"Fargo"

[Billionbridges.com]

I'll have to make a point of stopping in Brainerd if and when we make a
trip through Minnesota!  Have you ever been to Southern Manitoba?
I'd be curious to hear your opinion on how closely speech in Russian
Mennonite towns like Steinbach, Winkler and the like resemble "Fargo".
Admittedly, the pedigree is different--second and third generation
English filtered through Mennonite Low German as opposed to the
Scandinavian roots in Minnesota.

Note in the interest of dispelling potential confusion: the Russian
Mennonites
who came from Ukraine during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries spoke
Low German, and many still do.  My father, born in Alberta and raised in
the Niagara fruit-growing region of Ontario, spoke Low German exclusively
until his first day of school in 1946, when he learned very quickly what an
unpopular languages it was for the time!

Don

> See my just-sent note on MN speech.  Depends on where in Minnesota you've
> stopped; gas station people and telephone operators may not represent
> long-time local speech (though I'm often pleased at how they do).  "Fargo"
> is set primarily in the Brainerd area, southeast of Fargo but pretty far
> north, and I assure you, the local speech is close to (not identical with)
> that of the woman cop.  Minneapolis speech varies more, of course, with
> newcomers and mixed speech; I like to think that the auto dealer (Macy)
was
> originally from out-of-town, though not from northern Minnesota.  It's a
> long state, with predictable changes from north to south and between large
> urban and small urban/rural areas.
>
>
>
> >All exaggeration aside, the characters in "Fargo" sound like nothing
> >in small-town Minnesota I've ever heard (stops at gas stations, telephone
> >calls--admittedly not extensive contact) as much as they do Southern
> >Manitoba Mennonites (six years in Winnipeg, I'm a Russian Mennonite
> >myself, though from Southern Ontario).  My take on the movie was
> >that basing it in Minnesota made it caricature, but had the action been
> >shifted a hundred miles north across the border it would have been
> >very realistic.
> >
> ></amateur opinion/impression>
> >
> >Don
> >_______________________
> >Don Rogalski and Toni Kuo
> >"A Billion Bridges"
> >Chinese<>English Translation Services
> >Tel: 905-308-9389
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> >Email: translation at billionbridges.com
>