Canadian English

Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA[1]) is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians (77%), and more than 28 million (86%) are fluent in the language.[2] 82% of Canadians outside Quebec speak English natively, but within Quebec the figure drops to just 7.7% as most are native speakers of Quebec French.[3]

Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English in its vocabulary, as well as many distinctive Canadianisms. In many areas, speech is influenced by French, and there are notable local variations. Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States.[4] The phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon for most of Canada are similar to that of the Western and Midland regions of the United States.[4] The Canadian Great Lakes region has similarities to that of the Upper Midwest & Great Lakes region and/or Yooper dialect (in particular Michigan which has extensive cultural and economic ties with Ontario), while the phonological system of western Canadian English is virtually identical to that of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the phonetics are similar.[5] As such, Canadian English and American English are sometimes classified together as North American English, emphasizing the fact that the vast majority of outsiders, even those from English speaking countries, cannot distinguish Canadian English from American English by sound. Canadian English spelling is largely a blend of British and American conventions.

Contents

History

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. 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 to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.[6]

Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost 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.[7][8] The historical development of Canadian English is underexplored, but recent studies suggest that Canadian English has been developing features of its own since the early 19th century,[9] while recent studies have shown the emergence of Canadian English features.[10] 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 anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.[11]

The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place,[12] and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.[6]

Spelling and dictionaries

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American conventions.

Canadian spelling conventions can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile 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 automobiles (for example, truck instead of lorry, gasoline instead of petrol, trunk instead of boot).[14]

Canada's political history has also had an influence on Canadian spelling. Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, once issued an order-in-council directing that government papers be written in the British style.[15]

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 the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English, and, where necessary (depending on context), one or more other references. (See Further reading below.)

The first Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by Gage Ltd. The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in Canadian English lexicography. Many secondary schools in Canada use these dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the Senior Dictionary was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary and exists in what may be called its 5th edition from 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. The latest editions were published in 2009 by HarperCollins.

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, 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.

The scholarly Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was first published in 1967 by Gage Ltd. It was a partner project of the Senior Dictionary (and appeared only a few weeks apart from it). The DCHP can be considered the "Canadian OED", as it documents the historical development of Canadian English words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, bluff and grow op, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. It is a specialist, scholarly dictionary, but is not without interest to the general public. After more than 40 years, a second edition has been commenced at UBC in Vancouver in 2006.[16]

Throughout most of the 20th century, Canadian newspapers generally adopted American spellings for example, color as opposed to the British-based colour. The use of such spellings 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.[17] 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.[17] Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, therefore it was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided.[18]

More recently, Canadian newspapers have adopted the British spelling variants such as -our endings, notably with The Globe and Mail changing its spelling policy in October 1990.[19] Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion in September 1998.[20] The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy in September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.[18][21] The Star had always avoiding 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.

Phonemic incidence

The pronunciation of certain words has both American and British influence; some pronunciations are more distinctively Canadian.

Regional variation

Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States.[4] The provinces east of Ontario show the largest dialect diversity. Northern Canada is, according to Labov, a dialect region in formation, and a homogenous dialect has not yet formed.[30] A very homogeneous dialect exists in Western and Central Canada, a situation that is similar to that of the Western United States. William Labov identifies an inland region that concentrates all of the defining features of the dialect centred on the Prairies, with periphery areas with more variable patterns including the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto.[4] This dialect forms a dialect continuum with the far Western United States, however it is sharply differentiated from the Inland Northern United States. This is a result of the relatively recent phenomenon known as the Northern cities vowel shift; see below.

Western and Central Dialect

As a variety of North American English, this variety is similar to most other forms of North American speech in being a rhotic accent, which is historically a significant marker in differentiating different English varieties.

Like General American, this variety possesses the merry–Mary–marry merger (except in Montreal, which tends towards a distinction between marry and merry[4]), as well as the father–bother merger.

Canadian raising

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is Canadian raising. The diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ are "raised" before voiceless consonants, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /f/. In these environments, /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ~ɜɪ~ɐɪ]. One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of /aʊ/: in Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation, sometimes approaching [ɛʊ], while in the West and Maritimes a more retracted sound is heard, closer to [ʌʊ].[31] Among 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/, so that couch and coach sound the same, and about sounds like a boat (though never like a boot, as in the American stereotype of Canadian raising). Canadian raising is found throughout western and central Canada, as well as in parts of the Atlantic Provinces.[4] It is the strongest in the inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland British Columbia, as well as certain parts of Ontario.

