113-474: Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of Canadian English that is spoken particularly across Ontario and Western Canada , as well as throughout Canada among urban middle-class speakers from English-speaking families, excluding the regional dialects of Atlantic Canadian English . Canadian English has a mostly uniform phonology and much less dialectal diversity than neighbouring American English . In particular, Standard Canadian English
226-445: A similar vowel shift since the 1980s. Canadian English as an academic field of inquiry solidified around the time of World War II. While early linguistic approaches date back to the second half of the 19th century, the first textbook to consider Canadian English in one form or another was not published until 1940. Walter S. Avis was its most forceful spokesperson after WWII until the 1970s. His team of lexicographers managed to date
339-528: A split between rider as [ˈɹäɪɾɚ] and writer as [ˈɹʌɪɾɚ] ( listen ). Although Canadian English phonology is part of the greater North American sound system and so is therefore similar to American English phonology, the pronunciation of particular words may have British influence, and other pronunciations are uniquely Canadian. The Cambridge History of the English Language states, "What perhaps most characterizes Canadian speakers, however,
452-457: A European settlement history that dates back centuries, which explains Newfoundland's most notable linguistic regions: an Irish-settled area in the southeast (the southern Avalon Peninsula) and an English-settled area in the southwest. A well-known phonetic feature many Newfoundland speakers possess is the kit-dress merger . The mid lax /ɛ/ here is raised to the high lax stressed /ɪ/, particularly before oral stops and nasals, so consequently "pen"
565-551: A class-based sociolect known as Canadian dainty . Treated as a marker of upper-class prestige in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Canadian dainty was marked by the use of some features of British English pronunciation, resulting in an accent similar, but not identical, to the Mid-Atlantic accent known in the United States. This accent faded in prominence following World War II , when it became stigmatized as pretentious, and
678-460: A common North American English sound system. The mainstream Canadian accent ("Standard Canadian") is often compared to the General American accent, a middle ground lacking in noticeable regional features. Western Canada (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba) shows the largest dialect diversity. Northern Canada is, according to William Labov , a dialect region in formation where
791-817: A continuum between the two extremes of the Halifax variant and the Newfoundland variant. In addition, there is heavy influence of standard varieties of Canadian English on Cape Breton English, especially in the diphthongization of the goat and goose vowels and the frequent use of Canadian raising. Compared to the commonly spoken English dominating neighbouring provinces, Newfoundland English is famously distinct in its dialects and accents. Newfoundland English differs in vowel pronunciation , morphology , syntax , and preservation of archaic adverbial-intensifiers. The dialect varies markedly from community to community, as well as from region to region. Its distinctiveness partly results from
904-508: A dialect that is distinct from southern Canadian English. Overall, First Nations Canada English dialects rest between language loss and language revitalization. British Columbia has the greatest linguistic diversity, as it is home to about half of the Indigenous languages spoken in Canada. Most of the languages spoken in the province are endangered due to the small number of speakers. To some extent,
1017-522: A distinction between the marry and merry sets remains in Montreal); the father–bother merger that makes lager/logger , con/Kahn , etc. sound identical; the very common horse–hoarse merger making pairs like for/four , horse/hoarse , morning/mourning , war/wore etc. perfect homophones (as in California English, the vowel is phonemicized as /oʊ/ due to the cot–caught merger: /foʊr/ etc.);
1130-463: A dropped "g" no longer homophonous with taken . This pronunciation is otherwise perceived as incorrect and has been described as a "corruption of the language" by some listeners. Canadian English Canadian English ( CanE , CE , en-CA ) encompasses the varieties of English used in Canada . According to the 2016 census , English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of
1243-605: A feature of both shifts, is considered prestigious. Nesbitt et al. (2019) say that the Canadian shift may be replacing the NCS. Jacewicz (2011) found the shift in parts of Wisconsin, where, despite the NCS, /æ/ is lowered and backed, and /ɑ/ raises, backs, and diphthongizes to approach /ɔ/ , although, like in Columbus and in Cowlitz County, the merger is not actually complete for most of
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#17328589559001356-441: A great extent, which has allowed the proposal of dialect zones. Dollinger and Clarke distinguish between: The words Aboriginal and Indigenous are capitalized when used in a Canadian context. First Nations and Inuit from Northern Canada speak a version of Canadian English influenced by the phonology of their first languages. Non-indigenous Canadians in these regions are relatively recent arrivals, and have not produced
1469-470: A higher first vowel in the diphthong) and no Trap-bath split . Canadian raising is when the onsets of diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ get raised to [ ə ] or [ ʌ ] before voiceless segments. There are areas in the eastern U.S. where some words are pronounced with Canadian raising. Some young Canadians may show Goose- fronting . U.S. southern dialects have long had goose-fronting, but this goose-fronting among young Canadians and Californians
1582-654: A homogeneous English dialect has not yet formed. Labov's research focused on urban areas, and did not survey the country, but they found similarities among the English spoken in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. Labov identifies an "Inland Canada" region that concentrates all of the defining features of the dialect centred on the Prairies (a region in Western Canada that mainly includes Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and
