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Oh, c'mon, Brubaker. I said (and will say again) there are kinda two different definitions of "Dixie". The original one is the 11 Old Confederate States...of which no doubt Texas is/was a part. Today? In the vernacular? Most of it doesn't fit that image. I will be the first to agree with THAT!
I HAVE read it, Brubaker. Matter of fact, I bought the book when it first came out (Texas/Southern studies have always been an avocation of mine). What I am saying is, stacked up with other "regional cultural" studies, Nine Nations of North America falls short for the simple reason it often fails to take into account the influence of history and self-identification and basic culture so intrinsic to what actually makes a region. Much of the southern Midwest is placed within "Dixie" in his book.
But do those folks actually identify with "Dixie"? The point I was trying make earlier is that -- while for sure the trans-pecos and upper panhandle don't fit the Old South mold -- they are STILL more "Southern" than any part of the true SW or Midwest.
And I agree, to a certain extent. But how many know that, San Antone has been described as "A blend of Old Mexico and Old South"?
Yes, he does. As I said, I read the book when it first came out. Certain parts ring true, but it has to be comparatively considered. The "divisions" he makes are based on what many (not just me) condider extremely economic considerations which don't hold water when it comes to larger ones of history and basic culture. I mean, really...lots of Texas IS the "Breadbasket" I agree...but what else does it have which bonds it to the northern mid-west? (ok, Tornado Alley! LOL) They feel no affinity with us, nor us with them. Texas (and to a slightly lesser extent, most of Oklahoma) are "Southern" in nature and influence and roots.
LOL As you say, whateva.
Now, how 'bout them Horns! \../
Okay, sorry, I thought you said you did not read the book. My mistake.
Last edited by Mike from back east; 11-07-2009 at 09:39 PM..
Dallas, Fort Worth, Lubbock, Amarillo = Midwestern
Austin, San Antonio, El Paso = Southwestern
As for accents, Texas has its own distinct accent and is definitely NOT "Southern". When you get into the major cities, there is no accent save for a washed-out American accent (which is the same for any major city in the country).
Dallas, Fort Worth, Lubbock, Amarillo = Midwestern
Austin, San Antonio, El Paso = Southwestern
As for accents, Texas has its own distinct accent and is definitely NOT "Southern". When you get into the major cities, there is no accent save for a washed-out American accent (which is the same for any major city in the country).
Disagree about accents for the most part. There are still plenty of people in Dallas who have Texas/southern accents, though not so much in the northern suburbs which are filled with transplants. I also don't agree that Dallas is midwestern. I grew up here, went to college in the midwest, and it felt totally foreign to me. Of course things are changing as people move around.
Why do you consider Austin western? Is it because of the liberal views? Do you mean western as in the west coast (the blue states)?
Well yeah, thats pretty much why...that and I dont ever here any Texas accents from Austin...If it contained similar politics and accents as the areas immediately surrounding it, then I would consider it unquestionably southern due to both its geography and to a lesser extent its topography.
As a side note, I have to disagree with people who say that a Texas accent is not southern, or is significantly different than other Southern accents. I have actually listened closely in order to try to guess a person's accent, and after a few wrong guesses, I have come to accept that I literally cannot tell the difference between most southern accents and true Texas accents (not the dilute, midwestern/westcoast hybrid accents).
The only difference I can detect is between the Paula Deen and Virginia/NC Peidmont type (which are not the accents found throughout the majority of the south imo), and the Texas/Oklahoma/Arkansas accents. And of course among blacks, the accents take on different inflections from region to region...Blacks toward the east speak with more of the British influence of the early settlers, whereas obviously the dialect of blacks in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma etc. was influenced more by the settlement of the Scottish/Irish (?) -- and of course, in Texas, some German influence....anyway the difference there is negligible imo.
Last edited by solytaire; 10-27-2009 at 01:02 AM..
