Southern dialect in Texas

[Amanda Geist]

I've been following this thread sporadically.  I am chiming in on whether
Texan = Southern, and technically, it doesn't, although it used to in east
Texas.

 

Personally, I'm a south Texan (San Antonio), which means I have really no
outstanding discernible accent from the standard stuff you hear from
newscasters (Midwest, largely, if I recall my linguistics correctly).  You
can tell I'm Texan because I say "y'all" and use the double modal (maybe
should, might oughta). And (to my shame) "probly"-I elide the middle "bab"
from the word. I hate that I do that.  You can tell I'm from San Antonio
because I have the usage "ice house," which if you don't understand I won't
waste the bandwidth, but it's a usage peculiar to San Antonio.

 

My point: my honors paper in undergrad English was a phonological survey of
east Texas. I had been intrigued, because all my dialect maps showed the
Southern dialect extending into East Texas.  Now, my grandmother (born in
1900) was from east Texas and was "r-less," and had a wonderful accent, but
other younger people I knew from that area had none. (r-less means "sugar" =
/shugah/, "pepper" = /pepa/, etc.)

 

A friend and I went to four towns arranged east-to-west across the Texas
area that the dialect maps said should be Southern (i.e., r-lessness was the
aspect we were measuring), and interviewed people at grocery stores, saying
we were doing a demographic survey.  And we found almost *no* native
r-lessness. One would assume the associated aspects of the Southern dialect
were also missing, since r-lessness is a characteristic. 

 

I later talked to a linguist who had studied Texas dialects (Guy Bailey),
who told me that the Southern dialect had been dying out in east Texas-dying
out in general, but retreating from there-for years.  He said the dialect
maps were made from interviews conducted in the 50s and 60s, when a large
proportion of people who were contemporaries of my grandmother were still
around; but subsequent generations do not have the dialect. My grandmother's
generation was the last to have it in any significant proportion.  The
dialect maps are a picture of an earlier time.

 

So, there is no significant presence of the Southern dialect in Texas-what
my undergrad project suggested, and confirmed by Dr. Bailey. The dialect
that West Texans have-largely popularized by "Dallas"-isn't Southern per se,
but its own entity with its own characteristics.

 

For what it's worth.

 

~Amanda

 

  _____  

From: HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Barbara Roberts
Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 5:59 AM
To: HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [SPAM] [HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Thicknesse: Question on Pronunciation
- All and Oil in Texas

 

>I am also a Texan, and I loath the 'southern' method of speaking.

Not sure that I would equate " Texan" and "Southern" speech. I always 
thought that certain accents from the deep South to be refined. Ever 
hear someone from Vicksburg, Miss? It's quite different from a Texas 
Drawl.

Barbara Roberts


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]