1695-466: A low central vowel in their language of origin, such as ll a ma , p a sta , and pyj a mas , as well as place names like G a za and Vietn a m , tend to have /æ/ , rather than /ɒ/ (which includes the historical /ɑ/ , /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ because of the father–bother and cot–caught mergers). That also applies to older loans like drama or Apache . The word khaki is sometimes pronounced /ˈkɒki/ (or even /ˈkɒrki/ ). The pronunciation of drama with /æ/
1808-410: A marker of Halifax English as a distinctive variant of Canadian English. Typically, Canadian dialects have a merger of the low back vowels in palm, lot, thought and cloth. The merged vowel in question is usually /ɑ/ or sometimes the rounded variant /ɒ/. Meanwhile, in Halifax, the vowel is raised and rounded. For example, body; popped; and gone. In the homophones, caught-cot and stalk-stock, the rounding in
1921-625: A national dictionary Consortium. The Consortium comprises the Editors' Association of Canada, the UBC Canadian English Lab, and Queen's University 's Strategy Language Unit. It is quite common for Canadian English speakers to have the cot-caught merger , the father-bother merger , the Low-Back-Merger Shift (with the vowel in words such as "trap" moving backwards), Canadian raising (words such as "like" and "about" pronounced with
2034-431: A past in which there were few roads and many communities, with some isolated villages. Into the 1980s, residents of villages in northern Nova Scotia could identify themselves by dialects and accents distinctive to their village. The dialects of Prince Edward Island are often considered the most distinct grouping. The phonology of Maritimer English has some unique features: As with many other distinct dialects, vowels are
2147-545: A period of more than two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution , chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States —as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern American English . Canadian English has been developing features of its own since
2260-466: A person, because of the rural provenance, would not be included in the accepted definition (see the previous section). The Atlas of North American English , while being the best source for US regional variation, is not a good source for Canadian regional variation, as its analysis is based on only 33 Canadian speakers. Boberg's (2005, 2008) studies offer the best data for the delimitation of dialect zones. The results for vocabulary and phonetics overlap to
2373-631: A significant impact on Canadian English's origins as well as again in the 20th century and since then as a result of increased cultural and economic ties between the two countries. American English terms like gasoline, truck, and apartment are commonly used in Canadian English. The growth of Canadian media, including television, film, and literature, has also played a role in shaping Canadian English. Chambers (1998) notes that Canadian media has helped to create new words and expressions that reflect Canadian culture and values. Canadian institutions, such as
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#17328589559002486-408: A strong rhoticity ranging from [ɜɹ] to [ɐɹ] . Words such as origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren , as well as tomorrow, sorry, sorrow , generally use the sound sequence of FORCE , rather than START . The latter set of words often distinguishes Canadian from American pronunciation. In Standard Canadian English, there is no distinction between horse and hoarse . Loanwords that have
2599-591: A verb ( Where will you house them tonight? ) can then have two different vowel qualities: [hɐʊs] and [haʊz] . Especially in parts of the Atlantic Provinces, some Canadians do not have Canadian raising. On the other hand, certain non-Canadian accents use Canadian raising. In the United States, it can be found in areas near the border in dialects in the Upper Midwest , Pacific Northwest , and Northeastern New England (like Boston ) dialects, but Canadian raising
2712-514: Is Dollinger (2012, updated to 2017). Until the 2000s, basically all commentators on the history of CanE have argued from the "language-external" history, i.e. social and political history. An exception has been in the area of lexis, where Avis et al. 's 1967 Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles offered real-time historical data through its quotations. Starting in the 2000s, historical linguists have started to study earlier Canadian English with historical linguistic data. DCHP-1
2825-466: Is also realized higher as [e] before /ɡ/ . Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is " Canadian raising ," which is found most prominently throughout central and west-central Canada and in parts of the Atlantic Provinces . For the beginning points of the diphthongs ( gliding vowels ) /aɪ/ (as in the words height and mice ) and /aʊ/ (as in shout and house ), the tongue
2938-479: Is defined by the cot–caught merger to [ɒ] and an accompanying chain shift of vowel sounds, which is called the Canadian Shift . A subset of the dialect geographically at its central core, excluding British Columbia to the west and everything east of Montreal , has been called Inland Canadian English . It is further defined by both of the phenomena that are known as Canadian raising (which
3051-611: Is distinct from Atlantic Canadian English , its most notable subset being Newfoundland English , and from Quebec English . Accent differences can also be heard between those who live in urban centres versus those living in rural settings. While Canadian English tends to be close to American English in most regards, classifiable together as North American English , Canadian English also possesses elements from British English as well as some uniquely Canadian characteristics. The precise influence of American English, British English, and other sources on Canadian English varieties has been
3164-619: Is dominantly agreed upon yet. Assuming the similar chain shifts found in Canada and various parts of the U.S. have a single common origin, a variety of names have been proposed for this trans-regional chain shift which, besides the low-back-merger shift , include the Third Dialect Shift , Elsewhere Shift , Short Front Vowel Shift , and North American Shift . Aside from the Low-Back-Merger Shift characterizing these North American varieties, similar, though not identical, shifts to
