Posted on 09/25/2012 4:03:14 PM PDT by nickcarraway
J.R. and Sue Ellen had it on "Dallas." The Texas twang. The "y'all" and the "howdy" -- that slow drawl that is part Southern charm, part Western swagger and pure Texas.
Yes, oil is still king in Texas, and it's easy to find a Longhorn (cow or football player), cowboys and a rodeo if you are in the mood. Neil Armstrong's first words from the Moon were "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed."
Barbara Voyce is a transplant from Illinois, and she quickly learned how to say "y'all." "It replaces the Midwestern 'you guys,'" she says. Her two children grew up saying "y'all." At her favorite coffee shop, pretty much everyone she meets has learned to adapt.
But the accent is fading, as people move here from elsewhere, and as media homogenize all regional accents into one American English sound.
Stephen Murdoch, a Rice University professor who once ran the U.S. Census Bureau, understands the demographics of what has happened in Texas.
"The population in Texas has exploded because of migration from other states and other countries," he said. "It most certainly affects the Texas twang because so many of the newcomers are Hispanic and live in the urban cities of Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Give me enough beer, and my 'twang' surfaces. ;)
/johnny
The Texas drawl, accent thing is greatly exaggerated.
I don’t talk like that and know few- if any, who do.
Uh ... no. Obviously this author hasn’t spoken with any of my family.
Yes, I have “lost” some of my natural born Texan dialect ... mostly from working with folks from all parts of the world and other accents rubbing off on me ... but believe me, the “twang” is alive and well in the rest of my family.
Yeah ... thanks for that, Hollywood.
Hi fellow Texan.
Hollywood? Probably right.
I’m 66. When I was 13, I went to visit my Uncle in Odessa, for three weeks. Came back to Ohio with a Texas drawl! But I’ve always absorbed speech patterns, You should hear me do South Side Milwaukee talk! Ain’a?
Same is true of the New Yawk accent (also known as a Brooklyn Accent).
Someday fairly soon, you’ll have to watch Kojak if you want to hear it.
It’s alive and well here in North Louisiana. I’ll die with that accent, and I’m damn proud of it!
Yep ... “absorbing” other accents is not uncommon, I guess. I’ve collected over the years a hodge-podge of east coast, west coast, different parts of England, some far eastern, and a touch of Wisconsin. All together, that’s made my talk rather neutral. But a few beers can bring it right back out.
Which Texas accent? Does the writer not know that there are several regional accents in the state?
My great Uncle Hoot sounded like Rex Allen, only deeper and more drawled-out. I sure miss listening to that voice, it was pure old-timey Texan.
In southern Texas, several decades ago, it was the drawl: very slow, low-toned speech—not nasal, and more the opposite of a twang. I had it for a long time.
Many from the Midwest moved into northern Texas, mostly—Dallas area, Houston and the like, for jobs during some years. That’s where the twang came from.
Well, I am scarcely aware of mine until I travel to other regions. Then, I notice people delight in it. Or maybe they are mocking. Nah! Anyway, of course in the major Texas cities we do have a goodly amount of Yankees and such (not that there is anything wrong with that) who have relocated to our fair burghs. Seems like most everyone is from somewhere else anymore. We really only see the truly thick accents among urban lowers, though still widely dispersed accrost, as it were, the hinterlands. As for the Hollywood caricature— Shirley nobody buys into their exaggerated depiction.
Get out in the country. The accent is thick and it’s not going anywhere.
I had to go to YouTube to find out what Rex Allen sounded like. LOL
Really, though, I’m a native Texan and I don’t have a drawl or pronounce words like that and know very few if any Texans who do,
The whole Texas thing is greatly exaggerated.
American Accent
Why do I sing in an American accent
When I only want to be myself?
Why are my words tainted with a Hollywood burr
When I’m only just a boy
From a town ten miles away from Glasgow
When I was a kid, I had three parents
One of them lived behind a screen in the living room
Taught me more than the teachers at the school
Mostly it spoke to me in an American accent
At such an impressionable age I thought that it was cool.