As a side note, I have to disagree with people who say that a Texas accent is not southern, or is significantly different than other Southern accents. I have actually listened closely in order to try to guess a person's accent, and after a few wrong guesses, I have come to accept that I literally cannot tell the difference between most southern accents and true Texas accents (not the dilute, midwestern/westcoast hybrid accents)
I don't see how that is remotely possible... you must not be listening closely. I grew up in Southeast Texas, which is more "Southern" than any other part of the state, and one time I stopped in Mobile, AL and couldn't understand anyone there. The accent was drastically different from anything I'd ever heard in Southeast TX. The rest of Texas is even LESS Southern than the Southeastern region, so to say there is no difference in the accent is absurd. Rural Texans have more of a "twang", especially when you get away from East Texas... not really a "drawl". Everyone I know from Houston or Dallas has no accent at all. This is even more-so here in Austin where you're not going to hear anything but a generic American accent from the majority of the population.
I don't see how that is remotely possible... you must not be listening closely. I grew up in Southeast Texas, which is more "Southern" than any other part of the state, and one time I stopped in Mobile, AL and couldn't understand anyone there. The accent was drastically different from anything I'd ever heard in Southeast TX. The rest of Texas is even LESS Southern than the Southeastern region, so to say there is no difference in the accent is absurd. Rural Texans have more of a "twang", especially when you get away from East Texas... not really a "drawl". Everyone I know from Houston or Dallas has no accent at all. This is even more-so here in Austin where you're not going to hear anything but a generic American accent from the majority of the population.
crazy, I figured someone would say that verbatim...lol
But yeah, I was listening closely, but perhaps you werent listening closely enough to those accents you heard...or perhaps you misheard the accent in Alabama that you are comparing to the East Texas drawl...or perhaps you are comparing an accent that isnt representative of the majority of Alabama at all, to the speach in Houston/Dallas...
IDK, but I really dislike how people (in this case, yourself included) try to impose their personal experiences onto my own life experiences. I have had my own experiences, have met my own share of people from the Southeast and from Southeast Texas alike and I have come to the conclusion that there is no distinguishable difference based on my interactions...not yours...I actually lived rural Southeast Texas for upwards of 4 years and in have lived in Houston for even longer...As I suspected, some of the most noticeable accents in Texas were in that region..particularly among my coworkers at the time...Futher, it seems misleading to compare rural Alabama accents with a Houston or Dallas accent. That makes such little sense imo..To me, thats like comparing an Atlanta or Raleigh accent to the accents found in some obscure rural part of Mississippi...apples and oranges if you ask me....I have spent a reasonable amount of time in both of those cities and again have concluded that very few people in those major cities have accents either. I also find it strange that you only seem to make the distinction between rural and non rural southern accents within Texas...however once the rest of the south is brought into the equation you seem to begin citing how Houston or Dallas residents dont have the same accents as someone from some rural town of less than 300,000 people in Alabama. That just seems like a flawed comparison imo...I mean, wouldnt you kind of expect that people in larger cities wont have comparable accents to smaller more rural areas?
Further if Im not mistaken the accent of the Mobile, Alabama area that you had a hard time understanding, was likely in a region that contained spillover from northern Floridian speach whose residents sometimes speak with a Florida "cracker" dialect. That is not the standard accent of Alabama..it is a specific accent within an accent...additionally, your experience in the difficulty with communication in Alabama may have more to do with the fact that they are one of the poorest and least educated states in the country than them having any kind of vastly different accent. Anyone would have a hard time understanding someone who talks like this. (3:00)
In essence it is no measurement by which to compare the rest of the state's accent in my opinion.
And I also disagree with your implication that East Texas would necessarily be the reference point for southern accents in Texas, simply because it has the strongest southern influence in the state. I actually met a guy from Amarillo, who had one of the strongest southern accents I have ever heard. I actually had a hard time understanding him ...lol...seriously. I call their accent 'southern' because, while it isnt a drawl of some parts of the southeast, it was a VERY similar twang to what I have heard in both Tennessee AND from my friend/former classmate who is from Arkansas. I had no idea strong Southern accents extended out that far west, but based on my own personal experience (again, not yours....yours may be different) his accent was as thick as any in Tennessee or Arkansas. (or at least it was every bit as thick as my friend from Arkansas)
So using my own experience, for me, it depends on which part of the south we are comparing the rest of Texas to. Because people in parts of west Texas or perhaps I should just say the Amarillo area, actually sounds quite similar to my friend from Arkansas..So if Arkansas is accepted as a southern state, then by that standard Amarillo has very southern accents, from what Ive heard.