3277-519: Is found also in British Columbia and Ontario): the production of /oʊ/ and /aʊ/ with back starting points in the mouth and the production of /eɪ/ with a front starting point and very little glide that is almost [e] in the Canadian Prairies . The onset of unraised /aʊ/ is usually low central [äʊ] , though it may be fronted before nasals. /oʊ/ usually remains backed [oʊ~o] , unlike
3390-404: Is in decline, and studies found that 83% of Canadians used /æ/ in 1956, 47% in 1999, and 10% in 2012. More generally, younger speakers tend to use /ɒ/ more than they did before, though there's still quite a bit of variation. Some words, including plaza , façade , and lava will take a low central phone [ä] , possibly distinct from both /æ/ and /ɒ/ . The cot-caught merger creates a gap in
3503-636: Is inhibited by a following nasal, but it is not in Vancouver. However, scholars disagree on the behaviour of /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ : Due to the Canadian Shift, the short- a and the short- o are shifted in opposite directions to that of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift , found across the border in the Inland Northern U.S. and Western New England , which is causing these two dialects to diverge:
Standard Canadian English - Misplaced Pages Continue
3616-536: Is known for its grasslands and plains), with more variable patterns including the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto. This dialect forms a dialect continuum with Western US English , sharply differentiated from Inland Northern US English of the central and eastern Great Lakes region where the Northern Cities Shift is sending front vowels in the opposite direction to the Low-Back-Merger Shift heard in Canada and California. Standard Canadian English
3729-466: Is less extreme than in many American varieties. Much less raising is heard on the Prairies, and some ethnic groups in Montreal show no pre-nasal raising at all. On the other hand, some speakers in the Prairies and British Columbia have raising of /æ/ before voiced velars ( /ɡ/ and /ŋ/ , with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, such that bag may almost rhyme with vague . For most Canadian speakers, /ɛ/
3842-494: Is more advanced for Ontarians and for women than for people from the Prairies and Atlantic Canada and men. Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ may be lowered (in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ] ) and/or retracted, but studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift. For example, Labov and others (2006) noted a backward and downward movement of /ɛ/ in apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of /ɪ/
3955-408: Is more recent. Some young Californians also show signs of the Low-Back-Merger Shift . The cot-caught merger is perhaps not general in the U.S., but younger speakers seem more likely to have it. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary lists words such as "no" and "way" as having a long monophthong vowel sound, whereas American dictionaries usually have these words ending in an upglide. There may be areas of
4068-674: Is much less common than in Canada. The raising of /aɪ/ alone is actually increasing throughout the United States and, unlike the raising of /aʊ/ , is generally not perceived as unusual by people who do not exhibit the raising. Because of Canadian raising, many speakers can distinguish between words such as writer and rider , which can otherwise be pronounced the same in North American dialects, which typically turn both intervocalic /t/ and /d/ into an alveolar flap . Thus, writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowel characteristics as determined by Canadian raising, which causes
4181-474: Is not as strong as it is in the rest of the province. In Prescott and Russell , parts of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry and Eastern Ottawa, French accents are often mixed with English ones due to the high Franco-Ontarian population there. In Lanark County , Western Ottawa and Leeds-Grenville and the rest of Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry , the accent spoken is nearly identical to that spoken in Central Ontario and
4294-504: Is not unique to Toronto; Atlanta is often pronounced "Atlanna" by residents. Sometimes /ð/ is elided altogether, resulting in "Do you want this one er'iss one?" The word southern is often pronounced with [aʊ] . In the area north of the Regional Municipality of York and south of Parry Sound , notably among those who were born in the surrounding communities, the cutting down of syllables and consonants often heard, e.g. "probably"
4407-485: Is now available in open access. Most notably, Dollinger (2008) pioneered the historical corpus linguistic approach for English in Canada with CONTE (Corpus of Early Ontario English, 1776–1849) and offers a developmental scenario for 18th- and 19th-century Ontario. In 2015, Reuter confirmed the scenario laid out in Dollinger (2008), using a 19th-century newspaper corpus from Ontario. Historically, Canadian English included
4520-506: Is now rare. The governor general Vincent Massey and the actor Christopher Plummer are examples of men raised in Canada, but who spoke with a British-influenced accent. Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American conventions, the two dominant varieties, and adds some domestic idiosyncrasies. For many words, American and British spelling are both acceptable. Spelling in Canadian English co-varies with regional and social variables, somewhat more so, perhaps, than in
4633-476: Is often more " raised " than in other varieties of English in the mouth when the diphthongs are before voiceless consonants : /p/ , /t/ , /k/ , /s/ , /ʃ/ , and /f/ . Before voiceless consonants, /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ~ɜɪ~ɐɪ] . One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of that and /aʊ/ . In Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation sometimes approaching [ɛʊ] , but in
Standard Canadian English - Misplaced Pages Continue