And in the holidays on rainy days.
We’d get on a train and ride into town
To see a Disney film
And the queue seemed half a mile long
All the animals spoke in an American accent
From the king of the swingers to the wolf
As it blew the house down
That’s why I sing in an American accent
When I only want to be myself
That’s why my words are tainted with a Hollywood burr
When I’m only just a boy
From a town ten miles away from Glasgow.
I live in a suburb of Dallas. Been here all my life. My Texan Twang is alive and well. My family is all in East Texas. Go there and the Texas Twang is very alive!
Southern has many sub accents and they can be interchangeable. DeForest (Bones) Kelley was from Georgia but sounded as Texan as any native—he got to play in a lot of Westerns because of it (in one Star Trek episode, where some alien spores removed every ones inhibitions, he let his Georgia drawl fly).
My thoughts too. There's quite a difference in some Texan accents.
I was born in El Paso in 1941, though I've lived in CA for the past 50 years, more than a few people still ask me about my 'southern' drawl.
Texan speech gets slower in ranching country and tends to sound more twangy depending on where in Texas you go. The folks in Lubbock talk slower than those in Abiliene, but Abiliene folks aren't near as hard to understand as some I ran into in Corpus Christi!
Funny thing - in Dallas there's a lot of ex-Californians, who always tag me as a local - though I've never been.
Yep, the further away from the big cities, the thicker it gets!
I am the same way.
I tend to pick up the local color and accent.
It depends on the area of the state. There is a distinct difference in accent between people in West Texas and people in East Texas. The West Texas accent is most like the stereotypical Texas drawl. The East Texas accent is more Southern.
I have been told that there is a distinct South Texas accent, but I am not fluent enough in Spanish to tell the difference between South Texas and Mexican.
Its much more than a twang, its a way of expressing yourself that is hard to imitate. The twang you can imitate, the rest of it is bred in the bones.
The twang comes from Tennessee like Texas’ founding fathers. It’s a mountaineer accent.
I’m from East Tennessee...Worked with a guy from outside Dallas....He sounded just like us East Tennesseans....
You hit that nail square, Mamzelle...*L*
Austin and Dallas have a higher percentage of those with accents.
It will never go away.
Anything Fort Worth and west, and south excluding Austin has and will always have a country drawl, and believe me they only exaggerate it when making fun of themselves.
Anyone else who does is trying to act Texan.
Thankee, much obliged.
Shore....
Used to really tick me off when GW insisted that Texas wasn't really part of the south, but was southwestern. I guess that confederate flag carved into a wall of the Capitol didn't catch his eye when he was gov.
He was just a Yankee snob when all was said and done.
Indeed.
I am originally from the Hill Country, but I lived in Houston for several years and still have many relatives in the Hill Country and East Texas. When I moved to this part of the state, I immediately noticed the difference in the local accent. “Texas Drawl” depends greatly on where you are.
I live in South Texas, and among the whites, I notice no drawls or distinctive Texas way of pronouncing words.
I’ve lived near Dallas and same thing.
One of the things we noticed when we moved to Texas is how they pronounce vowels. Farm sounds like form, and vice versa. Oil sounds like all.
I have the neutral accent that TV has forced on us all.
If I visit my relatives in Louisianna then I will have a thick drawl for about 5 or 6 weeks, before it goes away again.
TV and movies have destroyed our regional accents.
We are all the same now.
I grew up in Dallas, but have lived in California since the mid-80s. Some people notice my accent still.
My accent will come right back after going to Texas. It’s always strong when I’ve been drinking.
I still always say “I’m fixin to “ do things and drop my end g’s.
I think East Texas is more southern than west Texas drawl.
This is the other thing that I noticed about a difference between Texas and California.
When my kids were little in California and doing homophones, they were told that the following were not homophones:
tin, ten
pin, pen
ben, bin
mint, meant
In Texas, they are homophones. You say pin and pen the same way.
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