However I do agree with your assessment of Austin...I also agree with the statement that accents in Dallas and or Houston can be mild to nonexistent...I wouldnt expect people in any major Southern city full of transplants to have accents...However in Houston, I used to work with a guy who had such a strong accent, I actually asked him where he was from...To my surprise he said he was from Houston....that was a shocker to me, because I had actually figured he was either from a Southeastern state or MAYBE very rural East Texas. But then too, my supervisor at the same job was also from Houston and had no distinguishable accent whatsoever, at least not that I could hear.
So rather than question my audio perception, perhaps we have just encountered different people.
<<additionally, your experience in the difficulty with communication in Alabama may have more to do with the fact that they are one of the poorest and least educated states in the country than them having any kind of vastly different accent. Anyone would have a hard time understanding someone who talks like this. (3:00)>>
Wow. I could understand him perfectly when he was speaking to the camera, but it sure was a lot tougher when he was speaking, and was more agitated, to the African-American gentleman.
As for accents, Texas has its own distinct accent and is definitely NOT "Southern". When you get into the major cities, there is no accent save for a washed-out American accent (which is the same for any major city in the country).
There is not even a single "Texas" accent, much less a uniform "Southern" one. That stereotypical moonlight and magnolias variety of GWTW is often thought of -- in part due to Hollywood -- as the definitive "Southern accent" even though in reality it is only one of many sub-varities.
The dialect/speech most common among Texas natives is properly classified as "Southern American English." Not just my opinion, but by the most extensive study ever done on the linguistic patterns within the state (there was an article on it in Texas Monthly magazine several years back).
Here are a couple of good links on it, as well as an excerpt:
“The most basic explanation of aTexas accent is that it’s a Southern accent with a twist,” said Professor Bailey, who has determined that the twang is not only spreading but also changing. “It’s the twist that we’re interested in.” The preeminent scholar on Texas pronunciation, Bailey hails from southern Alabama; he has a soft lilting drawl that, for the sake of economy, will not be phonetically reproduced here but is substantially more genteel and less nasal than Bob Hinkle’s twang. The broadly defined “Texas accent” began to form, Bailey explained, when two populations merged here in the mid-nineteenth century. Settlers who migrated from Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi brought with them what would later become the Lower South Dialect (its drawl left an imprint on East Texas), while settlers from Tennessee and Kentucky brought with them the South Midland Dialect (its twang had a greater influence in West Texas). Added to the mix of Anglo settlers from the Deep South and Appalachia who began talking to each other was an established Spanish-speaking population and an influx of Mexican, German, and Czech immigrants. “What distinguishes a Texas accent the most is the confluence of its influences,” said Bailey.
Anglos from both the Lower South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) and the Upper South (Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina) moved rapidly into the new state after 1840, frequently bring their slaves with them. Lower Southerners generally dominated in east and southeast Texas and Upper Southerners in the north and central parts of the state, though there was considerable dialect mixing. This complex dialect situation was further complicated, especially in southeast and south central Texas, by significant direct migration from Europe. Large numbers of Germans, Austrians, Czechs, Italians, and Poles (the first permanent Polish settlement in the U.S. was at Panna Maria in 1854) came to Texas during the nineteenth century. In some cases their descendants preserved their languages well into the twentieth century, and they influenced English in certain parts of Texas even as they gradually gave up their native tongues...
As the settlement history suggests, TXE is a form of Southern American English and thus includes many of the lexical, grammatical, and phonological features of Southern American English.
I do agree though that in most of the major cities (with the large numbers of transplants) the Texas/Southern accent is getting harder and harder to find...
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