# Borderlands



## tvdxer

What is the linguistic situation around your country's borders with nations that speak different languages?  Is the other country's language spoken well on your side of the border or vice-versa?  Is this the result of recent immigration or cultures / ethnicities that have always existed on both sides of the present-day border?

In the United States we have two borders applicable to this discussion: the U.S. - Mexico border and the border between Quebec in Canada and certain Northeastern U.S. states.  

A large percentage of cities on the U.S. side of the Mexican border have a Spanish name, and Spanish is very well spoken there, if not the predominant language in many communities.  There are even U.S. regional Spanish accents.  This area has its own types of Latino music (Tejano, for example), as well as cuisine that seems to be more or less integrated with that of northern Mexico. This is a result of the area previously being part of Mexico, with certain places having a Hispanic heritage going back perhaps 400+ years deep into the Spanish colonial era, and more recently through short-hop immigration over the border.  However, a great number of immigrants today do not go to the border region but farther north to cities like Chicago, New York, and rural agricultural regions of Washington, Nebraska, and Minnesota.

The situation at the Canadian border is less exciting.  There are some French-speaking communities on the American side, and I believe a lot of English-speaking places on the Quebec side (though this is probably from British / English Canadian rather than American influence), but not in the way that the U.S. border is Hispanicized in culture and language.


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## timpeac

tvdxer said:


> What is the linguistic situation around your country's borders with nations that speak different languages?  Is the other country's language spoken well on your side of the border or vice-versa?  Is this the result of recent immigration or cultures / ethnicities that have always existed on both sides of the present-day border?
> 
> In the United States we have two borders applicable to this discussion: the U.S. - Mexico border and the border between Quebec in Canada and certain Northeastern U.S. states.
> 
> A large percentage of cities on the U.S. side of the Mexican border have a Spanish name, and Spanish is very well spoken there, if not the predominant language in many communities.  There are even U.S. regional Spanish accents.  This area has its own types of Latino music (Tejano, for example), as well as cuisine that seems to be more or less integrated with that of northern Mexico. This is a result of the area previously being part of Mexico, with certain places having a Hispanic heritage going back perhaps 400+ years deep into the Spanish colonial era, and more recently through short-hop immigration over the border.  However, a great number of immigrants today do not go to the border region but farther north to cities like Chicago, New York, and rural agricultural regions of Washington, Nebraska, and Minnesota.
> 
> The situation at the Canadian border is less exciting.  There are some French-speaking communities on the American side, and I believe a lot of English-speaking places on the Quebec side (though this is probably from British / English Canadian rather than American influence), but not in the way that the U.S. border is Hispanicized in culture and language.


Alaska borders Russia too, doesn't it?

For England as far as I know no over-the-borders languages are spoken here (Welsh or Scots I guess). We have huge immigrant populations of people from all round Europe who do leave their linguistic imprint on the English of their neighbourhood, but I don't think that's quite what you're asking about.


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## Mate

tvdxer said:


> What is the linguistic situation around your country's borders with nations that speak different languages?  Is the other country's language spoken well on your side of the border or vice-versa?  Is this the result of recent immigration or cultures / ethnicities that have always existed on both sides of the present-day border?


Argentina borders Brazil where Portuguese is the official language. All the other borders are shared with Spanish speaking countries or countries which have Spanish as one of their official languages. 

In Paraguay Guarani is spoken by almost everyone and the same can be said about Argentina's Corrientes Province.

Back to the Brazilian border, I can only speak about the Argentine side: most people there do not speak proper Portuguese nor proper Spanish but rather a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. Some call it Portuñol while others maintain that Portuñol is another mixture, different from the one spoken near the border and perhaps a matter for another discussion.



timpeac said:


> Alaska borders Russia too, doesn't it?



I think it depends on how you define _border_. 

The Bering Strait is approximately 92 km (58 miles) wide, while the width of the Strait of Dover is just 33 km (20 miles).


