[Mercat]

Makes me want to call and talk to my cousin Jane. I grew up in Texas and have something of an accent (or can at least pull it out of my unconsciousness when I need to) but Jane has the total full blown accent with that extra "y" and everything. It's wonderful to listen to but you had better have a lot of time because there's no hurrying the conversation.

[Brandybux]

... but Jane has the total full blown accent with that extra "y" and everything.

My wife was born and reared in Ellis County, Texas -- the county due south of Dallas County.

In the mid-80's, we were visiting friends in Vienna, Austria, and attended a worship service at a church which ministered to English-speakers in the city (a large population there, made up of UN employees, OPEC personnel, business and diplomatic people, and -- at that time -- a considerable contingent of Christian missionaries who lived in Vienna but ministered behind the Iron Curtain).

Our host told us, "You must meet Reid and Betty. They're from Texas too." Reid and Betty had lived in Vienna over 25 years, and Reid was a Kammersanger in the Vienna State Opera. Upon being introduced, my wife's first words to Reid, "I'm very pleased to meet you." Without batting an eye, Reid responded, "You're from Ellis County, Texas."

Reid, of course, had an excellent ear for such things, needing a good ear for accents in order to do his work of singing in several Eupopean langauges. As it turns out, he grew up in North Texas, a couple of counties to the East of Ellis County. In his day, he claimed, one could recognize an Ellis County native by his accent. And my wife had it, according to Reid.

Many years later, when we settled in Ellis County, I saw a notice in the paper for a voice audition for an agency producing radio commercials. Thinking it would be fun, I showed up. I quickly learned I was exactly what they were NOT looking for. My English is ruthlessly Standard American (according to my daughter, majoring in linguistics). Headquartered in Dallas, this agency makes periodic auditioning forays into Ellis County, in order to find thick, unmistakeably rural, Texas accents for the radio commercials which require that sort of thing.

So, it seems that even perched on the edge of the Metroplex, Ellis County still preserves an abiding accent among its natives.

[Wallace T.]

Traditional Texas speech is predominantly Upper South in origin, with some Midwestern and Lower South influences, depending on where in Texas you are. Along the Gulf Coast, Alabamians, Mississippians, and Georgians were important in the area's settlement. The Panhandle, the Red River Valley, and North Texas had large numbers of settlers from Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas, Overall, Tennessee was the largest contributor of people to the Texas population and contributed more than any other state to the defenders of the Alamo. I have met people in southern West Virginia whose pronunciations sound almost Texan. The speech of the Upper South, especially Appalachia, was strongly influenced by the Scotch-Irish, with some English and German input. Virginia's Shenandoah Valley was the first area where Upper South speech developed, as Scotch-Irish and Pennsylania Dutch mixed with English settlers from Tidewater Virginia.

Overall, Texan and Southern English are more conservative and truer to the English of the King James Bible and Shakespeare than are the urban dialects of the East Coast cities, which are strongly affected by Italian, Yiddish, and Slavic speech patterns.

[B-Chan]

The border between east Texas (where the Dixie dialect of Texan is spoken) and north Texas (where the Midwest dialect reigns) is at the junction of I-30E and the I-635 loop in Mesquite, Texas, immediately east of Dallas. Folks east of that point say "warsh" (wash) and "naw" (no), and call iced tea "ahhs tay". Further east, behind the Pine Curtain that separates east Texas proper from the rest of the state, the speech patterns are amost entirely those of the deep South: "yeller" for yellow, "cobeer" for beer, etc.

In Dallas proper, people tend to speak with a flat, midwestern inflection, and say "you guys" along with "y'all". In fact, the presence of the east Texas inflection in one's speech is taken as evidence that the speaker is a hick.

I myself am from Dallas and generally use the Midwest inflection. However, when I visit my family in Tyler, I begin to speak with the east Texas accent. I don't know why this is.

[nhoward14]

Much like the Ents in Tolkein, in Texas, it ain't worth sayin it if it don't take a long time to say it.

[luckystarmom]

My grandparents and other relatives lived in a small town in East Texas. I grew up in Dallas. East Texans speak a lot differently than the city folk. Sometimes I couldn't even understand what some of them were saying.