Texan English

Texan English is the array of

Essentially all Texas English phonologically falls under the Southeastern super-dialect region of the United States and often specifically the Southern dialect region, though noticeably not the cities of El Paso, Abilene, and Austin, and not particularly Houston and Corpus Christi.^[2] Moreover, as of 21st-century research, the accents of Dallas show enormous variability.^[10]

• Of the three possible stages of the
  Southern drawling: /æ/ → [ɛ(j)ə]) and /ɛ/ → [e(j)ə]).^[13]
  • Texas Panhandle and North Texas: the whole northern half of the state (except Abilene).^[14] This makes words like mite, rice, life, type, etc. sound like [maːʔ], [ɹaːs], [laːf], and [tʰaːp].^[13]
  • A study of Texas Triangle English shows a strong orientation of primarily young, female, and urban speakers towards a diphthongization of /aɪ/ in all contexts. In fact, the monophthongization of /aɪ/ has left Texas Triangle speech almost entirely.^[15] 89% of the speakers born in the 1980s use diphthongal realizations of /aɪ/, whereas only 11% use monophthongal or intermediate realizations of /aɪ/.^[15]
• The
  cot-caught merger of the two historical vowels sounds /ɔ/ and /ɒ/, in words like caught and cot or stalk and stock, is becoming increasingly common throughout the United States, thus affecting Southwestern and even many Southeastern dialects, towards a merged vowel [ɑ].^[16] The ANAE reports a completed merger in Amarillo, Odessa, and variably El Paso, but the rest of Texas is also rapidly transitioning towards the merger.^[12]
• A few younger speakers realize the TRAP vowel /æ/, unlike typical Southerners, as open front [a], which is more in line with the Western U.S. dialect. This lowering occurs only in speakers with the cot-caught merger, and is not yet as common as in California and Canada.^[17]
• Three mergers before /l/ are recorded in some Texas English: the fill–feel merger (most concentrated from the Panhandle down to San Antonio),^[18] the fell–fail merger, and the full–fool merger.^[11]
• Non-rhoticity has reversed on a massive scale, as in most of the Southern U.S., and is now only heard in some older speakers.^[11]

Grammar

Texas English may use many grammatical constructions typically associated with Southern U.S. English, including fixin' to,

• buzzard: vulture
• blue norther: The term blue norther refers to a weather phenomenon that often appears in the
  temperate zones all over the world (including Texas). It is a quickly moving autumnal cold front which drops the temperatures rapidly and brings along rain and after a period of blue skies and cold weather. The derivation of this term is unclear. Some people say that the term refers to a norther (borealis/north wind) which sweeps "out of the Panhandle under a blue-black sky" – from the heat to the blue black cold. Others suggest that blue norther denotes the color of the sky that appears after the bad weather front has passed. Yet others say that people associate blue with the cold that the front brings along. Variants of this term are blue whistler, blue darter and blue blizzard. Whereas the term blue whistler is also used in Texas the two latter terms are from out of state. Blue norther, however, is purely Texan. Since Spanish times, the effect of blue norther has been noted in Texas and this phenomenon has often been exaggerated. But contrary to the belief of many people, blue norther is not unique to Texas.^[21][22]
• bowie knife: a long hunting knife (pronounced boo-ee). Named for Alamo hero Jim Bowie.
• dogie: calf.^[23]
• fixin' to: a future-tense
  modal verb analogous to "about to" or "going to" in much of American English.^[24]
  E.g., "I'm fixin' to leave for school."
• geddup: outfit (clothing) ["get up" but pronounced with accent meaning an outfit or costume typically meaning an exceptional context and may be negative or positive connotation]
• howdy: a general greeting; a shortened form of "How do you do?"[25]
• looker: an attractive woman^[25]
• maverick: stray or unbranded.^[23]
• motte (mot): The term motte or mot refers to a small grove of trees in open grasslands. It was first introduced by
  Irish immigrants in the 1830s. They brought this term from Ireland where people used to call similar woods this way. In the United States one hears of motte only in Texas.^[22]
• plumb: superlative adjective, equivalent to "absolutely" or "very much". E.g., "He's plumb out of luck."
• pole cat: a skunk^[24]
• shinnery: a well-known term in western Texas for a
  shinnery oak or a sand shinnery oak. These trees grow in Texas, western Oklahoma, and eastern New Mexico. The term shinnery can also mean the area or landscape in which shinnery oaks grow.^[22]
• spindletop: a gushing oil well
• tank: stock pond.[23]
• varmint: a wild or rascally animal, especially a mammal (sometimes used endearingly). Derivative of vermin.
• y'all: a second-person plural pronoun; a shortened form of "you all"^[24]
• (over) yonder: an adverbial used to designate a faraway place; analogous to "over there"^[25]