Many Canadians, especially in parts of the Atlantic provinces, do not possess Canadian raising. In the U.S., this feature can be found in areas near the border such as the Upper Midwest and parts of New England, although it is much less common than in Canada; raising of /aɪ/ alone, however, is increasing in the U.S., and unlike raising of /aʊ/, is generally not noticed by people who do not have the raising.

Because of Canadian raising, many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as writer and rider – a feat otherwise impossible, because North American dialects turn intervocalic /t/ into an alveolar flap. Thus writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowels, even though the distinction between their consonants has since been lost. Speakers who do not have raising cannot distinguish between these two words.

The cot–caught merger and the Canadian Shift

Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger, which also occurs in the Western U.S. Speakers do not distinguish /ɔ/ (as in caught) and /ɑ/ (as in cot), which merge as [ɒ] or [ɑ]. Speakers with this merger produce these vowels identically, and often fail to hear the difference when speakers who preserve the distinction (for example, speakers of General American and Inland Northern American English) pronounce these vowels. This merger has existed in Canada for several generations.[32]

This merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system[33] 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, see below). Indeed, /æ/ is further back in this variety than almost all other North American dialects;[34] the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver[35] and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men.[36] Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ may be lowered (in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ]) and/or retracted; studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift.[37] 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/ was detected.

Therefore, in Canadian English, the short-a and the short-o are shifted in opposite directions to that of the Northern Cities shift, found across the border in the Inland Northern U.S., which is causing these two dialects to diverge: the Canadian short-a is very similar in quality to the Inland Northern short-o; for example, the production [maːp] would be recognized as map in Canada, but mop in the Inland North.

Other features

Most Canadians have two principal allophones of /aɪ/ (raised to lower-mid position before voiceless consonants and low-central or low-back elsewhere) and three of /aʊ/ (raised before voiceless consonants, fronted to [aʊ] or [æʊ] before nasals, and low-central elsewhere).

Unlike in 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 varies regionally even in these. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English commonly show some raising before nasals, though not as extreme as 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 Prairie speech exhibits raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, so that bag sounds close to vague.[38]

The first element of /ɑr/ (as in start) tends to be raised. As with Canadian raising, the relative advancement of the raised nucleus is a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (the Maritimes and Newfoundland) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space, accompanied by strong rhoticity, ranging from [ɜɹ] to [ɐɹ]. Western Canadian speech has a much more retracted articulation with a longer non-rhotic portion, approaching a mid-back quality, [ɵɹ] (though there is no tendency toward a merger with /ɔr/). Articulation of /ɑr/ in Ontario is in a position midway between the Atlantic and Western values.[39]

Another change in progress in Canadian English, part of a continental trend affecting many North American varieties, is the fronting of /uː/, whereby the nucleus of /uː/ moves forward to high-central or even high-front position, directly behind /iː/. There is a wide range of allophonic dispersion in the set of words containing /uː/ (i.e., the GOOSE set), extending over most of the high region of the vowel space. Most advanced are tokens of /uː/ in free position after coronals (do, too); behind these are tokens in syllables closed with coronals (boots, food, soon), then tokens before non-coronals (goof, soup); remaining in back position are tokens of /uː/ before /l/ (cool, pool, tool). Unlike in some British speech, Canadian English does not show any fronting or unrounding of the glide of /uː/, and most Canadians show no parallel centralization of /oʊ/, which generally remains in back position, except in Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland.

Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as /oʊ/ (as in boat) and /eɪ/ (as in bait) have qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers especially in the Inland region.

