Old West Accent(s)

I am 70 now but I remember well speaking with my grandparents who were born in the late 1800’s and ranched in far West Texas. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest. When I would visit them, I would be fascinated with their cadence and slow, measured speech. Even their vocabulary was foreign to me. I treasure my memories of them.

Wow, I'm in my 60s, and I'm old enough to remember some older folks speaking in these accents when I was a kid. You can also hear these accents in older movies, especially ones from the 1930s. American English has definitely changed quite noticeably even in my lifetime.

As a direct descendent of Wilford Woodruff, this is the first time I've heard a recording of his voice. Absolutely fascinating. Thank you for sharing and letting me directly hear the voice of my ancestors.

My grandmother was born 1895 on the prairie in South Dakota. She would pronounce wash like "warsh" and program like "progrum" and had a softer way of speaking. She got interviewed in her later years because of her work as a suffragette. So grateful we have the recording of her voice online so I can remember.

Keep in mind with those old recordings that people had to speak loudly with a higher pitch because the recording equipment didn't handle bass and low tones very well. While doing so and thinking about how they sound, they may consciously change their pronunciation.

Val Kilmer had a dialect coach. "I started with my secret weapon, the dialect and speech coach Tim Monich who works with the best people on earth, 24/7 for 30 years now. I told him I needed a dialect that didn't exist anymore and within days, there was a tape at my doorstep of a true Southern aristocrat who spoke so slowly and precisely about the theater he had restored."

I love old timey accents and recordings… it’s fascinating because they were people just like us with all the same emotions and struggles, just in different circumstances.

Insane to me, these accents are a lot like the funny stereotypes in Loony Toons characters. So much old world charm had been passed down even back then. Even as a little child watching these cartoons felt like a glimpse into a past era I'd never know. Thank you for the video

This accent is still present in lots of films from the 30s into the 40s, especially with actors not trying to sound erudite. The 3 Stooges had tons of characters using or mocking the old accents.

The way they pronounce "first" and "certainly" is exactly how Curly from the Three Stooges pronounced it.

As a philosophical point, I was born in West London, but grew up 25 miles North of London. I am now 70 years old, but have lived for the last 36 years in Germany. When I visit my family still in England, I realize I am still speaking a 1980's English. This would suggest that those recorded in late life, are still speaking in their original accents. Incidentally, the accents of my youth in West London have disappeared. The way my uncles, aunts and grandparents spoke, have disappeared. I do still very occasionally hear it in WW2 interviews, and somehow, I miss it.

My grandmother was born in 1881 and died in 1981 at 100 years of age. She had a Central Texas accent that is never heard anymore. She sounded almost as if she had come from Virginia. Something that stands out in my memory is when I heard her telling my father about a troublesome light switch: "I have to flickit own, then flickit owff, then flickit own agayn." Listening to an interview with the late Roy Orbison I realized that he spoke this way, too. Many pioneer settlers moved to Texas from other states and brought their accents with them. You can still here some of them. At least until recently sometimes you'd meet someone from Ft. Worth who might sound just like someone from Tennessee.

I regret not recording my great grandmother's voice. She had a east Georgia accent that was very charming. And a unique way of pronouncing some words. Very soft drawl that often almost sounded like a question at the end of a sentence. Miss Effie lived to be almost 90 and was convinced that the little Clam Shell on the local tv weather news in Savannah that open up to give the tides each day waa a real little creature. She'd say, "What a smart little animal". Bless her heart she was amazed at modern things like tv and I don't think really believed in the moon landing.

That's always been a pet peeve of mine - how everyone in Western movies speaks with a Southern accent. As mentioned, people came from all over the US and from other countries so a wide range of accents would have been heard back then.

I’m a Missourian. If I’d heard the Missouri man’s testimony without context I’d have thought it may have been someone alive in the state today. I know many folks who speak like this, including myself on occasion. Interesting to see how similar the accent has remained.

Fascinating video. As a Scot, I'm often reminded that I speak in a particular way - even by other Scots who speak other dialects. I've always had a fascination with accents, they have deep histories and reveal lots of hidden details about a person. American regional accents interest me and I wish there was some sort of revival movement as it seems a lot of them are dying out and being replaced by "general American"

I've noticed that people that live in big cities tend to talk faster and always move like they have better places to be. I remember Virginian accents, Alabama, West Texas, East Texas and a lot of southern accents all had a different sound when I was young.

Daniel Day Lewis is the best at early American accents. The Gangs of New York as well as The Last of the Mohicans are perfect examples. Also the HBO series John Adams features some of the best accents of that era.

I knew my great grandparents, who were alive in the 19th century, in the west coast. They had a slow but musical inflection that was careful to pronounce each word correctly and softly. It was almost like hearing a choir when they were just shooting the breeze. They were more similar to our current accent than to the east coast accents you've put in here. They boomed and wailed in private and spoke softly in public but only dropped a g or r to mimic someone else.

Missour-uh is a common rural pronunciation down to the present in Missouri. It is somewhat amusing to watch state politicians who are from St. Louis and KC fall all over themselves to use this pronunciation during election season. My grandfather was born in 1921 in the upper Ozarks and pronounced Iowa as I-O-way. He also pronounced California as Californee. I am unsure if this was because of his French ancestry or his Appalachian ancestry. Either way, he got it honest.