Oct
3rd
Fri
3rd
But dialect features tend to come from one’s peers, not one’s parents, and [Sarah] Palin spent her childhood in Alaska’s Mat-Su Valley, which is where she got her distinctive manner of speaking. The next town over from Wasilla, Palmer, has a large settlement of Minnesotans—who were moved there by a government relief program in the 1930s—and features of the Minnesotan dialect are thus prominent in the Mat-Su Valley area. Hence the Fargo-like elements in Palin’s speech…
— Jesse Sheidlower, trying to place the GOP vice presidential candidate’s accent.
