Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Terre Schill
I have a question about the issue of accents. I imagine that by WBTS a specifically Texan accent did exist? What did it sound like? Were there regional variations within the state yet 9i.e. West Texas, East Texas, South Texas accents)? Has anyone come across a specifically Texas version of The Story of English or something similar to help understand how the Texas dialect emerged? Does anyone have any Civil War era examples of dialect writing to share? The Mark Twain of Texas?
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
The only thing I've seen have been the comments made by Olmstead in A Journey Through Texas on the speech patterns and word choices. I think it will be heard to tell if the Texas "twang" had developed yet. I'm sure there would have been variations since Texas was still a state of immigrants at the Civil War. There are going to be cultural accents as well as accents from different states and a mix of all of them.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Debbie Russell
I have been thinking about that question tonight and I am going to make an observation from what I know. After living in Fredericksburg for more than 14 years I have been able to pick out the long term/founding father German's. I am not sure what you would call it but you can definitely pick out an accent. Is it a true Texas accent hard to say. Some of these folks families were here from the beginning of Gillespie County. It isn't just the old men and women but some of the younger ones as well. I can't say it is just our county or do other counties that were mostly German have that accent because I have not lived or spent a great deal of time in them.
The same holds true from the state I am originally from. MA has several accents anywhere from a Boston accent to a Western MA accent, which sounds very much like a mid western accent, you know the kind the TV anchor has. And there are many more in-between the two.
So to say there is a specific Texan accent it might depend on who you are talking to. Now don't go hanging your hat on what I said it is just a personal observation.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Dusty Lind
Panna Maria Texas is the oldest Polish Community in the United States. They still speak the old style of Polish. When Pope John visted the United States he visted the places. He could barely understand the new from the old Polish spoken. Panna Maria was founded in the 1830's. Consequently, there might be some "Polish Twang" , as well somewhere?..
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
If you talk to the ladies at Round Top several of them also have a bit of a German accent and they were born in Fayette County. So...perhaps the Texas accent at the time of the CW was not really a Texas accent but an accent based on where you came from?
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Mark Bryan
Annette ,
Don't forget that starting in 1850 you had Czech settlers moving into Fayette County . Well actually from the Hill country all the way down to the coast around Victoria . So some of what you hear today in the way of accent contains a good deal of Czech influence .
I kind of learned this the hard way . A couple of years ago I bought a steer from a friend of mine's dad over in Fayetteville . The old man had a very thick European accent and I assumed it to be German as the man's last name is Schwettman . After we closed the deal and loaded the steer up and sent it on it's way to be turned into steaks and such . I got to talking with him and come to find out he was of Czech decent as well as most of his neighbors . He told me and I haven't been able to nail it down , that his ancestors were one of the first families to settle in Fayetteville . While I have no reason to doubt the man , I know that Old Timers have a way of elongating the truth a little :~)
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Terre Schill
Exactly Annette, that is my question. Has anyone read a reference to a Texas accent, or just "the accent of where we came from."? There are quite a few second generation Texans by then, and some could be as old as 40 years, so wondering if a specifically Texas dialect had developed by 1860s.
Enjoying the discussion!
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Terre Schill
I know several Czech families from Fayette county. There are also quite a few Poles of course. And yes the old timers preserve their accents, even though they were born in Texas, and their fathers before them were born here, too! The Mexican governments had a policy of trying to form a Catholic "cultural buffer zone" between the Anglo Protestants and the Mexican Catholic populations, consisting of Irish, Polish, etc, and encouraged immigration from those areas to a strip which includes Panna Maria, Koskiusko, and the Czech communities. So the nucleus of these communities is older than the German communities by a bit, although the larger wave of immigration was later. The German immigrants were from up in the Hill country and down to San Antonio, but not further south/ southeast I don't think. There are also Alsatians west of San Antonio (Castroville area).
I guess the reference to a Texas accent I am looking for might be something like "You could tell by his speech that he was born in Texas" or "a son of one of Austin's Old 300", something like that. Hopefully with a bit of linguistic parody thrown in!
