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Article: On the trail of `y'all,' researchers find Texas twang a dialect apart.
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- January 7, 2005
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Howard Witt
SAN ANTONIO _ Turns out it's all in the y'all.
If you ever find yourself in a group of Southerners and want to spot the Texan in the bunch, listen hard for the y'alls. Most of them will surely use the expression _ a contraction of "you all" _ to refer to a group of people ("Are y'all goin' to the store?"), but the Texan is more likely to employ it to refer to a single individual as well.
That's just one of the unusual discoveries made by two linguistics professors at the University of Texas-San Antonio who are studying Texas Twang, the distinctive dialect of English proudly spoken by natives of the Lone Star State _ and ...