"Say ya to da UP, eh?" This is the UP's answer to the state tourism office's slogan "Say Yes to Michigan!"
Yoopers (inhabitants of Upper Michigan) have an accent with a Canada-meets-the-Midwest flavor. "Ya" and "eh" are the most well-known and often mocked of the colloquial slang. "Eh" (ay) is often appended to statements to turn them into a question or to ask for agreement, much like in stereotypical Canadian usage.
In the Western U.P., the accent is more attributed to Finnish influence rather than Canadian. After all, Detroit is closer to Canada, ey? In Finnish, the expression of "ey" means "no" in much the same sense as the English appendage "isn't it?" or the general-purpose French "n'est-ce pas?" Also, a lot of Yoopers tend to drop their prepositions; the Finnish language doesn't use them. So, to ask if we are going to Green Bay, for example, it is rendered in the vernacular as "We go Green Bay, ey?"
Many of the town names have a wonderfully distinctive native American lilt to them, such as Escanaba (ES kuh NAH bah), Ishpeming (ISH peh ming), or Ontonagon (ON tuh NAH gun).
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Upper Peninsula
Where To Stay & Best Hotels in Upper Peninsula - updated Apr 2024
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Upper Peninsula Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
