The Texas Accent (Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth: military, installation, area)

[eastontracks]

Haha yeah my dad says windsdee. Also says puh-Tay-duhs. Me: "you mean puhtaydoughs"? 'that's what I said, puhtayduhs' ... Cracks me up

[Brand_new]

Mentioned earlier that I'm in Texas for three weeks and looking forward to hearing the Texas accent (I love the TV show Friday Night Lights!).


However after reading the last couple of pages... Am I going to understand what people are saying easily!? And are 'y'all' going to be able to understand a northern English accent?

[turf3]

Originally Posted by Brand_new

Mentioned earlier that I'm in Texas for three weeks and looking forward to hearing the Texas accent (I love the TV show Friday Night Lights!).


However after reading the last couple of pages... Am I going to understand what people are saying easily!? And are 'y'all' going to be able to understand a northern English accent?

Yes, of course. The only thing that might sometimes be confusing is that the UK vocabulary and the US vocabulary are almost but not quite identical - it's the "not quite" that can lead to occasional confusion.

If you want a laugh, go to YouTuba and check out the video on "Eleven! Scotland!"

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

Other than the Hispanic accent, it seems like in the big cities in Texas, you don't really hear too much of an accent. Now don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people who do speak with a noticeable Texas accent, similar to Matthew McConaghey, but by and large, the main accent you hear in Austin and Dallas and Houston is no distinguishing accent. The way most people speak is the same accent the tv news people have. I guess it's called the Midland accent. I hear the same accent in Indianapolis and Kansas City.

Small Texas towns are different. You'll hear more of a Texas or Southern accent in a small town. In fact it seems like, the smaller the town, the thicker the accent. What you more than likely will not hear are native Texans who speak with an accent as thick as Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton or Paula Dean.


As far as GW Bush and his accent, it seems the further he is from Texas, the thicker his accent gets. I've heard him speak many times with no accent at all.

[madrone2k]

It's always called my attention how GW Bush has a strong accent, but his parents and brother Jeb do not (at least to my ear). I always assumed -- rightly or wrongly -- that it came from being a kid in Midland.

After growing up in Houston, I attended UT-Austin and was used to having people ask me what state (or even country) I was from. I assume that I picked up a speech style more like that of my grade-school classmates in Houston, which was very diverse. At UT, I had friends from Dallas who seemed to speak like me, i.e. "no accent". (Or, maybe just a different one, I dunno.)

My dad was born in Kansas, but grew up in Brazoria County (just south of Houston). I recall that he pronounced some words in a way that sounded strange to me. Like "breakfist" instead of breakfast and "srimp" instead of shrimp. Side note: regarding shrimp, he said that when he was a kid no one ate them, they were only used as fishing bait.

[Julio July]

Originally Posted by Ivory Lee Spurlock

What you more than likely will not hear are native Texans who speak with an accent as thick as Loretta Lynn or Dolly Parton or Paula Dean.

I don't know about that. I grew up in the South, literally right across the Mississippi stateline, and I thought I had heard some pretty thick Southern accents until I moved to East Texas and couldn't even understand what half the people were saying half the time.

I've never had a problem understanding Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, or Paula Dean, though.

[Redlionjr]

Originally Posted by Mentallect

I don't know about that. I grew up in the South, literally right across the Mississippi stateline, and I thought I had heard some pretty thick Southern accents until I moved to East Texas and couldn't even understand what half the people were saying half the time.

I've never had a problem understanding Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, or Paula Dean, though.

Exactly, East Texas and South East Texas probably have the strongest thickest accents in the state of Texas. People forget that these areas probably have the less transplants and is closer to the other southern states. It's more homogeneous then other areas.

You look at these 2 videos and you'll hear these type of accents all over East Texas


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9icSizqFTg


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqeHIttPxQo

[lepoisson]

The Texas accent sounds higher pitched to me than other southern accents. There is also a very distinctive "twang" that other southern accents do not have.

With other southern accents, the speech is slowed down a lot more and the tone is lower.

[madrone2k]

I don't know how many people here remember Ross Perot, a Dallas businessman and presidential candidate who originally hailed from the Texarkana area. He had a strong, but very distinctive accent that always struck me as different from that of people from other parts of Texas. Very nasal. Perhaps with a tendency to add an extra syllable when pronouncing vowels.

For me, a more typical Texas accent is what I heard from friends from west central Texas (say, Menard) who would pronounce tight as "taht" or thing as "thang", but without so much of an extra syllable sound.

[Bubble99]

Originally Posted by lepoisson

I'm from North Carolina. People in this part of the South have a slow drawl accent. However, the Texas southern accent is quite different. It's not slow, but it has a sort of twang to it.

Get someone from Texas with an accent to say words like "right" or "tight". It almost sounds like they are saying "rat" or "tat". Get someone from North Carolina (or really the rest of the South) to say these words and they'll sound sort of like "riot" or "tayat".

Are there any other characteristics of the Texas accent you've noticed?

To me people in and around Houston have more drawl. Where people in Dallas have more twang.

Houston have more country accent than Dallas.

If there was any Hollywood movie or TV show like the walking dead in Texas and Hollywood had to put on a accent they would pick Houston accent over Dallas.