Statewide Spanish loanwords

Due to Spain's past influence in Texas, the vocabulary of Texas is much more influenced by Spanish than the vocabulary of other states. Some of the Texan terms that originated from Spanish are listed below.^[22]

• esplanade: Sometimes grassy strips between two divided highway lanes are called esplanade.^[22]
• jalapeño: The Spanish word jalapeño, which refers to a type of hot pepper from Mexico, was once solely Texan. The term is now well known in other states of the U.S. and many other countries.^[22]
• lariat (from Spanish la reata): rope or lasso.^[9]
• pinto or paint (from Spanish pinto = painted): familiar spotted or piebald Western pony.[9]
• remuda (from Spanish remudar = to exchange): spare horse or remount; mainly used in West Texas.^[9]
• Tejano: The noun Tejano is derived from the Spanish adjective tejano or tejana (feminine). It refers to a Hispanic Texan whose heritage is from Texas before Texas was incorporated into the United States. This term also embraces cultural manifestations in language, literature, art,
  Mexican, and Chicano.^[22]
• wrangler or horse wrangler (Anglicized form of the Spanish word caballerango): a groom; the typical Texas wrangler was "a bachelor and worked with several outfits over the course of his hard career".[9]

South Texas vocabulary

• acequia (from Spanish acequia): an irrigation ditch.^[9]
• arroyo (from Spanish arroyo): a gulch, ravine, creek bed^[9]
• caliche (from Spanish caliche): a hardened layer of calcium carbonate in the ground.
• chaparral (from Spanish chaparral): brush-covered terrain^[9]
• frijoles (from Spanish frijol): beans^[9]
• hacienda (from Spanish hacienda): the main house of a ranch^[9]
• icehouse: a term used in the San Antonio area to mean a convenience store. Elsewhere, this denotes an open-air tavern, the origin of which dates back to the times when fresh beer was stored in "ice houses" placed strategically along beer delivery routes for local and regional delivery. Over time these locations began to serve cold beer, since it was stored there already, and other conveniences, such as food items, cigarettes, etc. In more modern times, the surviving ice houses are little more than open air beer bars. It is the "open air" feature (often obtained with multiple garage doors in place of walls), in fact, that distinguishes an ice house from a tavern.^[26]
• llano (from Spanish llano): a plain^[9]
• olla (from Spanish olla): an earthenware pot or crock^[9]
• pelado (from Spanish pelado): a catch-all term for low-class and popular-culture people. Now considered an offensive and derogatory word^[27]
• pilon (from Spanish pilón): a bonus, lagniappe^[9]
• reata (from Spanish reata): a rope or lasso^[9]
• resaca (from Spanish resaca): a small body of water^[9]
• toro (from Spanish toro): a bull^[9]
• vaquero (from Spanish vaquero): a cowboy^[9]

Central Texas vocabulary

• clook, cluck: (from German Glucke) a setting hen^[9]
• cook cheese, kochcase: (from German Kochkäse = (literally) smearing cheese) a soft cheese cooked and poured into jars^[9]
• grass sack or gunny sack: a burlap bag^[9]
• icebox: a refrigerator or freezer (used interchangeably to refer to both)
• plunder room: a storage room^[9]
• roping rope: a lariat^[9]
• settee: (from settle) a couch or sofa^[9]
• smearcase: (from German Schmierkäse) cottage cheese^[9]
• tarviated road: a paved or blacktopped road^[9]
• tool house: a toolshed^[9]
• wood house: a woodshed^[9]

In the media

Texan English frequently shows up in the media. In the 1950s and 1960s, many

Texas Instruments sometimes uses Texan English in its products. The TIFORM software for its TI-990 minicomputer sometimes displayed "Shut 'er Down Clancey She's a-Pumping Mud" as a humorous error message.^[28]

The Texan accent gained nationwide fame with the presidency of native Texan Lyndon B. Johnson. A lifelong resident of the Texas Hill Country, Johnson's thick accent was a large part of his personality and brought attention and fame to the dialect.^[4][29]

The Texan dialect gained fame again when George W. Bush started to serve as president. He had moved to West Texas at the age of two and has since retained the Texan dialect. In his speech, words like "America" sometimes sound like "Amur-kah" or even just like "Mur-kah".^[4][30] Former U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also speaks with a distinctively Texan accent.^[31][32]

Tejano English

Due to hundreds of years of Spanish and later Mexican intermingling, around 6 million (ca. 29%) people in Texas speak Spanish as the first language.^[33] Recent data shows that Spanish is still increasing.