Some older speakers still maintain a distinction between whale and wail, and do and dew.[32]

British Columbia

British Columbia English has several words still in current use borrowed from the Chinook Jargon although the use of such vocabulary is observably decreasing. The most famous and widely used of these terms are skookum and saltchuck. However, among young British Columbians, almost no one uses this vocabulary, and only a small percentage is even familiar with the meaning of such words. In the Yukon, cheechako is used for newcomers or greenhorns. A study shows that people from Vancouver exhibit more vowel retraction of /æ/ before nasals than people from Toronto, and this retraction may become a regional marker of West Coast English.[40]

Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta)

A strong Canadian raising exists in the prairie regions together with certain older usages such as chesterfield and front room also associated with the Maritimes. Aboriginal Canadians are a larger and more conspicuous population in prairie cities than elsewhere in the country and certain elements of aboriginal speech in English are sometimes to be heard. Similarly, the linguistic legacy, mostly intonation but also speech patterns and syntax, of the Scandinavian, Slavic and German settlers – who are far more numerous and historically important in the Prairies than in Ontario or the Maritimes – can be heard in the general milieu. Again, the large Métis population in Saskatchewan and Manitoba also carries with it certain linguistic traits inherited from French, Aboriginal and Celtic forebears. Some terms are derived from immigrant groups or are just local inventions:

In farming communities with substantial Ukrainian, German or Mennonite populations, accents, sentence structure and vocabulary influenced by these languages is common. These communities are most common in the Saskatchewan Valley region of Saskatchewan and Red River Valley region of Manitoba.

Ontario

Ottawa Valley

The area to the north and west of Ottawa is heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, with many French loanwords. This is frequently referred to as the Valley Accent.

Toronto

Although only 1.5% of Torontonians speak French, a relatively low proportion of them (56.2%) are native speakers of English, according to the 2006 Census.[43] As a result Toronto shows a more variable speech pattern.[44] Although slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities, there is also an influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian and African words. Among youths in predominantly West Indian areas, a large number of words borrowed from West Indian Patois can be heard.

Northwest Ontario

With a smaller French population, and sizable Aboriginal population, this area is somewhat unique as having elements from both the Western provinces and the rest of Ontario. Communities receive media from both directions, and residents travel frequently to both areas, prompting a blending of dialects. Sharp eared locals can detect from word usage (soda versus pop, hoodie versus bunny hug) where one originated, "Down east," east of (Sault Ste. Marie and beyond the Great Lakes) or "Out West" (west of the Manitoba border).

Quebec

Maritimes

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 a past in which there were few roads and many communities, with some villages very isolated. 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:

Newfoundland

The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian English dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in vowel pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and preservation of archaic adverbal-intensifiers. The dialect can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from region to region, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, and fishing villages in particular remained very isolated. A few speakers have a transitional pin–pen merger.[4]

Northern Canada

First Nations and Inuit people from Northern Canada speak a version of Canadian English influenced by the phonology of their first languages. European Canadians in these regions are relatively recent arrivals, and have not produced a dialect that is distinct from southern Canadian English.[46]

Grammar

Vocabulary

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English. Many terms are shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers. In some cases British and the American terms coexist in Canadian English to various extents; a classic example is holiday, often used interchangeably with vacation, distinguishing the two between a trip elsewhere and general time off work respectively. In addition, the vocabulary of Canadian English also features words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere. A good resource for these and other words is the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (Avis and others. 1967), which is currently being revised at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

As a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Canada shares many items of institutional terminology and professional designations with the countries of the former British Empire – for example, constable, for a police officer of the lowest rank, and chartered accountant.

Education

The term college, which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as federated schools within some Canadian universities. Most often, a college is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CEGEP in Quebec. In Canada, college student might denote someone obtaining a diploma in business management while university student is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, going to college does not have the same meaning as going to university, unless the speaker or context clarifies the specific level of post-secondary education that is meant.

Within the public school system the chief administrator of a school is generally "the principal", as in the United States, but the term is not used preceding his or her name, i.e. "Principal Smith". The assistant to the principal is not titled as "assistant principal", but rather as "vice-principal", although the former is not unknown.

Canadian universities publish calendars or schedules, not catalogs as in the U.S.. Canadian students write or take exams (in the U.S., students generally "take" exams while teachers "write" them); they rarely sit them (standard British usage). Those who supervise students during an exam are sometimes called invigilators as in Britain, or sometimes proctors as in the U.S, but most often the general term teaching assistant (TA) is used.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution.