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## timpeac

Mateamargo said:


> I think it depends on how you define _border_.
> 
> The Bering Strait is approximately 92 km (58 miles) wide, while the width of the Strait of Dover is just 33 km (20 miles).


Yes, I wondered that too. The UK is a funny situation being an island but so close to so many other countries too. It was physically connected to the continent not too long ago (in geological terms!!).


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## cuchuflete

tvdxer said:


> The situation at the Canadian border is less exciting.  There are some French-speaking communities on the American side, and I believe a lot of English-speaking places on the Quebec side (though this is probably from British / English Canadian rather than American influence), but not in the way that the U.S. border is Hispanicized in culture and language.



I guess some people on the U.S. side have never heard of New Brunswick, constitutionally bi-lingual!  I don't share your dismissive "less exciting" characterization.
French is spoken, together with English, on both sides of the border.  It is the native language of about one in twenty Maine residents.  "The Quebec side" omits the Maritimes.  This is not a small oversight.


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## sokol

In Austria the borderlands could be divided as follows:

- German - Austrian border: both sides German speaking, but different dialects (even though the dialects once were identical, national borders effectively caused them to drift apart): both sides understand the dialect of the other side

- Swiss/Liechtenstein - Austrian border: essentially the same as for the border to Germany applies here

- border Southern Tyrol (Italy) - Tyrol (Austria): even though Southern Tyrol once was (almost) German speaking only this no longer is the case, and the province belonging to Italy nowadays is bilingual (with English being the second foreign language there); in Tyrol, Austria some people learn Italian for practical reasons, but for the overwhelming majority of Tyroleans English is the first foreign language: knowledge of Italian in Tyrol is not too common

- Carinthia (Austria) - Italy & Slovenia: despite of the Sloveninan minority in Carinthia (or more to the point: because of) many Carinthians do not want to learn Slovenian but prefer Italian as a second foreing language (with English too being number one); this is due to historical conflicts which still haven't been settled in Carinthia, Slovenian is rather restricted to the minority there, and a few Carinthians with German mother tongue and no prejudices against Slovenian

- Styria, Burgenland (Austria) - Slovenia & Hungary: despite small minorities (Slovenes, Croatians, Hungarians) the minority languages really are restricted to the minorities only, even though no conflicts similar to the ones in Carinthia exist

- Upper & Lower Austria, Vienna (Austrian north and east) - Czech Republik, Slovakia, Hungary: only very small minorities (mainly in Vienna) exist, and knowledge of the neighbouring languages in Austria is not very common

All in all: mainly prestige languages are learnt in Austria, and of our neighbours only Italy can be counted as such.
There were and still are projects to teach the other languages as well (especially Czech and Hungarian), but so far with little success. The main reasons for this are, I'd say, that:
- many of our Slavic and Hungarian neighbours speak either English and/or German quite well and better than most students who ever tried learning their languages
- and then the 'economical value' of the neighbouring Slavic languages and Hungarian is rather limited

Italian, however, is number two or number three of second foreign languages learnt in Austria; but this is rather not due to the fact that Italy is our neighbour but due to the economical value of Italian, and the fact, that many Austrians like to go to Italy for their holidays.


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## tvdxer

cuchuflete said:


> I guess some people on the U.S. side have never heard of New Brunswick, constitutionally bi-lingual!  I don't share your dismissive "less exciting" characterization.
> French is spoken, together with English, on both sides of the border.  It is the native language of about one in twenty Maine residents.  "The Quebec side" omits the Maritimes.  This is not a small oversight.



Granted, I may have underestimated the number of French speakers along the American side of the Canadian border, but

Even if 4.47% of Maine residents speak French...

29.09% of Texans speak Spanish
27.69% of New Mexicans speak Spanish
21.57% of Arizonans speak Spanish
28.21% of Californians speak Spanish

(source)

And since this is based on census data, surely the real percentages are higher if you take into account illegal immigration.  Not many people sneaking across the border in from Quebec or Nova Scotia, are there?


