Yah, Dat's Graate

Up nort, in da U.P., we have a distinctive way of talking, which is apparently called "Yooper" after the name for the natives and/or inhabitants of the Upper Peninsula. Yooper is an easy-to-mock, easy-to-understand dialect of English, and comes in for a good examination by Prof. Richard W. Bailey, an English professor at da U a M in Ann Arbor. Prof. Bailey discovers, among other interesting facts, that the term "Yooper" is younger than I am:

The earliest published use discovered by the Dictionary of American Regional English dates to August 5, 1979. On that day, the Escanaba Daily Press published a contest to name the folks who live in the UP. Sixty-five candidate names were proposed, including Pastian, Skeeter-Eater, Michupper and Bush Turkey.
Nominated by Brett Crawford of Bark River: Yooper. It won.

Prof. Bailey also offers a few samples of the dialect:

Holywha 'Yooper Expletive,' pank 'to pack snow down', and tarts 'tings you trow at a tartboard'.

I still say "Holywha" all the time, and just last week my wife made fun of me for saying I'd "panked" something down. Oh well. Dese trolls jus don't know how ta speak.

(Tanks, Mom, for da link.)