatomi of the Algonquain language family. Ojibwe and other indigenous languages of the great lakes area are hard to narrow down to one or two "correct" pronunciations. These languages were of an oral language for (according to my tribe) well over a thousand years without ever being written down.

This site is great
Here is an example of how differently a name can be spelled and sound.

"Wenabozho (also spelled Waynaboozhoo, Nanabozho, Nanabushu, Nanabush, Manabozho, Minabozho, and several other ways.) Wenabozho is the benevolent culture hero of the Anishinaabe tribes (sometimes referred to as a "transformer" by folklorists.) His name is spelled so many different ways partially because the Anishinabe languages were originally unwritten (so English speakers just spelled it however it sounded to them at the time), and partially because the Ojibway and Algonquin languages are spoken across a huge geographical range in both Canada and the US, and the name sounds different in different dialects. The correct pronounciation here in Minnesota is similar to way-nuh-boo-zhoo, but in other places in the Anishinabe world it is pronounced nay-nuh-boo-zhoo, nain-boo-zhoo, nain-bozh, nay-nuh-boash, or mah-nah-boo-zhoo. Wenabozho shares some similarities with other Algonquian heroes such as the Wabanaki Glooskap, Blackfoot Napi, and Cree Wesakechak, and many of the same stories are told in different Algonquian tribes with only the identity of the protagonist differing."

I like this example because my fathers spirit name is Nanabush. Since we are northern Chippewa it is spelled Nanabush and pronounced the same. But look at how different it can be!

So I suppose whatever region you are from is how your're going to pronounce some of these words. Although if you are going for accuracy I would stick to how the natives in your region say it.


Also! did you know that the name Michigan itself is an Ojibwe name? Michigan is a derivative of the Ojibwe word mishigamaa, meaning "Big water" or "large water".

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Re: , 01-07-19 9:15am

And the names that are not indigenous I have no Idea about.
:)

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Re: , 01-16-19 5:02pm

I've always thought it was funny that the locals around here refer to lake michigan as "the big lake" - i've often wondered if it's a holdover from the "michi gami" name

all languages are fluid over time, even the ones we've written down. middle english and modern english don't even look like the same language.

it's interesting stuff, for sure.

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