4746-485: Is only pronounced when preceding a vowel. Like GenAm , Canadian English possesses a wide range of phonological mergers, many of which are not found in other major varieties of English: the Mary–marry–merry merger which makes word pairs like Barry/berry , Carrie/Kerry , hairy/Harry , perish/parish , etc. as well as trios like airable/errable/arable and Mary/merry/marry have identical pronunciations (however,
4859-706: Is particularly strong in the County of Bruce, so much that it is commonly referred to as being the Bruce Cownian (Bruce Countian) accent. Also, /ɜr/ merge with /ɛr/ to [ɛɹ] , with "were" sounding more like "wear". Residents of the Golden Horseshoe (including the Greater Toronto Area ) are known to merge the second /t/ with the /n/ in Toronto , pronouncing the name variously as [təˈɹɒɾ̃o] or [ˈtɹɒɾ̃o] . This
4972-413: Is pronounced more like "pin". Another phonetic feature more unique to Newfoundland English is TH-stopping. Here, the voiceless dental fricative /θ/ in words like myth and width are pronounced more like t or the voiced dental fricative /ð/ in words like the and these . TH-stopping is more common for /ð/, especially in unstressed function words (e.g. that, those, their, etc.). Canadian raising
5085-504: Is quite rare in the region today. Canadian Shift The Low-Back-Merger Shift is a chain shift of vowel sounds found in several dialects of North American English , beginning in the last quarter of the 20th century and most significantly involving the low back merger accompanied by the lowering and backing of the front lax vowels: / æ / , / ɛ / , and / ɪ / (in words like TRAP , DRESS , and KIT respectively). The back and downward movement of all
5198-514: Is quite strong throughout the province of Ontario , except within the Ottawa Valley . The introduction of Canadian raising to Canada can be attributed to the Scottish and Irish immigrants who arrived in the 18th and 19th centuries. The origins of Canadian raising to Scotland and revealed that the Scottish dialects spoken by these immigrants had a probable impact on its development. This feature impacts
5311-426: Is reduced to "prolly" or "probly" when used as a response. In Greater Toronto, the diphthong tends to be fronted (as a result the word about is pronounced as [əˈbɛʊt] ). The Greater Toronto Area is linguistically diverse, with 43 percent of its people having a mother tongue other than English. As a result Toronto English has distinctly more variability than Inland Canada. In Eastern Ontario , Canadian raising
5424-659: Is socially defined. Standard Canadian English is spoken by those who live in urban Canada, in a middle-class job (or one of their parents holds such employment), who are second generation or later (born and raised in Canada) and speak English as (one of their) dominant language(s) (Dollinger 2019a, adapted from Chambers 1998). It is the variety spoken, in Chambers' (1998: 252) definition, by Anglophone or multilingual residents, who are second generation or later (i.e. born in Canada) and who live in urban settings. Applying this definition, c. 36% of
5537-405: Is their use of several possible variant pronunciations for the same word, sometimes even in the same sentence." Like most other North American English dialects, Canadian English is almost always spoken with a rhotic accent , meaning that the r sound is preserved in any environment and not "dropped" after vowels, as commonly done by, for example, speakers in central and southern England where it
5650-403: Is typically [äʊt] , but with slight Canadian raising, it may sound more like [ɐʊt] , and with the strong Canadian raising of the Prairies and Nova Scotia, it may sound more like IPA: [ʌʊt] . Canadian raising makes words like height and hide have two different vowel qualities. Also, for example, house as a noun ( I saw a house ) and house as
5763-432: Is undergoing fronting without lowering, while still remaining distinct from the space occupied by /ɛ/ . At the same time, historical /ɒ/ (the vowel in "lot") is merged with the /ɑ/ class, which is raising and backing towards /ɔ/ , such that the two are merged or "close". This allows a "free space" for the retraction of /æ/ , which is also suggested as a possibility for Western U.S. dialects by Boberg (2005). In Columbus,
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#17328589559005876-534: The Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced student and news , for instance, without /j/ . This glide-deletion is less common in Victoria , though younger speakers front /u/ to such a degree after coronals that some words can take a [j] -like onglide. Canadians do include /j/ in revenue and avenue . Especially in Vancouver and Toronto, an increasing number of Canadians realize /ɪŋ/ as [in] when
5989-688: The Governor General of Canada to issue an order-in-council directing that government papers be written in the British style. A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada (see The Canadian Style in Further reading below) . Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary , often along with
6102-641: The Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men. In the southern part of Southwestern Ontario (roughly in the line south from Sarnia to St. Catharines), despite the existence of many characteristics of West/Central Canadian English, many speakers, especially those under 30, speak a dialect influenced by the Inland Northern American English dialect (in part due to proximity to cities like Detroit and Buffalo, New York) though there are minor differences such as Canadian raising (e.g. "ice" vs "my"). The north and northwestern parts of Southwestern Ontario,
6215-629: The Quinte area. A linguistic enclave has also formed in the Ottawa Valley , heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, and existing along the Ontario-Quebec boundary, which has its own distinct accent known as the Ottawa Valley twang (or brogue). Phonetically, the Ottawa Valley twang is characterized by the lack of Canadian raising as well as the cot–caught merger , two common elements of mainstream Canadian English. This accent
6328-471: The Senior Dictionary, edited by Robert John Gregg , was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary . Its fifth edition was printed beginning in 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. The latest editions were published in 2009 by HarperCollins . On 17 March 2017 a second edition of DCHP, the online Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles 2 (DCHP-2), was published. DCHP-2 incorporates