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Vicki Betts
I think it's more "where you came from" except perhaps in old Austin colony areas. For example, I'm in Smith County, in East Texas. This area was first Caddo, then in the early 1820s it became Cherokee. The Cherokee War of 1839 left this part of old Nacogdoches County almost vacant, and the Smith County wasn't organized until 1846. By 1850 we had 4,292 people but in only ten years the population tripled, with 95.8% of the people coming from future Confederate states. Ninety percent of the families had not been living in the county in 1850. These folks, at the time of the Civil War, had been in Texas less than ten years, not near long enough to have developed a new accent, although they might have picked up a few new words. Even then I don't think there would have been many, because if you were dropped blindfolded into central Georgia, or dropped blindfolded into East Texas, I don't think you could have told the difference. People just picked up their cultures and their language and moved it "lock, stock, and barrel" to a land that was very much the same. More western areas of Texas might have been very different, and certainly the foreign born would have been. But still, from some genealogical studies that I've seen, large families, some communities, and some church groups seemed to move together to Texas, so how they spoke was reinforced by their family and neighbors every day.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Mark Bryan
Vicki ,
For what it's worth I think your dead on with your assessment . I tend to think that even in mixed communities , family groups tended to congregate amongst there own and carry on with there native language and traditions of there homeland .
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
This is what Olmsted said:
Our host called out, "Boy, why don't you get me those things?"
"I done got'em, sar," replied the boy.
"oh! you done give me Christmeas gift."
"Done gone," for "gone" is an ordinary expression.
Other modes of speech that strike a Northern man at almost any part of the South are--The use of "Ho!"--"Ho! John!" when we should call out simply, "John."
"Far" and "bar," for fair, bear,etc.
The constant use of "no account" --such a man, dog, or shower is
of "no account"--for, worth little.
"Sure" and "I wonder," as replies.
"Christ," as an expletive, like "Sacristie."
"Yallow fellow," for a mulatto. (Why yellow fellow, but black man?)
"Ill" for "vicious," "Is your dog ill?"
Constantly execrable grammar--"I never sawed, " "I have saw."
A journey through Texas.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
I'd say no, there was not a "Texas" accent as we think of it now, but a mixture of accents from different parts of the US and the world with perhaps a strong leaning toward a "southern" speech pattern.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Dusty Lind
We cannot forget about the Irish Catholics who migrated to south Texas in the 1820's as well. Alot of those orginal families stil ranch around Refugio. Beeville, and the coastal bend area....
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Glenda Mounger
I also think and believe that it would depend on where you came from and who your family were. Still today we are influenced by the way our parents and grandparents speak for that is who teaching us our first words!
I was told a number of years ago by a language coach that there were 4 to 5 different dialects spoken in Texas alone, which if he was teaching a dialect for the movies he had to know which part of Texas the charter came from.
You also have to remember where in Texas the people migrated from which is what Vickie was speaking of. East Texas the families that came here were from the states of Louisiana, Miss, Alabama, with a few from other parts of the country.
In north central Texas from where I come the make up of the people were from Missouri, with 75% migration from there, Tenn., Kentucky, a few Germans, Irish. Far south Texas was the first to be populated and you have spoken on that. The last to be developed and populated was west Texas, it was still
the wild and wooly parts of the state with nothing but Indians, and a few Army outposts, but as far as population it was nothing, that came later with the cattle drovers looking for work and the era of the Cowboy was born.
So yes in the 1860's it would depend on who were your influences as to how you would speak.
And it would be totally different from the way you might think. Just to be able to go back in time to hear what was spoken. We more than likely would not be able to understand what was said, I think that was one of the reasons that the census taker had such a hard time.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Judy Monroe
The Irish came not only in the 1850's, but also in the
Potato Famine through New Orleans. Since there were
other Irish already here, there were those that were
"naturalized", and those that were recent immigrants.
The Irish tended to be clannish..the attraction of
those that were already here would be a powerful
incentive to migrate to Texas. So you would have both
accents, if you will. You could choose which you were
most comfortable with.
