How far west into Texas does the southern accent extend? (Dallas: fit in, home)

[ajzjmsmom]

Texans very definately have an accent but I wouldn't call it "Southern" my in-laws are from TN and they have a "Southern" accent. I am from South Texas on the Mexico border and don't really hear any Texas accents there. Of course the majority of the people there speak Spanish as their first language.

[texdav]

Personally I don't think anyone n Texas as a southern accent. At least nothig like those south carolina;alabama accents I use to hear. When I was in the army we use to say butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. They also got most of the women with those accents.

[NOTAM]

anyone else notice that when we get all fired up about something, our accents get lots thicker/stronger/twangier?

[Pipeweld]

Originally Posted by bellestaroftexas

anyone else notice that when we get all fired up about something, our accents get lots thicker/stronger/twangier?

My wife say I do. She also says the more I drink the more country I talk. Oh well I'm going to go talk some country.

[NOTAM]

yeppers, drinking does that too hee hee

Originally Posted by Pipeweld

My wife say I do. She also says the more I drink the more country I talk. Oh well I'm going to go talk some country.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by bellestaroftexas

anyone else notice that when we get all fired up about something, our accents get lots thicker/stronger/twangier?

Well I took that test awhile back that put me at "Midland" first, then "Western" second, which basically said I'm either from Missouri or a large city in the South US or Texas.

However when I get really pist, I've been told I can get a bit ghetto, street, foul, whatever you wanna call it. I guess I am still a true native.

[case44]

Originally Posted by Pipeweld

We don't have an accent!! They do!!! LOL
Pipeweld

Ohhhhhh, yeaaaah! Right!

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by ajzjmsmom

Texans very definately have an accent but I wouldn't call it "Southern" my in-laws are from TN and they have a "Southern" accent. I am from South Texas on the Mexico border and don't really hear any Texas accents there. Of course the majority of the people there speak Spanish as their first language.

But...do your in-laws sound like folks from south Alabama or Mississippi? Or south Louisiana?

A west Texas accent is more akin to east Tennessee than either is to either. And both differ from coastal Georgia. Which sounds different from Virginia.

ALL of them though, are properly classified as Southern American English...even if not reflexively considered the stereotypical "Southern accent".

As James Michner (who spent two years in Texas researching the culture while writing his best selling novel "Texas") put it, in so many words...perhaps the most "Southern" influence on Texas is the language. The accent and idiom.

Michner really (and he wrote some memoirs non-fiction on his experiences), concluded he did not consider Texas a totally Southern state...but acknowleged -- and came to appreciate -- that, thru his research, he found it to be much more so than he ever would have first thought when he started out. A major reason -- among many others -- being the dialect and idiom. It was, as he put it "the Deep South moved west."

For all the proud autonomy in legend, "Texas tawk" is just one of many hundreds of a sub-variety of Southern American English.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by texdav

Personally I don't think anyone n Texas as a southern accent. At least nothig like those south carolina;alabama accents I use to hear. When I was in the army we use to say butter wouldn't melt in their mouths. They also got most of the women with those accents.

Here is the thing though, TexDav. You seem to be proceeding from the premise that the Deep South states you mention are the standard of what is a "Southern accent."

They aren't. What is spoken there (and Alabama and South Carolina vary widely between one another, in fact) are just variations of the whole larger picture.

A mountaineer eastern Tenneessean will sound much more like a West Texas small town feller, than he will someone from South Alabama.

[photobox54]

Down here in South East Texas, we eat gumbo on the bayou and dance to the Zydeco under the spanish moss that hangs from the cypress trees. Cajun life is alive and well. Anyone want a crawfish?