Some say that Texas has a language of its own. I, however, say that Texans speak English with the hard edges removed. Our Texas drawl softens it up a bit. I admit that it sounds quite comical to some, but I don't understand what the big deal is. All regions have accents.
For example, my husband and I recently spent a week in Boston. Excuse me, I mean BAHSTON. While there, we drove our rental CAH to Concorde, excuse me, CONKERD. We saw the CHAHLES RIVAH, BAHSTON HAHBAH, and dined on LOBSTAH. It seems to me that the only time BAHSTONIANS pronounce the letter "r" is when it isn't really there. One lady I met was going to spend Thanksgiving in "TAMPAR, FLORIDAR."
I don't mean to pick on the lovely people of Boston. As I said, there are different accents in every region of the United States. The Texas accent is more of a "lilt" and sounds almost melodic. Texans can transform a single syllable into three with no effort. "Hey y'all, let's go," becomes "Haaaaaay y'aaalllll, let's goooooo." We can drag out all vowel sounds, especially the long ones forever and a day!Our long "i" sounds like a short "a" in many cases. When we order iced tea in a restaurant up North, they think we're asking for "assed" tea.
When we address a group, we use the word "y'all." Hello, it's a contraction of "you all." It seems so logical to me, and I have trouble understanding why others find it so amusing. To me, it is infinitely better than "yous guys" from our friends in New York or "you'ns" from people in the Midwest. And people make jokes about us? Maybe they should mind their own "bidness!"
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