Successive years of school are usually referred to as grade one, grade two, and so on. In Quebec, the speaker (if Francophone) will often say primary one, primary two (a direct translation from the French), and so on; while Anglophones will say grade one, grade two. (Compare American first grade, second grade (sporadically found in Canada), and English/Welsh Year 1, Year 2, Scottish/Nth.Irish Primary 1, Primary 2 or P1, P2, and Sth.Irish First Class, Second Class and so on.)[50] In the U.S., the four years of high school are termed the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years (terms also used for college years); in Canada, the specific levels are used instead (ie, "grade nine").[51] As for higher education, only the term freshman (often reduced to frosh) has some currency in Canada.[51] The American usages "sophomore", "junior" and "senior" are not used in Canadian university terminology, or in speech. The specific high-school grades and university years are therefore stated and individualized; for example, the grade 12s failed to graduate; John is in his second year at McMaster. The "first year", "third year" designation also applies to Canadian law school students, as opposed to the common American usage of "1L", "2L" and "3L."

Canadian students use the term marks (more common in England) or grades (more common in the US) to refer to their results; usage is very mixed.[51]

Units of measurement

Unlike in the United States, use of metric units within a majority of industries (but not all) is standard in Canada, as a result of the national adoption of the Metric System during the mid-to-late 1970s; this has spawned some colloquial usages such as klick for kilometre (as also heard in the U.S. military). See metrication in Canada. Nonetheless, Imperial units are still used in many situations. For example, many English Canadians will usually state their weight and height in pounds and feet/inches, respectively. Temperatures for cooking are often given in Fahrenheit. Directions in the Prairie provinces are often given using miles, because the country roads generally follow the mile-based grid of the Dominion Land Survey. The letter paper size of 8.5 inches × 11 inches is used instead of the international and metric A4 size of 210 mm × 297 mm.

Transportation

Politics

Law

Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own civil law system, are called "barristers and solicitors" because any lawyer licensed in any of the common law provinces and territories must pass bar exams for, and is permitted to engage in, both types of legal practice in contrast to other common-law jurisdictions such as England, Wales and Ireland where the two are traditionally separated (i.e., Canada has a fused legal profession). The words lawyer and counsel (not counsellor) predominate in everyday contexts; the word attorney refers to any personal representative. Canadian lawyers generally do not refer to themselves as "attorneys", a term which is common in the United States.

The equivalent of an American district attorney, meaning the barrister representing the state in criminal proceedings, is called a crown attorney (in Ontario), crown counsel (in British Columbia), crown prosecutor or the crown, on account of Canada's status as a constitutional monarchy in which the Crown is the locus of state power.

The words advocate and notary – two distinct professions in Quebec civil law – are used to refer to that province's equivalent of barrister and solicitor, respectively. In Canada's common law provinces and territories, the word notary means strictly a notary public.

Within the Canadian legal community itself, the word solicitor is often used to refer to any Canadian lawyer in general (much like the way the word attorney is used in the United States to refer to any American lawyer in general). Despite the conceptual distinction between barrister and solicitor, Canadian court documents would contain a phrase such as "John Smith, solicitor for the Plaintiff" even though "John Smith" may well himself be the barrister who argues the case in court. In a letter introducing him/herself to an opposing lawyer, a Canadian lawyer normally writes something like "I am the solicitor for Mr. Tom Jones."

The word litigator is also used by lawyers to refer to a fellow lawyer who specializes in lawsuits even though the more traditional word barrister is still employed to denote the same specialization.

Judges of Canada's superior courts (which exist at the provincial and territorial levels) are traditionally addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady", like much of the Commonwealth, however there are some variances across certain jurisdictions, with some superior court judges preferring the titles "Mister Justice" or "Madam Justice" to "Lordship".

Masters are addressed as "Mr. Master" or simply "Sir".

Judges of provincial or inferior courts are traditionally referred to in person as "Your Honour". Judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and of the federal-level courts prefer the use of "Mister/Madam (Chief) Justice". Justices of The Peace are addressed as "Your Worship". "Your Honour" is also the correct form of address for a Lieutenant Governor.

As in England, a serious crime is called an indictable offence, while a less-serious crime is called a summary offence. The older words felony and misdemeanour, which are still used in the United States, are not used in Canada's current Criminal Code (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46) or by today's Canadian legal system. As noted throughout the Criminal Code, a person accused of a crime is called the accused and not the defendant, a term used instead in civil lawsuits.