I have a question about the issue of accents. I imagine that by WBTS a specifically Texan accent did exist? What did it sound like? Were there regional variations within the state yet 9i.e. West Texas, East Texas, South Texas accents)? Has anyone come across a specifically Texas version of The Story of English or something similar to help understand how the Texas dialect emerged? Does anyone have any Civil War era examples of dialect writing to share? The Mark Twain of Texas?
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
The only thing I've seen have been the comments made by Olmstead in A Journey Through Texas on the speech patterns and word choices. I think it will be heard to tell if the Texas "twang" had developed yet. I'm sure there would have been variations since Texas was still a state of immigrants at the Civil War. There are going to be cultural accents as well as accents from different states and a mix of all of them.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Debbie Russell
I have been thinking about that question tonight and I am going to make an observation from what I know. After living in Fredericksburg for more than 14 years I have been able to pick out the long term/founding father German's. I am not sure what you would call it but you can definitely pick out an accent. Is it a true Texas accent hard to say. Some of these folks families were here from the beginning of Gillespie County. It isn't just the old men and women but some of the younger ones as well. I can't say it is just our county or do other counties that were mostly German have that accent because I have not lived or spent a great deal of time in them.
The same holds true from the state I am originally from. MA has several accents anywhere from a Boston accent to a Western MA accent, which sounds very much like a mid western accent, you know the kind the TV anchor has. And there are many more in-between the two.
So to say there is a specific Texan accent it might depend on who you are talking to. Now don't go hanging your hat on what I said it is just a personal observation.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Dusty Lind
Panna Maria Texas is the oldest Polish Community in the United States. They still speak the old style of Polish. When Pope John visted the United States he visted the places. He could barely understand the new from the old Polish spoken. Panna Maria was founded in the 1830's. Consequently, there might be some "Polish Twang" , as well somewhere?..
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
If you talk to the ladies at Round Top several of them also have a bit of a German accent and they were born in Fayette County. So...perhaps the Texas accent at the time of the CW was not really a Texas accent but an accent based on where you came from?
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Mark Bryan
Annette ,
Don't forget that starting in 1850 you had Czech settlers moving into Fayette County . Well actually from the Hill country all the way down to the coast around Victoria . So some of what you hear today in the way of accent contains a good deal of Czech influence .
I kind of learned this the hard way . A couple of years ago I bought a steer from a friend of mine's dad over in Fayetteville . The old man had a very thick European accent and I assumed it to be German as the man's last name is Schwettman . After we closed the deal and loaded the steer up and sent it on it's way to be turned into steaks and such . I got to talking with him and come to find out he was of Czech decent as well as most of his neighbors . He told me and I haven't been able to nail it down , that his ancestors were one of the first families to settle in Fayetteville . While I have no reason to doubt the man , I know that Old Timers have a way of elongating the truth a little :~)
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Terre Schill
Exactly Annette, that is my question. Has anyone read a reference to a Texas accent, or just "the accent of where we came from."? There are quite a few second generation Texans by then, and some could be as old as 40 years, so wondering if a specifically Texas dialect had developed by 1860s.
Enjoying the discussion!
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Terre Schill
I know several Czech families from Fayette county. There are also quite a few Poles of course. And yes the old timers preserve their accents, even though they were born in Texas, and their fathers before them were born here, too! The Mexican governments had a policy of trying to form a Catholic "cultural buffer zone" between the Anglo Protestants and the Mexican Catholic populations, consisting of Irish, Polish, etc, and encouraged immigration from those areas to a strip which includes Panna Maria, Koskiusko, and the Czech communities. So the nucleus of these communities is older than the German communities by a bit, although the larger wave of immigration was later. The German immigrants were from up in the Hill country and down to San Antonio, but not further south/ southeast I don't think. There are also Alsatians west of San Antonio (Castroville area).
I guess the reference to a Texas accent I am looking for might be something like "You could tell by his speech that he was born in Texas" or "a son of one of Austin's Old 300", something like that. Hopefully with a bit of linguistic parody thrown in!