6441-436: The hurry-furry merger ; and the prevalent wine–whine merger which produces homophone pairs like Wales/whales , wear/where , wine/whine etc. by, in most cases, eliminating /hw/ ( ʍ ), except in some older speakers. In addition to that, flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before reduced vowels is ubiquitous, so the words ladder and latter , for example, are mostly or entirely pronounced
6554-522: The CBC and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, have also played a role in promoting and defining Canadian English. In addition to these influences, Canadian English has also been minorly shaped by Indigenous languages. Indigenous words such as moose, toboggan, and moccasin have become part of the Canadian English lexicon. Canadian English is the product of five waves of immigration and settlement over
6667-428: The Canadian English lexicon. An important influence on Canadian English was British English, which was brought to Canada by British settlers in the 18th and 19th centuries. Canadian English borrowed many words and expressions from British English, including words like lorry, flat, and lift. However, Canadian English also developed its own unique vocabulary, including words like tuque, chesterfield, and double-double. In
6780-501: The Canadian population speak Standard Canadian English in the 2006 population, with 38% in the 2011 census. The literature has for a long time conflated the notions of Standard Canadian English (StCE) and regional variation. While some regional dialects are close to Standard Canadian English, they are not identical to it. To the untrained ear, for instance, a BC middle-class speaker from a rural setting may seemingly be speaking Standard Canadian English, but, given Chambers' definition, such
6893-506: The Canadian shift closely resembles the version found by Boberg (2005) in Montreal, where /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ are either merged or "close", and /æ/ , /ɛ/ , and /ɪ/ show retraction of the nucleus without much lowering (with /æ/ also showing "rising diphthong" behavior). However, the retraction of /ɪ/ was not found among all speakers and is more mild among the speakers that do show it than the retraction of /ɛ/ among those speakers. Additionally,
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#17328589559007006-579: The Canadian short- a is very similar in quality to the Inland Northern short- o . For example, the production [map] would be recognized as map in Canada but mop in the Inland North. In the United States, the cot-caught merger is widespread across many regions of the United States, particularly in the Midland and West , but speakers with the merger are often not affected by the shift, possibly due to
7119-483: The Maritimes and eastern mainland Canada in which it can even be fronted). Speakers with the merger often fail to hear the difference when speakers without the merger, such as General American (GenAm) and Inland Northern American English , pronounce the vowels. The merger has existed in Canada for several generations. Some speakers may not exhibit the merger, especially older speakers and those living in rural areas or in
7232-516: The Prairies. The standard pronunciation of /ɑr/ (as in start ) is [ɑɹ] , as in GenAm, or perhaps somewhat fronted as [ɑ̈ɹ] . As with Canadian raising, the advancement of the raised nucleus can be a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (in the Maritime Provinces and Newfoundland ) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space; it is accompanied by
7345-443: The U.S. near the border where you hear the monophthong, eg. Fargo or Minnesota. The monophthong does sound stereotypically "Canadian" (listen to for example Bob and Doug McKenzie ), but not all Canadians use this pronunciation. In terms of the major sound systems ( phonologies ) of English around the world, Canadian English aligns most closely to American English. Some dialectologists group Canadian and American English together under
7458-635: The West and the Maritimes, a more retracted sound is heard, which is closer to [ʌʊ] . For some speakers in the Prairies and in Nova Scotia, the retraction is strong enough to cause some tokens of raised /aʊ/ to merge with /oʊ/ ; couch then merges with coach , and both words sound the same ( /koʊtʃ/ ). Also, about then sounds like a boat , which is often inaccurately represented as sounding like "a boot" for comic effect in American popular culture . In GenAm, out
7571-563: The actual low back merger. The California Vowel Shift in progress in California English contains features similar to the Canadian Shift, including the lowering/retraction of the front lax vowels. However, the retraction of /æ/ has happened in California even though the Californian /ɑ/ may be more centralized and not as rounded as the Canadian /ɒ/ , leading some scholars suggest that the two phenomena are distinct, while others suggest that it
7684-609: The area consisting of the Counties of Huron , Bruce , Grey , and Perth , referred to as the "Queen's Bush" in the 19th century, did not experience communication with the dialects of the southern part of Southwestern Ontario and Central Ontario until the early 20th century. Thus, a strong accent similar to Central Ontarian is heard, yet many different phrasings exist. It is typical in the area to drop phonetic sounds to make shorter contractions, such as: prolly (probably), goin' (going), and "Wuts goin' on tonight? D'ya wanna do sumthin'?" It
7797-611: The c. 10 000 lexemes from DCHP-1 and adds c. 1 300 novel meanings or 1 002 lexemes to the documented lexicon of Canadian English. In 1997, the ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language was another product, but has not been updated since. In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled The Oxford Canadian Dictionary . A second edition, retitled The Canadian Oxford Dictionary ,