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## Miguel Antonio

I live in Galicia, and the border that separates this part of Spain from Portugal was established in 1143 when Portugal became independent from the kingdom of Castille-Leon. It is the only border in the whole of Europe that has never budged in more than 800 years of history!
Back in those days, both sides of the border shared a common language (richer in literature than Castillian, which was then a minority language) that eventually evolved separately to become two distinct, though related languages: Galician and Portuguese.
Portuguese enjoyed the status of being the language of a proud, young, independent nation, wheras Galician was shunned and eventually forbidden by the Castillian authorities, and yet it still lives, having recovered with democracy the status it was denied for over 500 years.
Both languages are still very similar in the written form, especially if compared to Spanish, the other language of Galicia which is in reality Castillian language. In the spoken form, however, the accents are so different that the paradox occurs that neither Galicians understand spoken Portuguese easily (yet they do understand Brazilian Portuguese better!), nor do the Portuguse understand Galician, as they are more used to listening to Castillian.
I know quite a few Portuguese-Spanish bilingual people, there are officially over two million people who are bilingual Spanish-Galician speakers. I only know one person, apart from myself, who can speak fluent Spanish, Portuguese and Galician. Of course I am not implying that there are only two of us, just stating my case.

Saludos/saúdos/saudaçoes

MA


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## Mjolnir

Israel borders Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The official language of those countries, as well as one of the official languages of Israel, is Arabic.

Arabic isn't very popular in Israel, and according to this, most of its speakers are native speakers (Arabic is spoken mainly by Israeli Arabs and has about 1.4 million speakers).

I can't speak for those who live near a border (and by near I mean near, since Israel's area is quite small), but I think most people who want to (or are required to) learn Arabic do it regardless of their proximity to a border.

Arabic lessons are widespread in Hebrew-speaking schools from the 7th grade to the 9th grade. Those who wish may opt to continue their Arabic studies up to 12th grade and take an Arabic matriculation exam (source). Most students don't continue their Arabic studies.


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## Dr. Quizá

My house is only 1km from Portugal. It's also only30m from the school where I study Portuguese. Despite since I'm studying the language I've detected a number of expressions of our local Spanish dialect that come from Portuguese and that some shop assitants know some very, very basic Portuguese, the number of Spaniards who speak it even here is really close to zero. Furthermore, this school is the only place in Spain within a radius of hundreds of km where Portuguese is taught and we're only about 20 people studying it putting all years together.

On the other hand, we have just to cross the border to easily find a lot of Portuguese people who speak a reasonably good Spanish, some of them with a very high level of proeficiency.

The relationship between Portugal and Spain is quite asymmetrical.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Spain has borders with Morocco in the Northern African towns Ceuta and Melilla.
In the Moroccan areas close to these borders, Spanish is understood and spoken to some extent ( locals use to watch Spanish TV rather than the Moroccan one).
Moroccan Arabic in Ceuta and Berber Tamazight in Melilla ara spoken by the muslims who live in these towns, but almost no Spaniard can speak or even understand  any of those languages.


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## Miguelillo 87

tvdxwr now I'm gonna give you the point of those cities which are in the bordier as Tijuna, Cd Juárez and Nuevo Laredo (and others of course) as you have pointed out I think spanish has more and more presence in US and more in those bordier cities but in bordiers cities on Mexico english doesn't have tihis influence.

Eventhought a lot of words and traditions form US has entered to Mexico they are words nor even phrases in english.

So I have to say Mexico it's recovering its territory (at least in the language)

In the south we share borders with Guatemala which is a spanish spoken country and Belize which is bilingual English and spanish so theres no big influence, besides Mayan is spoken in Guatemala and Chiapas so the influence it's not to big.


