Oklahoma Has More Than One Accent, And You Can Hear The Difference

Oklahoma has always been a little hard to pin down on the American map. We're not quite the South, not quite the Midwest, and not really the Mountain West. Even the Great Plains label doesn't tell the whole story, because so much of what makes Oklahoma Oklahoma comes from places and people that have very little in common with the wide-open country up around the Panhandle.

And you can hear that in the way we talk.

Regional Differences In Oklahoma Accents

I've noticed that Oklahoma accents can change quite a bit depending on what part of the state you're in. Up in the northeast, there's a cleaner, more Midwestern sound to a lot of people. Not Minnesota "hotdish" clean, but less drawl and a little more of that straight-ahead way of saying things.

Head down to southwestern Oklahoma, around Altus, Duke, and Hollis, and you start hearing more Texas in the mix. There's a little drawl, and certain words get their own treatment.

"Oil" is a prime example. Down in that part of the state, it's only one syllable, and they say it "Ol." You might not notice it in every conversation, but once you hear it, you can't unhear it.

As my enlisted, from NYC buddy at Fort Sill says, "You's guys talk reeely funny down hure."

The other corners of the state have their own differences, too.

Head southeast, and you get more of that laid-back, rural sound you'd associate with Arkansas or Northern Louisiana. Go northwest, and things tend to lean more toward the cleaner Plains sounds.

It's not a hard-and-fast rule, and I'm sure somebody from every one of those places can come up with a neighbor who sounds completely different. But there are patterns to it.

Oklahoma City is where those different sounds seem to all run into each other.

I've always thought of it as somebody writing half a sentence in regular block letters and finishing it in cursive. There's a little of one accent, a little of the other, and sometimes the two show up in the same conversation. It's a strange combination, but it makes sense when you think about all the different parts of Oklahoma feeding into the state's biggest city.

Turns out, there's a little history behind those patterns.

How Oklahoma's History Shaped Its Regional Accents

The Oklahoma Historical Society has looked at the state's speech differences, and the story goes back to the people who settled here.

Much of the old Oklahoma Territory was settled by people coming from Midwestern states like Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The former Indian Territory had a stronger Southern influence, and later arrivals from Texas, Arkansas, and southern Missouri added to it. Those different settlement patterns left Oklahoma with a mix of speech that still shows up today.

Which brings us right back to Oklahoma's identity problem. Depending on where you stand, you can make a pretty good argument that we're Southern, Midwestern, and Southwestern all at the same time.

Of course, that's just my own opinion. I'd be curious to know what you think you hear around the Sooner State. Do people around you have much of an accent?