7910-576: The chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English , and, where necessary (depending on context), one or more other references. (See Further reading below.) Throughout part of the 20th century, some Canadian newspapers adopted American spellings, for example, color as opposed to the British-based colour . Some of the most substantial historical spelling data can be found in Dollinger (2010) and Grue (2013). The use of such spellings
8023-471: The country's diverse linguistic and cultural heritage. While Canadian English has borrowed many words and expressions from other languages, it has also developed its own unique vocabulary and pronunciation that reflects the country's distinct identity. Studies on earlier forms of English in Canada are rare. Yet connections with other work to historical linguistics can be forged. An overview of diachronic work on Canadian English, or diachronically relevant work,
8136-408: The dialects reflect the historical contexts where English has been a major colonizing language. The dialects are also a result of the late stages of depidginization and decreolization , which resulted in linguistic markers of Indigenous identity and solidarity. These dialects are observed to have developed a lingua franca due to the contact between English and Indigenous populations, and eventually,
8249-496: The early 19th century. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada , who were worried about American dominance and influence among its citizens. Further waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910, 1960, and at the present time had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around
8362-478: The early 20th century, western Canada was largely populated by farmers from Central and Eastern Europe who were not anglophones. At the time, most anglophones there were re-settlers from Ontario or Quebec who had British , Irish , or Loyalist ancestry, or some mixture of these. Throughout the 20th century, the prairies underwent anglicization and linguistic homogenization through education and exposure to Canadian and American media. American English also had
8475-406: The fact that the merged vowel is less rounded, less back and slightly lower than the Canadian vowel. This means that there is less space for the retraction of the vowel /æ/ , which is a key feature of the Canadian shift. However, there are many regions of the United States where the Canadian shift can be observed, and this is often more closely linked to the raising or retraction of /ɑ/ , rather than
8588-403: The first two stages of the Northern Cities Shift (NCS) move /æ/ and /ɑ/ in the exact opposite direction of the Canadian Shift. However, the NCS is gaining stigma among younger speakers, which can trigger the lowering of /æ/ and the backing of /ɑ/ . In fact, Savage et al. (2015) found that, while the raising of /æ/ and fronting of /ɑ/ are stigmatized, the lowering and backing of /ɛ/ ,
8701-450: The front lax and tense vowels that is part of the Southern shift , retracted /ɪ/ , /ɛ/ , and /æ/ , and have a near merger /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ . In New York City, there is evidence of the lowering and retraction of /æ/ (except before nasals), /ɛ/ , and /ɪ/ particularly among younger non-white speakers. This is despite the fact that Traditional New York City English has an opaque split of
8814-628: The front lax vowels was first noted as distinguishing certain California English speakers in 1987, and it was soon known by linguists as the California Vowel Shift . Then, it came to distinguish certain Canadian English speakers in a 1995 study, now known in that variety as the Canadian Shift ; today, it helps define Standard Canadian English . The California and Canadian Shifts were initially reported as two separate phenomena, but
8927-451: The fronted values found in the South , the Midland or California . That said, fronted pronunciations of /oʊ/ may exist for some younger speakers. In addition, some younger speakers front and lower /ʊ/ . Unlike most Northern American English , /u/ is generally fronted in Canadian English. In Victoria, where the historical distinction between post-coronal /ju/ and /u/ is often maintained,
9040-592: The issue earlier in 1997. The Star had always avoided using recognized Canadian spelling, citing the Gage Canadian Dictionary in their defence. Controversy around this issue was frequent. When the Gage Dictionary finally adopted standard Canadian spelling, the Star followed suit. Some publishers, e.g. Maclean's , continue to prefer American spellings. The first series of dictionaries of Canadian English
9153-515: The latter may be so front as to gain a [j] -like onglide. Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger , which also occurs primarily in the Western United States but also often elsewhere in the country, especially recently. Few Canadians distinguish the vowels in cot and caught , which merge as [ ɒ ] (more common in Western and central Canada) or [ ɑ ] (more common in
9266-708: The liquids or fricatives found in the standard form. Dene Suline , on the other hand, has more phonological contrasts, resulting in the use of features not seen in the standard form. The language has 39 phonemic consonants and a higher proportion of glottalized consonants. Many in the Maritime provinces – Nova Scotia , New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island – have an accent that sounds more like Scottish English and, in some places, Irish English than General American. Outside of major communities, dialects can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from province to province, reflecting ethnic origin as well as
9379-456: The low back merger is not complete for any of the speakers in the study. In the ANAE, the speech of Atlanta, Georgia is classified as a typologically Midland dialect because it had already lacked the monopthongization of /aɪ/ . However, it appears that the monopthongization of /aɪ/ was a feature of Atlantan speech in the early 20th century, and that much younger speakers have undone the reversal of
9492-400: The merged vowel is also much more pronounced here than in other Canadian varieties. The Canadian Shift is also not as evident in the traditional dialect. Instead, the front vowels are raised. For example, the vowel in had is raised to [hæed]; and camera is raised to [kæmra]. Although it has not been studied extensively, the speech of Cape Breton specifically seems to bear many similarities with