A county in British Columbia means only a regional jurisdiction of the courts and justice system and is not otherwise connected to governance as with counties in other provinces and in the United States. The rough equivalent to "county" as used elsewhere is a "Regional District".

Places

Distinctive Canadianisms are:

Daily life

Terms common in Canada, Britain and Ireland but less frequent or nonexistent in the U.S. are:

The following are more or less distinctively Canadian:

Apparel

The following are common in Canada, but not in the U.S. or the U.K.

Food and beverage

Vocabulary pertaining to race and ethnicity

Canadianisms

Informal speech

A rubber in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is sometimes (rarely except for Newfoundland and South Western Ontario) another term for an eraser (as it is in the United Kingdom and Ireland).

The word bum can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain or the U.S.), or, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British and Australian use, as it and "butt" are commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as arse (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west) or ass, or mitiss (used in the Prairie Provinces, especially in northern and central Saskatchewan; probably originally a Cree loanword). Older Canadians may see "bum" as more polite than "butt", which before the 1980s was often considered rude.

Similarly the word pissed can refer either to being drunk (as in Britain), or being angry (as in the U.S.), though anger is more often said as pissed off, while piss drunk or pissed up is said to describe inebriation (though piss drunk is sometimes also used in the US, especially in the northern states).

Canadian colloquialisms

One of the most distinctive Canadian phrases is the spoken interrogation eh, which is commonly mocked by films such as South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, and treated more warm-heartedly within Canada itself by programs such as The Red Green Show and The Royal Canadian Air Farce. The only usage of eh exclusive to Canada, according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, is for "ascertaining the comprehension, continued interest, agreement, etc., of the person or persons addressed" as in, "It's four kilometres away, eh, so I have to go by bike." In that case, eh? is used to confirm the attention of the listener and to invite a supportive noise such as mm or oh or okay. This usage is also common in Queensland, Australia. Other uses of eh – for instance, in place of huh? or what? meaning "please repeat or say again" – are also found in parts of the British Isles and Australia.

The term Canuck simply means Canadian in its demonymic form, and, as a term used even by Canadians themselves, it is not considered derogatory. In the 19th century and early 20th century it tended to refer to French-Canadians, but Janey Canuck was used by Anglophone writer Emily Murphy in the 1920s and the Johnny Canuck comic book character of the 1940s. Throughout the 1970s, Canada's winning World Cup men's downhill ski team was called the "Crazy Canucks" for their fearlessness on the slopes.[78] It is also the name of the Vancouver Canucks, the National Hockey League team of Vancouver.

The term hoser, popularized by Bob & Doug McKenzie, typically refers to an uncouth, beer-swilling male. Bob & Doug also popularised the use of Beauty, eh, another western slang term which may be used in variety of ways. This describes something as being of interest, of note, signals approval or simply draws attention to it.

A Newf or Newfie is someone from Newfoundland and Labrador; sometimes considered derogatory. In Newfoundland, the term Mainlander refers to any Canadian (sometimes American, occasionally Labradorian) not from the island of Newfoundland. Mainlander is also occasionally used derogatorily.

In the Maritimes, a Caper or "Cape Bretoner" is someone from Cape Breton Island, a Bluenoser is someone with a thick, usually southern Nova Scotia accent or as a general term for a Nova Scotian (Including Cape Bretoners), while an Islander is someone from Prince Edward Island (the same term is used in British Columbia for people from Vancouver Island, or the numerous islands along it). A Haligonian refers to someone from the city of Halifax.

