Texan English

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Texan English or Texas English are the two main varieties of English native to Texas. A Southern American variety and a Spanish influenced one.

Texas English[change | change source]

In the eastern part of the state, there's what some call a Southern accent with a twist. This twist refers to the other southern accents which came to Texas throughout the history of English being spoken there.

Features include:

  • Monothongization of ai (i dipthong), making words like ride, dice and dike sound like rod (or rad), dace and dock. Such glide deletion is found in most varieties of Southern American English.
  • The cot-caught merger in which words like stalk and stock, are pronounced exactly the same.
  • The o in words like majority, orange and horrible is always pronounced like the o in whore rather than that in stop.

Tejano English[change | change source]

The second major Texas English variety is Tejano English - the Hispanic variety common in the southwest part of the state.

Features include:

  • Dropping of t and d in words that end in these letters.
  • Pronunciation of the i monothong as ee.[needs to be explained]
  • Conversion of th to t or d, so called dentalization.