9605-538: The nearby island of Newfoundland, which is often why Westerners can have a hard time differentiating the two accents. For instance, they both use the fronting of the low back vowel. These similarities can be attributed to geographic proximity, the fact that about one-quarter of the Cape Breton population descends from Irish immigrants - many of whom arrived via Newfoundland - and the Scottish and Irish influences on both provinces. The speech of Cape Breton can almost be seen as
9718-574: The next vowel along moves into it. Thus, the short a /æ/ retracts from a near-low front position to a low central position, with a quality similar to the vowel heard in Northern England [a] . The retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men. /æ/ also retracts more before /l/ than other consonants. In Toronto, /æ/-retraction
9831-417: The ongoing focus of systematic studies since the 1950s. Standard Canadian and General American English share identical or near-identical phonemic inventories, though their exact phonetic realizations may sometimes differ. Canadians and Americans themselves often have trouble differentiating their own two accents, particularly since Standard Canadian and Western United States English have been undergoing
9944-443: The outcome of low back merger-like behavior is more like the California shift outcome noted above than the rounded variant found in most of Canada. In Pittsburgh, another region where the cot-caught merger is prevalent, the mouth vowel /aʊ/ is usually a monophthong that fills the lower central space, which prevents retracting. However, as /aʊ/ monophthongization declines, some younger speakers are retracting /æ/ . As noted above,
10057-539: The production [map] would be recognized as map in Canada but mop in Inland Northern United States. Unlike many American English dialects, /æ/ remains a low-front vowel in most environments in Canadian English. Raising along the front periphery of the vowel space is restricted to two environments, before nasal and voiced velar consonants, and even then varies regionally. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English often show some raising before nasals, but it
10170-469: The pronunciation of the /aɪ/ sound in "right" and the /aʊ/ sound in "lout". Canadian Raising indicates a scenario where the start of the diphthong is nearer to the destination of the glide before voiceless consonants than before voiced consonants. The Canadian Shift is also a common vowel shift found in Ontario. The retraction of /æ/ was found to be more advanced for women in Ontario than for people from
10283-488: The proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain. One of the earliest influences on Canadian English was the French language, which was brought to Canada by the French colonists in the 17th century. French words and expressions were adopted into Canadian English, especially in the areas of cuisine, politics, and social life. For example, words like beavertail, and toque are uniquely Canadian French terms that have become part of
10396-431: The raising of /ɪ/ to [ i ] before the underlying /ŋ/ is applied even after the "g" is dropped, leading to a variant pronunciation of taking , [ˈteɪkin] . Otherwise it primarily is found in speakers from not just California but also from other Western states and Midwestern areas including the Upper Midwest . Speakers who use the [in] variant use it only for the underlying /ɪŋ/ , which makes taking with
10509-531: The same . Therefore, the pronunciation of the word "British" /ˈbrɪtəʃ/ in Canada and the U.S. is most often [ˈbɹɪɾɪʃ] , while in England it is commonly [ˈbɹɪtɪʃ] or [ˈbɹɪʔɪʃ] . For some speakers, the merger is incomplete and 't' before a reduced vowel is sometimes not tapped following /eɪ/ or /ɪ/ when it represents underlying 't'; thus greater and grader , and unbitten and unbidden are distinguished. Many Canadian speakers have
10622-400: The same basic pattern was next documented among some younger varieties of Western New England English , Western American English , Pacific Northwest English , and Midland American English , all in speakers born after 1980. Linguists have proposed possible relationships between the low back merger and the similarly structured shifts in these regional dialects, though no unifying hypothesis
10735-628: The shift is widespread among younger speakers throughout the West. Stanley (2020) found evidence of the shift in Cowlitz County, Washington , where the formant trajectories of /æ/ , /ɛ/ , and /ɪ/ flattened, causing the onset of /æ/ to lower and slightly retract, the onset of /ɛ/ to lower and retract, and the onset of /ɪ/ to retract. However, the speakers in the study tended to pronounce /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ "close" but distinct, with /ɔ/ being further back and more diphthongal. Furthermore, this state of near merger had persisted for all 4 generations in
10848-514: The short front vowels are also attested in other English dialects globally as of 21st-century research, including modern Received Pronunciation , Indian English , Hiberno-English , South African English , and Australian English (the last two dialects traditionally defined by a chain shift moving in the opposite direction of the Low-Back-Merger Shift). These changes outside of North America particularly intrigue linguists as they lack
10961-405: The short vowel subsystem and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift , which involves the front lax vowels /æ, ɛ, ɪ/ . The /æ/ of bat is lowered and retracted in the direction of [a] except in some environments, as is noted below. Indeed, /æ/ is farther back than in almost all other North American dialects, and the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver and
11074-447: The speakers in the study, and the lowering of /æ/ is more linked with the raising of /ɑ/ . In addition, /ɛ/ is lowered and backed which is in alignment with both the NCS and the Canadian shift. Jacewicz (2011) also found evidence for the shift in parts of North Carolina, where the vowels /ɪ/ , /ɛ/ , and /æ/ lower and monophthongize, undoing the Southern U.S. Shift . /ɑ/ raises, backs and diphthongizes to approach /ɔ/ , although
