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Texan English is a dialect of Southern American English. Because of Texas's unique history and immigration background, it is often assumed that Texas English is unique as well. However, linguistically speaking, very few features of Texas English do not also occur elsewhere. What makes a "Texas accent" stand apart somewhat from the rest of the South, is the "confluence of its influences". As the most extensive recent study ever undertaken on the subject puts it: "The most basic explanation of a Texas accent is that it's a Southern accent with a twist."〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Texan . Drawl - PBS )〕 This "twist" is the blending result of the major features of the Deep South and Upper South coming into contact with one another, as well as the notable influence derived from an early Spanish speaking population along with that of German immigrants.〔 Texan English contains a variety of different characteristics which are on no account universal and each Texan may speak only some of these characteristics or even none. Just as there is no single "Southern accent", there is no single "Texas accent." The drawl of the Lower South has more influence in East Texas, while the "twang" of the Upper South left a greater imprint on West Texas. In South Texas, particularly, the Spanish and Mexican characteristics are heavily combined with that of the others.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea . American Varieties . Texan - PBS )〕 The El Paso area has stronger ties to New Mexican English and the dialects of the Southwest. ==Phonology== There are many phonological processes which are characteristic for Texan Speech. However, those processes are on no account universal in Texan English and each Texan may speak only some of the characteristics displayed below or even none. In addition, other regional dialects in the United States or dialects from other countries may share some of these features. In particular, dialects from other Southern states share many phonological characteristics of the language spoken in Texas. * Phonemic distinctions: In many areas of North America phonemic distinctions rapidly disappear. Although these distinctions are also vanishing in Texas, distinctions between and , and , and and in words which sound very similar are still very common. In fact, the South is the most conservative area in the United States regarding the retention of phonemic distinctions. In central, northern and eastern Texas this phonetic phenomenon is especially widespread.〔Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. ''Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006.〕 : *Absence of the wine–whine merger: Most Texans distinguish the of ''whale'' and ''whether'' from the of ''wail'' and ''weather''. In most dialects of English, and are in all cases. : *Absence of the horse–hoarse merger: Parts of Texas, particularly the Dallas and Lubbock areas, do not merge and . : *Absence of yod-dropping: Some speakers in the Dallas area distinguish ''dew'' and ''do'' .〔Labov, W., Ash, S., & Boberg, C. Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006.〕 * Monophthongization of before voiced consonants and word-final position: A vast majority of Texans monophthongize to . Thus, ''buy'' is realized as , ''guy'' as , ''time'' as , ''side'' as , etc. While this is widespread, it is absent in Austin and southern Texas, especially Corpus Christi. * Monophthongization of before voiceless consonants: This is concentrated in central Texas and San Antonio. In these areas, over 50% of tokens show monophthongization to before voiceless consonants. This makes words like ''mite'', ''rice'', ''life'', ''type'', etc. sound like (), (), , and .〔〔Feagin, Crawford. “Vowel Shifting in the Southern States.” ''English in the Southern United States''. Ed. Stephen J. Nagle and Sara L. Sanders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. 126-140.〕 * The cot-caught merger: the phonemes and are pronounced identically as making ''cot'' and ''caught'' homophones. The cot-caught merger is found almost everywhere in Texas.〔Bailey, Guy. “Directions of Change in Texas English.”.''Journal of American Culture'' 14.2 (1991): 125-134.〕 *Texan dialects are rhotic; is pronounced in all environments. *The intrusive /r/: The intrusion of /r/ makes words like ''Washington'' sound like ''War-shington''.〔 * The pin-pen merger: Many Texans pronounce the word ''pen'' like the word ''pin''. Also other words like ''ten'' and ''tin'', ''Wendy'' and ''windy'', ''Ken'' and ''kin'', ''send'' and ''sinned'' are pronounced the same.〔(“Pin-Pen Merger.” ) ''The American Front Porch''. The University of North Carolina. 5 Sept. 2012〕〔Bigham, Doug. (“The PIN~PEN Merger: Movement of Front Vowel Allophones in Pre-Nasal Position.” ) Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas. 2007. Accessed 5 Sept. 2012 < >.〕 * The relation of /eɪ/ in ''bait'' to /ɛ/ in ''bet'': There are four possible relations of the /eɪ/ to /ɛ/: # 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Texan English」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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