Canadian English

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Canadian English is the form of English used in Canada, spoken as a first or second language by over 25 million Canadians (as recorded in the 2001 census [1]). Canadian English spelling is a mixture of American and British, but Canadian speech is much closer to American English, with some French influence.

Contents
1 Spelling
2 Accent
3 Vocabulary
4 Regional variation

4.1 Toronto
4.2 Ottawa Valley
4.3 British Columbia
4.4 Cape Breton Island
4.5 Maritimes
4.6 Newfoundland
4.7 Quebec
4.8 Ontario
4.9 Prairies

5 See also
6 External links
7 Further reading

Spelling

There is no universally accepted standard of Canadian spelling. Canadian Press (CP) style, which is used by most Canadian newspapers, agrees with some Commonwealth usage: for example, -our (honour, colour, endeavour), -re (centre, theatre) and cheque, grey, jewellery, pyjamas, storey and sulphur. But in other cases, American spelling is used: for example, aluminum, artifact, jail, curb, program, specialty, tire, and carburetor. A Canadian would watch a television program, as in the United States, but would read the programme at a concert or theatrical performance, as in British English. A business-history explanation for some Canadian spelling rules is possible. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's car industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of a car.

A plausible contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Canadian Parliament. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more of the other references listed in this article's "Further Reading" section.

British spellings which include ligatures (or the two letter equivalent) have also been dropped from Canadian spellings. Words such as encyclopædia, dæmon, fœtus and pædiatrician are spelled encyclopedia, demon, fetus and pediatrician.

Accent

Main article: phonemic differentiation.

The primary aspect is a feature called "Canadian raising," when diphthongs are raised before voiceless consonants. For example, whereas many American dialects pronounce the first diphthongs in the words writer and rider the same, a Canadian will pronounce them (approximately) as /ɹʌjɾəɹ/ and /ɹajɾəɹ/ (in IPA transcription). That is, the first part of the diphthong in both words in American English is ahh as in father; the first part of the diphthong in writer in Canadian English is uhh as in cut, a higher vowel than the American usage. However, some American English accents, particularly those near Ontario, speak like this. Note also that Canadian English shares with American English the phenomenon where /t/ and /d/ become /ɾ/ after a vowel and before an unstressed vowel. Canadian raising preserves the voicelessness of /t/ and the voicedness of /d/ where it is etymologically appropriate, even where the contrast is lost in the consonant itself.

Similarly, about will be raised from /əˈbaʊt/, as it is in American "Atlantic" dialect, to /əˈbʌʊt/ ("aboahwt"), or nearly even /əˈboʊt/ ("aboat") in some dialects. The stereotypical "aboat" pronunciation, lampooned in the American television series South Park is not usual; the stereotype may derive from an interpretation of the "aboot" pronunciation as heard by someone who is used to the much lower "abawt" pronunciation, or from a misinterpretation of the spelling of the "word" aboot. Ironically, the "aboat" pronunciation is quite common in parts of the U.S. Upper Midwest, such as Minnesota.

Anecdotally, the "abuhwt" vowels are heard in Ontario and further east, and the "aboot" vowels are heard in the Eastern provinces. Also heard are: "can't", in Ontario, almost "canned," whereas in the west, it becomes more "kahnt."

A recently identified feature (1995) found among many Canadians is a chain shift known as the Canadian Shift. This is not found in the Atlantic Provinces, east of Quebec; it is only found in Ontario and further west. For people with this shift, "cot" and "caught" merge in rounded [ɒ] position. The short-a of "bat" then moves down to [a], while the short-e of "bet" becomes [æ], which is short-a in other accents. This shift is still a relatively new phenomenon, so not all Canadians have it. Of the ones that do, not all have the last stage. Canadians without the Shift typically pronounce "cot" and "caught" as an un-rounded [ɑ], as in the western United States.

There is a tendency to monophthongize the long "a" and "o" sounds, resulting in /beːt/ for "bait" and /boːt/ for "boat" (though this occurs usually in rapid speech). Finally, the broad /ɑ/ of foreign loan words in words like "drama" or "Iraq" are usually pronounced like the short "a" of "bat": /dɹæmə/, /ɪɹæk/.

Americans sometimes claim to be able to recognize some Canadians instantly by their use of the word eh. However, only a certain usage of eh (detailed in the article) is peculiar to Canada. It is common in southern Ontario, the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. In some parts of the United States, American English exhibits features of Canadian English, including Canadian Raising and the use of eh. Canadian accents are sometimes detected among Michiganders and their northern fellows.

Vocabulary

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English. For instance, automotive terminology in Canada is entirely American. Canadians may prefer the British term railway to the American railroad, but most railway terminology in Canada follows American usage (eg., ties, as well as cars rather than sleepers and carriages). Given the number of cross-border railways, this makes sense.