11187-437: The study. An explanation for this is that while the merger itself was not the trigger for the shift, the backing of /ɑ/ leading to the near-merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/ was the trigger. Durian (2008) found evidence of the Canadian shift in the vowel systems of men born in 1965 and later in Columbus, Ohio. This is located in the U.S. Midland. The Midland dialect is a mix of Northern and Southern dialect features. In Columbus, /ʌ/
11300-656: The term "Canadian English" to a speech by a Scottish Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Archibald Constable Geikie, in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857 (see DCHP-1 Online , s.v. "Canadian English", Avis et al., 1967). Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude that would be prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison with what he considered
11413-602: The total population; the remainder spoke French (20.8%) or other languages (21.1%). In the Canadian province of Quebec , only 7.5% of the population are mother tongue anglophone , as most of Quebec's residents are native speakers of Quebec French . The most widespread variety of Canadian English is Standard Canadian English , spoken in all the western and central provinces of Canada (varying little from Central Canada to British Columbia ), plus in many other provinces among urban middle- or upper-class speakers from natively English-speaking families. Standard Canadian English
11526-714: The two dominant varieties of English, yet general trends have emerged since the 1970s. Canadian spelling conventions can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, Canada's automobile industry has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire (hence, " Canadian Tire ") and American terminology for automobiles and their parts (for example, truck instead of lorry , gasoline instead of petrol , trunk instead of boot ). Canada's political history has also had an influence on Canadian spelling. Canada's first prime minister , John A. Macdonald , once advised
11639-412: The typical American dropping of /j/ after alveolar consonants , so that new , duke , Tuesday , suit , resume , lute , for instance, are pronounced /nu/ (rather than /nju/ ), /duk/ , /ˈtuzdeɪ/ , /sut/ , /rəˈzum/ , /lut/ . Traditionally, glide retention in these contexts has occasionally been held to be a shibboleth distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in
11752-609: The various dialects began to converge with standard English. Certain First Nations English have also shown to have phonological standard Canadian English, thus resulting in a more distinct dialect formation. Plains Cree, for instance, is a language that has less phonological contrasts compared to standard Canadian English. Plains Cree has no voicing contrast. The stops /p/ , /t/ , and /k/ are mostly voiceless and unaspirated, though they may vary in other phonetic environments from voiceless to voiced. Plains Cree also does not have
11865-427: The vowel configuration presumed to initiate this shift: the low back merger. The Canadian Shift involves the lowering of the tongue in the front lax vowels /æ/ (the short- a of trap ), /ɛ/ (the short- e of dress ), and /ɪ/ (the short- i of kit ). It is triggered by the cot–caught merger : /ɑ/ (as in cot ) and /ɔ/ (as in caught ) merge as [ɒ] , a low back rounded vowel . As each space opens up,
11978-452: The world during the current period of globalization . The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary, with words such as tuque and portage , to the English of Upper Canada . Overall, the history of Canadian English is a reflection of
12091-458: Was backed "just enough" to allow the shift to happen. Within speakers, the retraction of /æ/ is more correlated with the raising of /ɑ/ than with the low back merger. The Atlas of North American English finds that, in the Western United States, one out of every four speakers exhibits the Canadian Shift, as defined quantitatively by Labov et al. based on the formant values for /æ/ , /ɑ/ , and /ɛ/ . More recent data, however, suggests that
12204-469: Was detected. Therefore, in Canadian English, the short a of trap or bath and the broad ah quality of spa or lot are shifted oppositely from those of the Northern Cities shift , which is found across the border in Inland Northern American English , and is causing both dialects to diverge. In fact, the Canadian short- a is very similar in quality to Inland Northern spa or lot . For example,
12317-692: Was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided. In the 1990s, Canadian newspapers began to adopt the British spelling variants such as -our endings, notably with The Globe and Mail changing its spelling policy in October 1990. Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion in September 1998. The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy in September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted
12430-449: Was published and completed the first edition of Gage's Dictionary of Canadian English Series. The DCHP documents the historical development of Canadian English words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, and bluff, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. Many secondary schools in Canada use the graded dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since:
12543-494: Was published by Gage Ltd. under the chief-editorships of Charles J. Lovell (1907–1960) and Walter S. Avis (1919–1979) as of 1960 and the " Big Six " editors plus Faith Avis . The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in Canadian English lexicography. In November 1967 A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP)
12656-438: Was published in 2004. Just as the older dictionaries it includes uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the more popular choice in common use. Paperback and concise versions (2005, 2006), with minor updates, are available. Since 2022, the Editors' Association of Canada has been leading the writing of a new Canadian English Dictionary within
12769-485: Was the long-standing practice of the Canadian Press perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to World War II . The practice of dropping the letter u in such words was also considered a labour-saving technique during the early days of printing in which movable type was set manually. Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, so it
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