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## Shang Qin Li

France is a litttle special. The French have a strong preference for local vernaculars (like Provençal) and they don't care much about foreign languages, except in Tourism and for busines purposes. In Normandy, some people speak a bit of English. Along the belgian border you will hear Flemish every now and then. In Alsace, they do understand German but prefer to speak Alsatian. Next to Italy, quite a few do understand Italian but they won't speak it. Same thing next to Spain. The Basques prefer... Basque and Corsicans...Corsican.  I have no idea why only a minority is truly interested in foreign languages, and why so few make the effort of learning to speak one or two fluently.


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## Zsanna

I think the smaller the country, the more complicated the situation becomes! 
Hungary is in a very special situation from that point of view: it is a small country but has boundaries with 7 countries of 3 main different language families - German (Austria), Latin (Romania) and Slavic (Slovenia, Croatia, Ukraine and Slovakia - Hungarian being totally different from all these). 
But languages and even cultures have found their way to mix (more or less) happily along the centuries in spite of some really eventful periods.

But there came the "quantum leap" of 1919 when the present borders were drawn up artificially (and the country lost 2/3rd of its territory on the occasion), so ever since mostly Hungarian is spoken along most of the present borders!

Nevertheless, as "mixing" has been a long tradition, ethnic groups in Hungary are encouraged to keep up their traditions, culture and language. (It is a fairly easy thing to do for Hungarian governments because these groups are not very big. On the other hand, there are a lot of different sorts...) 
On the other side of the frontiers the situation is often different (esp. in Slovakia, Romania and Serbia). As Hungarians represent an important number of the local population in those areas, it is immediately obvious if they are not "treated properly". (When doing your studies in Hungarian is not allowed, street names in a traditionally Hungarian village or putting up statues of Hungarian poets are not allowed, etc. But all that accompanies "naturally" the historic trauma those bordering areas went through... Previously they, meaning the minority of _those_ times, may have suffered ruthless treatment from the Monarchy's mostly Hungarian soldiers and administrators...) 

I know that on our side the main trend has been for a long time that we "shouldn't complain", we have to "accept things as they are", we are "great friends with everybody" which was one extreme but some nationalistic voices you can hear nowadays (on every side!) are also really far fetched. It seems that emotions have been (or are) stirred up again... Not a pleasant situation for anybody.


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## b00nish

In Switzerland it's like this:

Inside the conutry there are four official languages (in brackets you can see the percentage of native speakers):
German (~64%) [*] 
French (~20%)
Italian (~6,5%)
Romansh (~0,5%)
(the other 9% are foreign languages mostly trough immigration since Switzerland has with more than 20% of the population the biggest community of foreign inhabitants in Europe as far as I know)

[*The swiss german as it is spoken is quite different from the 'normal' german. But of course we learn the 'normal' german at school and the written language is the same]

You can imagine that the borders between the languages are inside the country and do not match the national borders. 

Our neighbour countrys are Germany in the north - so there is no real language border since the Swiss people which are living at this border are part of german speaking Switzerland ; France in the west, again: Most of the Swiss people living at that border are already part of french speaking Switzerland and so on (other borders would be to Italy in the south and to german speaking Austria in the east)

At school we're learning in the german speaking part french as first foreign language and english as second (yet a lot of students are more advanced in english since it's easier to learn and they're more motivated).
In the other parts of course german is a language which often is learned.

Italian, Spanish (and Latin) are other languages which are learned by quite a few Swiss.


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## Outsider

Miguel Antonio and Dr. Quizá have already spoken about the linguistic situation at the border between Portugal and Spain. Although I do not live near the border (the _raia_, as the locals call it), I would like to tie in their contributions, and speak a bit about the general situation.

Miguel spoke of the Portugal-Galicia border, in the north, where from what I understand the transition from Portuguese to Galician (which were once indistinguishable, a long time ago) is fairly gradual. The more you walk towards the north, the more "Galician" features the local dialect has, until you've entered Galicia.

