Texas Accent (Midland, Odessa, West: buy, schools, teach)

[robinhood]

As a Native Texan, I had no idea that when I called my future roomates for college, from Indiana, to determine what we would need for our dorm room,that I would become a laughing stock among them. I always considered myself educated and I must admit that I use an extensive vocabulary. However, my accent in my words gave me away as a Texan, and they found me quite humorous.

[TXTwizter]

Originally Posted by robinhood

As a Native Texan, I had no idea that when I called my future roomates for college, from Indiana, to determine what we would need for our dorm room,that I would become a laughing stock among them. I always considered myself educated and I must admit that I use an extensive vocabulary. However, my accent in my words gave me away as a Texan, and they found me quite humorous.

Humerous and JEALOUS that they arent TEXANS!

[GayleTX]

Every time I come out of the woods in East Texas and spend a day in Dallas, I grieve that 'the accent' is dying. Nobody in the offices or stores "tawks raght" ......you might as well be in Kansas! They don't even pronounce Tex-iz right....they say Teksus or something like that! Too much Yankke influence around them, I guess.....

[Lakewooder]

Gayle, don't blame Dallas for that, blame the tundra full of transferees to the north.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by Lakewooder

Gayle, don't blame Dallas for that, blame the tundra full of transferees to the north.

HAHAHAHA LOVED you and Gayle's posts! I gotta share this very related tidbit. Backtracking a bit though, I have witten it down before in earlier threads, so I apologize for being a bit redundant here!

Some years ago I was in the DFW area on some minor business and checked into a motel near the airport. The clerk was a super friendly young black lady who made a lot of good small talk as she started the process of checking me in. Anyway, we got to talking about this and that and, even before I showed her my driver's license, she suddenly said "You must be from Texas."

Wellll, yeah. After all, weren't we IN Texas...? So, a bit amused and curious, I asked what had clued her in. She replied, "cos honey, you DON'T sound like you are from around HERE!"

Maybe you had to be there, but I cracked up laughing!

[JamesAbilene]

When my wife and I lived up "north" in Akron, Ohio, people in stores, at church, etc. would constantly ask us to tawk for them because they loved listening to us.

The thing they noticed particularly was that our long "i's" sounded different from theirs. They particularly noticed the sound in words like "wife" "nice" "white" "night." I had never noticed that unusual sound in our Texas speech until I lived there where the people had a really pure long "i" sound. Ayh still prefer to say nayht to night.

[pacific_trader]

My aunts and cousins use "wont", as in "what kind of car do you wont?" I guess it's a southern Texas thing.

[nativeDallasite]

Originally Posted by GayleTX

Every time I come out of the woods in East Texas and spend a day in Dallas, I grieve that 'the accent' is dying. Nobody in the offices or stores "tawks raght" ......you might as well be in Kansas! They don't even pronounce Tex-iz right....they say Teksus or something like that! Too much Yankke influence around them, I guess.....

That's not fair, though; the east Texas accent is different. I wouldn't expect people in Dallas to talk like people from east Texas. My BF is from west Texas and while we both have Texas accents, our accents aren't the same.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by nativeDallasite

That's not fair, though; the east Texas accent is different. I wouldn't expect people in Dallas to talk like people from east Texas. My BF is from west Texas and while we both have Texas accents, our accents aren't the same.

This is a good point about the variety in accents around the state. Just like there is no one single "Southern accent", there is no single "Texas accent" either. However, just as the "Southern accent" has been "sterotyped" to be that spoken in parts of the Deep South, so the "typical Texas accent" is usually thought of as the type one hears in rural West Texas.

In fact, ALL the dialects spoken in Texas are simply several of many more varities of what is known as "Southern American English." Reflecting settlement patterns, many people in East Texas sound more like folks in Louisiana or even Mississippi, whereas in West Texas it is more akin to that heard in Tennessee and Arkansas.

I DO agree with Gayle though, that over the years there has been such a heavy migration of yankees in the larger cities -- such as DFW -- that the Texas/Southern dialect and idiom has been noteably diluted.

[blueskies49]

Alot of transplants pick up "y'all" and/or "fixin to" but the WAY they pronounce their words - their accent - is still yankee. I know a lady from rural parts outside of Chicago who once told me that she's picked up the Texas accent and Kentucky accent (she used to live there) because she says "y'all" and other Southern words. No, honey, just because you picked up some of the slang doesn't mean that you've learned to pronounce words any differently. You still SOUND noticeably different!