in our regional Northern Vowel Shift accent we typically pronounce it: mish-ah-gen. we pronounce a whole lot of things odly.
we also say melk instead of milk. And "ope" instead of excuse me. Liquor stores are called "Party Stores". Hot dogs are called Coneys. The Lake refers to Lake Michigan. Mackinac and Mackinaw are pronounced the same.
The accent is very similar to people from Cleveland (
except Ohio is a shit hole and should be destroyed) or Buffalo NY. Don't ask me why, but the accent kind of pops up there too. It's not quite the same as Wisconsin, which is an OK place, I guess. And it's very different from Chicago, which people in the south tend to think is where I'm from.
most people from Michigan refer to themselves as "Michiganders". Michiganian used to be just as common, but conservatives seem to have decided that only liberals use Michiganian, so now most people use Michigander.
I rarely hear anyone in the North use the term Michigander or Michiganian. The 10% of people who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan usually refer to themselves as "Yoopers". And they call everyone south of the Mackinac Bridge "Trolls".
Go Blue. Fuck Ohio