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Vicki Betts
I think it's more "where you came from" except perhaps in old Austin colony areas. For example, I'm in Smith County, in East Texas. This area was first Caddo, then in the early 1820s it became Cherokee. The Cherokee War of 1839 left this part of old Nacogdoches County almost vacant, and the Smith County wasn't organized until 1846. By 1850 we had 4,292 people but in only ten years the population tripled, with 95.8% of the people coming from future Confederate states. Ninety percent of the families had not been living in the county in 1850. These folks, at the time of the Civil War, had been in Texas less than ten years, not near long enough to have developed a new accent, although they might have picked up a few new words. Even then I don't think there would have been many, because if you were dropped blindfolded into central Georgia, or dropped blindfolded into East Texas, I don't think you could have told the difference. People just picked up their cultures and their language and moved it "lock, stock, and barrel" to a land that was very much the same. More western areas of Texas might have been very different, and certainly the foreign born would have been. But still, from some genealogical studies that I've seen, large families, some communities, and some church groups seemed to move together to Texas, so how they spoke was reinforced by their family and neighbors every day.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Mark Bryan
Vicki ,
For what it's worth I think your dead on with your assessment . I tend to think that even in mixed communities , family groups tended to congregate amongst there own and carry on with there native language and traditions of there homeland .
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
This is what Olmsted said:
Our host called out, "Boy, why don't you get me those things?"
"I done got'em, sar," replied the boy.
"oh! you done give me Christmeas gift."
"Done gone," for "gone" is an ordinary expression.
Other modes of speech that strike a Northern man at almost any part of the South are--The use of "Ho!"--"Ho! John!" when we should call out simply, "John."
"Far" and "bar," for fair, bear,etc.
The constant use of "no account" --such a man, dog, or shower is
of "no account"--for, worth little.
"Sure" and "I wonder," as replies.
"Christ," as an expletive, like "Sacristie."
"Yallow fellow," for a mulatto. (Why yellow fellow, but black man?)
"Ill" for "vicious," "Is your dog ill?"
Constantly execrable grammar--"I never sawed, " "I have saw."
A journey through Texas.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Annette Bethke
I'd say no, there was not a "Texas" accent as we think of it now, but a mixture of accents from different parts of the US and the world with perhaps a strong leaning toward a "southern" speech pattern.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Dusty Lind
We cannot forget about the Irish Catholics who migrated to south Texas in the 1820's as well. Alot of those orginal families stil ranch around Refugio. Beeville, and the coastal bend area....
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Glenda Mounger
I also think and believe that it would depend on where you came from and who your family were. Still today we are influenced by the way our parents and grandparents speak for that is who teaching us our first words!
I was told a number of years ago by a language coach that there were 4 to 5 different dialects spoken in Texas alone, which if he was teaching a dialect for the movies he had to know which part of Texas the charter came from.
You also have to remember where in Texas the people migrated from which is what Vickie was speaking of. East Texas the families that came here were from the states of Louisiana, Miss, Alabama, with a few from other parts of the country.
In north central Texas from where I come the make up of the people were from Missouri, with 75% migration from there, Tenn., Kentucky, a few Germans, Irish. Far south Texas was the first to be populated and you have spoken on that. The last to be developed and populated was west Texas, it was still
the wild and wooly parts of the state with nothing but Indians, and a few Army outposts, but as far as population it was nothing, that came later with the cattle drovers looking for work and the era of the Cowboy was born.
So yes in the 1860's it would depend on who were your influences as to how you would speak.
And it would be totally different from the way you might think. Just to be able to go back in time to hear what was spoken. We more than likely would not be able to understand what was said, I think that was one of the reasons that the census taker had such a hard time.
Copied from Texas Civilian Yahoo list. Posted September 2007 by Judy Monroe
The Irish came not only in the 1850's, but also in the
Potato Famine through New Orleans. Since there were
other Irish already here, there were those that were
"naturalized", and those that were recent immigrants.
The Irish tended to be clannish..the attraction of
those that were already here would be a powerful
incentive to migrate to Texas. So you would have both
accents, if you will. You could choose which you were
most comfortable with.
