Is Texas a Southern or Western state? (Houston, Dallas: transplants, real estate)

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by gregandvicky

Texas is neither. It is northern Mexico.

Uh huh....LOL!!!

If I were there, I'd get you for that remark, LOL!!

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

And can you really say that people from west Texas don't have more in common, idiom and accent wise, with folks from Mississipi than they do with those in Kansas and/or Colorado?

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No. NO. West Texas is NOTHING like MS. NOTHING. Kansas, I can't say, as I've never been to the state.....and I have never heard anyone from Kansas speak that I was aware. WTX may have idioms in common with MS and the rest of the south, but in terms of accent, very little.

SW Colorado....they have (from my experience) more of a precise, clipped accent with less of a drawl than WT. But it is not a Southern accent at all, to my ear.

I think it really boils down to what it sounds like to the individual. To my ear, WT sounds nothing like what we think of as typical "southern" accents.

By typical southern, I am referring to LA, MS, AL, GA, TN....and again, Texas (other than the extreme eastern part) is not included in that region.

I am sure that what you stirred up was exactly what you intended...you evil person....LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cathy, Cathy Cathy! At LEAST you seem to have a good sense of humor! LOL

BUT...I KNOW what you are referring to. My point is, that all of those states have varying accents too. And that the west Texas twang is very akin to that spoken in eastern Tennesse. And neither sound like the soft lilting drawl of Suvanah, Georgia. YET...there is SOMTHING, linguistically speaking, that bonds Texans and Virginians, South Carolinians, and Mississpians.

I am not sure WHAT it is, but dammed if I don't know it when I hear it. Perhaps it is the idiom. Y'all. Fixin' too, Out Yonder or over yonder. It is SOMTHING, that makes Texans understand Alabamans more than they (we) do Kansans or Ohioians.

Now quit giving me a hard time, dad gummit! (I hope you know I am kiddin")

[NOTAM]

yeppers..it sure is interesting that Texas has different "accents" in different regions of the state.
i have had two out of town patients who IMMEDIATELY knew i was, first of all, NOT from South Texas, and could actually guess that I was from the Wichita Falls/Ft Worth North Texas area! i was amazed.
today folks in line at the hospital cafeteria laughed at me when i asked for some of them "smashed taters" lol............gawd.......i feel like i stick out like a green thumb 'round here! cant wait to move!

[blueskies49]

I think that Cathy (woman with a wonderful sense of humor!) maybe doesn't realize that Texas, even WTX, is just a variation on the "Southern accent" which encompasses all of the South and that the Texas accent is due to historic settlement by Southerners even as far as West Texas. When she mentions, LA, GA, AL, TN, etc., they all have their own various versions of the Southern accent of which Texan is just one of them. I've known Texans from every part of the state and they all have their own variation of the "Southern" accent. Except maybe El Paso. I've known people from there, too, and like most of us probably would agree, El Paso is on its own, lol!

And living in the DFW area, I know people here from all over the country including from all over the South and every Southern state has it's own accent. I've always heard outsiders call a Texan's accent Southern. Cathy, I'd love to hear you speak, I'd bet that you DO have a Southern variation of an accent going on!

[jfre81]

I lived in North Carolina and they generally do not consider Texas *The South*

They seem to think the South doesn't go west of the Mississippi.

[texasdreamin]

Well, it sure looks south to me.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by jfre81

I lived in North Carolina and they generally do not consider Texas *The South*

JFRE, I've got some distant cousins in Mississippi, and we rag back and forth with each other on this topic. Hell, you are right. To some of the "Deep South" purists, the South stops at the Mississippi River.

Again (I think I wrote this on another thread), all I can say is, I sure wish all them Texas boys knew they weren't Southern before they went off to do all that good fightin'! LOL

Anyway, my good friend BlueSkies hit it right on when she speaks on that the accent common in West Texas is very much one of many sub-varieties of what is broadly known as Southern American speech.

[catman]

My feeling is that east of Dallas, it's part of the Old South. Far West (or "Trans-Pecos") Texas is Southwestern, being due south of New mexico. The part of Texas between these two is, well, just Texan, sui generis. South Texas is almost a part of Mexico in population and culture.

[paleo99]

After spending alot of time in this area, its accent is more like that of Albuquerque than anything else I know of. It's basically a "normal" accent in the sense that many of them don't have a twang, but more of a quintessential american accent that many people wouldn't think would stand out. This is of course varies a little bit since it has a strong Mexican influence and many people have a hispanic type accent if they're first or second generation immigrants.

In my opinion El Paso is type of area where it has been rejected in a de facto fashion by many americans because it seems to resemble Mexico more than the USA...granted it's the border.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by TexasReb

Cathy, Cathy Cathy! At LEAST you seem to have a good sense of humor! LOL

BUT...I KNOW what you are referring to. My point is, that all of those states have varying accents too. And that the west Texas twang is very akin to that spoken in eastern Tennesse. And neither sound like the soft lilting drawl of Suvanah, Georgia. YET...there is SOMTHING, linguistically speaking, that bonds Texans and Virginians, South Carolinians, and Mississpians.

I am not sure WHAT it is, but dammed if I don't know it when I hear it. Perhaps it is the idiom. Y'all. Fixin' too, Out Yonder or over yonder. It is SOMTHING, that makes Texans understand Alabamans more than they (we) do Kansans or Ohioians.

Now quit giving me a hard time, dad gummit! (I hope you know I am kiddin")

LOL!! I plead guilty to y'all, fixing to, etc.

I actually have a much easier time understanding a Midwestern (MO, OH, IN, IL) accent (or lack thereof, if you think about it) than I do a deep south one, from whatever region. VA was much easier to understand than either MS or LA....and I don't even know why. I lived in MS for 6 months, and I still had to really listen closely at times to understand some people at the end of that time.