Dr. Quizá spoke of the border further south and to the east (from Portugal's point of view), where the transition from Portuguese to Spanish is more sharp, but still the people who live very close to the border, and are used to crossing it in their everyday lives, do acquire some expressions from the language on the other side, and are at least a little bilingual.

I believe there are a few villages in southwestern Spain where, for historical reasons, Portuguese is still spoken natively, or it used to be until fairly recently. And in Portugal there is the village of Barrancos, where the local language is a kind of Portuguese heavily influenced by the Extremaduran speech of the other side of the border.

The other interesting situation is that of the lands of Miranda. The Miranda valley (Wikipedia calls it a mesa) lies on the northeast corner of Portugal, and has historically been very isolated because of its geography. There, a form of the ancient Astur-Leonese language, the language of the medieval Kingdom of Leon, has survived under the name of Mirandese. On the Spanish side of the border, the number of speakers of Astur-Leonese has declined steadily, as this language, which is quite close to Spanish, has a natural tendency to let itself be absorbed. In Portugal also, Mirandese has been disappearing from the large cities of Miranda, but in part of the countryside the people continue to be bilingual (Mirandese + Portuguese), as they were in previous centuries.


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## fenixpollo

tvdxer said:


> A large percentage of cities on the U.S. side of the Mexican border have a Spanish name, and Spanish is very well spoken there, if not the predominant language in many communities.


 I wouldn't say "well spoken" because that would depend on whose version of "correct" Spanish you were judging by. It would be more accurate to say that Spanish is widely spoken on the US side of the Mexican border. 

On the Mexican side of the US border, it is my impression that English is not as widely spoken.


tvdxer said:


> There are even U.S. regional Spanish accents.  This area has its own types of Latino music (Tejano, for example), as well as cuisine that seems to be more or less integrated with that of northern Mexico. This is a result of the area previously being part of Mexico, with certain places having a Hispanic heritage going back perhaps 400+ years deep into the Spanish colonial era, and more recently through short-hop immigration over the border.


  The current prevalence of Mexican cultural influences in the southwestern US has little to do with the fact that the the area was appropriated from Mexico 160 years ago. It has more to do with the fact that continuous immigration and cultural exchange since that time has kept alive many cultural practices from Spanish-speaking countries -- as well as created new ones (e.g. chimichangas and Tejano).


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## mirx

Miguelillo 87 said:


> tvdxwr now I'm gonna give you the point of those cities which are in the bordier as Tijuna, Cd Juárez and Nuevo Laredo (and others of course) as you have pointed out I think spanish has more and more presence in US and more in those bordier cities but in bordiers cities on Mexico english doesn't have tihis influence.
> 
> Eventhought a lot of words and traditions form US has entered to Mexico they are words nor even phrases in english.
> 
> So I have to say Mexico it's recovering its territory (at least in the language)
> 
> In the south we share borders with Guatemala which is a spanish spoken country and Belize which is bilingual English and spanish so theres no big influence, besides Mayan is spoken in Guatemala and Chiapas so the influence it's not to big.


 
Pehaps not in the borders so much, but what about inland towns?

Cancún
San Miguel de Allende
Cholula
And most beach resorts.

The first time I went to Puerto Vallarte I was both surprised and ashemed that the sellers in mercados and other flea market traders had no difficulty communicatin in English when I could only mumble a few words.

These people probably didnt even finished elementary school but their occupations required of them to speak English; this is different of course to the Southwest US where Spanish is spoken mainly by Hispanic communities.

You may want to have a look in San Miguel de Allende, where American retirees have been migrating for years and now the town is mostly biligual, and this is very far from any border!

Regarding the cities in the north, yes, they may not have the same influence of English as southern American cities have from Spanish; but in Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez most people would be able to at least understand some English.


