Language

English-speakers in Texas account for 68 percent of the population, with Spanish running a distant second, yet still notable (26 percent). People speak Vietnamese and German in a few small pockets of the state, but for the most part, it’s Spanish and English (and a few interesting varieties of the two).

A fair number of Hispanics in South Texas speak an unofficial language known as Tex-Mex, which combines Spanish and English words without any rigid guidelines determining when to use each. It’s a distinctive regional practice, resulting from an impulsive tendency to toss in an English or Spanish word when the translation isn’t immediately on the tip of the tongue, and it’s most evident on Tejano radio stations in Corpus Christi [1] and the Lower Rio Grande Valley, where rapid-fire DJs pepper their announcements in Spanish with random yet instantly recognizable English words.

Learning to speak Texan is an entirely different endeavor. Though it sounds like a Southern accent on the surface, there are distinct dialects in different parts of the state. In East Texas [2], vowels are more drawn out and the slower cadence includes inflections of the Deep South. People in West Texas, meanwhile, speak with more of a tight twang. Pronunciation of the word “Texas” is a prime example—in East Texas, it often sounds like “Tay-ux-us,” and in West Texas it’s pronounced “Tix-is.”

Just to make things interesting, young adults in the state’s metropolitan areas tend to combine elements of their own Texas dialect with California’s “Valley speak.” Dallas [3]-born actor Owen Wilson’s accent is the quintessential example of this style of speech.