However, some terms in standard Canadian English are shared with Commonwealth English, but not with American English. These include:

Several lexical items come from British English, such as lieutenant (/lɛf-/) and light standard (an obsolete British word for lamp-post). Several political terms are uniquely Canadian, including riding (a parliamentary constituency or electoral district) and to win by acclamation (to win uncontested).

Like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English, such as:

Canadian English also has its own words not found in other variants of English. In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, called The Canadian Oxford Dictionary; a second edition was published in 2004. It listed uniquely Canadian words, words borrowed from other languages and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use.

In Canada, the word 'premier', as meant to be the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is pronounced "prem - yare" , "Preem year" or "preem - yehr" in most places, as opposed to the United States, where it is pronounced "prem ear. Premiere, (the first showing of a movie), is pronounced the same in Canada as the rest of the world.

Uniquely Canadian English words include:

There are a few meaning differences between Canadian and American English; for example, to table a document in Canada is to present it, whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.

Canadians mostly use the term 'gasoline', rather than the British term 'petrol'. Gasoline prices require some awkward translation between Canadian and American figures. Even before the metrication efforts of the 1970s, the translation of "dollars per gallon" required not only replacing Canadian vs. American currencies but also a conversion between Imperial (4.5 L) vs. US (3.8 L) gallons.

When pronouncing letters of the alphabet, Canadians will almost invariably use the Anglo-European (and French) "zed" rather than the American "zee" for the letter Z. Canadian students add "grade" before their grade level, instead of after it as is the usual, but not sole, American practice. For example, a student in "10th grade" in the USA would be in "Grade 10" in Canada. (Quebec anglophones may instead say "sec 5" (secondary 5) for Grade 11.) It should also be noted that in Canada, the specific high school grade (eg. Grade 9 or Grade 12) or university year is stated and not the American terms "freshman" or "sophomore". Also, while in the United States the term "college" refers to post-secondary education in general, the term "college" has a different meaning in Canada. It refers to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institutions, or to the colleges that exist as individual institutions within some Canadian universities. Most often, "college" is a community college, not a university. In Canada "college student" might denote someone obtaining a diploma in plumbing while "university student" is the term for someone earning a Bachelor's Degree.

Past participles also tend to be used differently in Canada and the United States. In general, Canadian English speakers will tend to say "the cookies are burnt"; Americans will say "the cookies are burned."

There is also greater resistance to turning nouns into verbs in Canada. Until recently, many Canadian teachers rejected the verb to contact.

Adoption of metric units is more advanced in Canada than in the US due to governmental efforts during the Trudeau era; while Canadians still often use pounds, feet and inches to measure and weigh themselves, outdoor temperatures, food packaging, fuel and highway speeds/distances are almost always metric.

The Bob & Doug McKenzie "Take off to the Great White North" comedy routines, popular in the early 1980s, drew heavily on linguistic differences such as pronunciation (such as 'Trona' for Toronto or 'brudle' for brutal) as well as once-obscure historical terms such as "hoser" or "hosehead" (originally used to refer to gas siphoning on the prairies in the depression era).

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which was an independent dominion until April 1 1949, has its own dialect distinct from Canadian English. (See Newfoundland English.) Just as regional accents within Canada have become less distinct, Canadian English has tended to converge with American English. With each passing generation, Canadian English has evolved towards a common North American English.

Regional variation

Toronto

The English spoken in Toronto is very close to the English spoken elsewhere in Southern Ontario, but there are differences. Because of the many immigrants who live in the city, among them Asian, Russian, and Italian, there are many words originating from these areas that are added into the language. There is no standard spelling but most follow the -our and -re spellings. There are also many street slangs imported from the USA and the Caribbean. One of the least recognised regional accents in the city is the North York "slurring" - some residents of that part of the city have a slightly larger tendency (though it is by no means a rule) to slur their words than those who live in the southern portions of Toronto.

Ottawa Valley

The Ottawa valley has its own distinct accent, and is known as the Ottawa Valley Twang.

British Columbia

Cape Breton Island

Maritimes

Newfoundland

Quebec

Ontario

Prairies

The main distinction between Canadian (Prairie) pronunciation of this diphthong is in its resolution. Namely, an American pronunciation resolves the 'a-'sound [ɶ] (or, alternatively, the schwa sound ([ə]); please see external source http://www.m-w.com/pronsymbols.htm for explanation of this notation) resolves with an 'oo'-sound [u], as such: 'a bah oo t'; whereas the Canadian pronunciation resolves with an 'oh'-sound [ɔ], as such: 'a bah oh t'.

See also

External links

Further reading

See also: Canadian English, 1800, 1949, 1970, 1980, 1998, 2004, Acadian French