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## Shang Qin Li

Dear Mirx
On the eastern islands close to Turkey, and farther up North next to the turkish border, many Greeks do understand Turkish. But they're most reluctant to speak it. Why ? The Greeks hate the Turks and the Turks hate the Greeks. The Turks (Ottomans) invaded Greece and occupied it for 400 years forbidding thousands of things, starting with Orthodox religion and teaching greek in schools. In addition to that all the islands close to the western shores of Turkey are under greek rule, but claimed by Ankara as being turkish. That's an endless dispute.


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## Etcetera

Russia has borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Byelorussia, Unkraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, North Korea, Japan and the USA. 

I can only tell with relative certainty about the situation along the borders with Finland, Byelorussia and Ukraine. In Karelia there are many people who speak both Russian and Finnish, and the Karelian language is very much like Finnish. 

People along the borders with Byelorussia and Ukraine speak a somewhat different variety of Russian, quite different from literary Russian. So I suppose it's easier for them to understand the Byelorussians and the Ukrainians than for a Muscovite or a Petersburger.


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## Adolfo Afogutu

En Uruguay tenemos la suerte de contar con una ciudad que está totalmente unida a su hermana brasileña. La ciudad de Rivera y la ciudad de Santana do Livramento son, en realidad, una única ciudad. No las separa ni un puente internacional, ni un paso terrestre ni una aduana; están, en cambio, unidas por una avenida. Los habitantes pasan libremente de un lado al otro, caminando o en coche, hacen sus compras donde quieren, sin rendirle cuentas a ninguna autoridad. Dos países pero una sola ciudad, en una integración que es muy anterior a  todos los tratados de libre comercio que se han firmado y que se firmarán, y mucho más genuina, por cierto. Allí se habla el portuñol (o, como les gusta decir a unos pocos que quieren ser o parecer políticamente correctos, el DPU, dialecto portugués uruguayo),  mirado con horror y con desdén por las momias académicas y con mucha simpatía por la mayoría de la gente. Muchos lo hablan como única lengua; otros tantos, con mejor educación formal, lo hablan todos los días pero son capaces de hablar castellano “sin contaminación” portuguesa. Unos cuantos también son capaces de hablar en un portugués bastante aceptable.

Algunos ejemplos de portuñol sacados de un diario local:

CASTELLANO / PORTUGUÉS / PORTUÑOL

agujero / buraco  / bujero
silla / cadeira / sia
aturdido / atordoado / atarantado
barajar / baralhar / abaralhar
aproximarse / chegar-se / aprochegarse

Los habitantes de Rivera pronuncian de manera distinta la be y la uve. Esta última tiene un simpático sonido portugués, muy marcado.

Cordial saludo

A.A.

PD. No domino el dialecto, sabrán disculpar si hay errores.


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## ireney

In most border regions in Greece many people are bilingual. It's the result of all the Balkan nationalities living together for centuries. 

Just a note because I don't want people to get the wrong impression. While some Greek nationalists hate the Turks and vice versa, the general population has thankfully moved past that. Oh and then Ottoman Empire did not forbade the Orthodox Christian religion at all and at the very least did not always forbid the teaching of the Greek language. This is just a note for the sake of historical accuracy and the peace of the forums


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## Sepia

First I should say that many people who are born in the northernmost State of the Federal Republic of Germany are native Danish speakers and in the south of Denmark it is vice versa. Apart from that you meet lots of German-language Germans who live close to the border who speak excellent Danish and assume that at least 90% of the Danes living within a 100 km from the German border understand German and many of them speak German very well.

Additional info: Danish and High German are not the only languages that have been spoken here for centuries.


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## vince

Until thirty or so years ago, there was very little difference in accent or vocabulary between the English of southern Ontario (Canada) and that of Detroit (Michigan) and Buffalo (New York). Both were dialects of Midwestern U.S. English. However a phonetic change known as the "Northern Cities Shift" occurred in Buffalo, Detroit, and Chicago which modified certain vowels so the English of southern Ontario is closer to that of rural and northern (i.e. Minnesota/Wisconsin) Midwestern accents and General American English than that of Buffalo and New York.


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