Miscellaneous Canadianisms

See also

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References

  1. ^ en-CA is the language code for Canadian English , as defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag).
  2. ^ "Population by knowledge of official language, by province and territory (2006 Census)". 0.statcan.ca. 2007-12-11. http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo15.htm?sdi=population%20knowledge%20official%20language. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  3. ^ "Population by mother tongue and age groups, percentage distribution (2006), for Canada, provinces and territories – 20% sample data". Statistics Canada. 2007. http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census06/data/highlights/language/Table401.cfm. Retrieved December 4, 2007. 
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Labov, p. 222.
  5. ^ Boberg, C: "Geolinguistic Diffusion and the U.S.-Canada Border", "Language Variation and Change", 12(1):15
  6. ^ a b Chambers, p. xi.
  7. ^ "Canadian English." Brinton, Laurel J., and Fee, Marjery, ed. (2005). Ch. 12. in The Cambridge history of the English language. Volume VI: English in North America., Algeo, John, ed., pp. 422–440. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN 0-521-26479-0, 9780521264792. On p. 422: "It is now generally agreed that Canadian English originated as a variant of northern American English (the speech of New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania)."
  8. ^ "Canadian English." McArthur, T., ed. (2005). Concise Oxford companion to the English language, pp. 96–102. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280637-8. On p. 97: "Because Canadian English and American English are so alike, some scholars have argued that in linguistic terms Canadian English is no more or less than a variety of (Northern) American English.
  9. ^ ("New-Dialect Formation in Canada. (2008). Dollinger, Stefan. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 978 90 272 31068 6. On p. 279"
  10. ^ "Labov, Ash, Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton, ch. 15.
  11. ^ Chambers, p. xi–xii.
  12. ^ "Factors which shaped the varieties of English". AskOxford.com. http://www.askoxford.com/globalenglish/worldenglish/factors/?view=uk. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  13. ^ Sir Ernest Gowers, ed., Fowler's Modern English Usage, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 1965), 314.
  14. ^ a b Oxford Press and Katherine Barber (2001). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Toronto, Ontario: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541731-3. 
  15. ^ Richard Gwyn, John A.: The Man Who Made Us, ([Place of publication not listed]: Random House Canada), 2007, pp. 3–4.
  16. ^ "Dollinger 2006". Let.leidenuniv.nl. http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/hsl_shl/DCHP-2/DCHP-2/DCHP-2.htm. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  17. ^ a b MacPherson, William (31 March 1990). "Practical concerns spelled the end for -our". Ottawa Citizen. p. B3. 
  18. ^ a b Sellar, Don (8 March 1997). "Let's hear what the readers say". Toronto Star. p. C2. 
  19. ^ Allemang, John (1 September 1990). "Contemplating a U-turn". The Globe and Mail. p. D6. 
  20. ^ "Herald's move to Canadian spellings a labour of love". Calgary Herald. 2 September 1998. p. A2. 
  21. ^ Honderich, John (13 September 1997). "How your Star is changing". Toronto Star. p. A2. 
  22. ^ Bill Casselman. "Zed and zee in Canada". http://www.billcasselman.com/cwod_archive/zed.htm. Retrieved 2011-06-05. 
  23. ^ J.K. Chambers, (2002). Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and Its Social Significance (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. http://www.billcasselman.com/opening_page_two/zed_page_two.htm. Retrieved 2011-06-05. 
  24. ^ The pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable is the most common pronunciation, but is considered incorrect by some people. - Canadian Oxford Dictionary
  25. ^ The pronunciation /kɑrki/ was the one used by author and veteran Farley Mowat.
  26. ^ pecan ˈpi:kan, pi:ˈkan, pəˈkɒn - Canadian Oxford Dictionary
  27. ^ Vase. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved March 3, 2009.
  28. ^ Barber, p. 77.
  29. ^ predecessor ˈpredəˌsesɜr, ˈpri:-| mom mɒm, mʌm - Canadian Oxford Dictionary
  30. ^ Labov, p. 214
  31. ^ Boberg
  32. ^ a b Labov p. 218.
  33. ^ Martinet, Andre 1955. Economie des changements phonetiques. Berne: Francke.
  34. ^ Labov p. 219.
  35. ^ Esling, John H. and Henry J. Warkentyne (1993). "Retracting of /æ/ in Vancouver English."
  36. ^ Charles Boberg, "Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast: Regional accents in Canadian English."
  37. ^ Labov et al. 2006; Charles Boberg, "The Canadian Shift in Montreal"; Robert Hagiwara. "Vowel production in Winnipeg"; Rebecca V. Roeder and Lidia Jarmasz. "The Canadian Shift in Toronto."
  38. ^ Labov, p. 221.
  39. ^ Labov, p. 219.
  40. ^ Erin Hall "Regional variation in Canadian English vowel backing"
  41. ^ "Wiktionary reference for gonch". En.wiktionary.org. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gonch. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  42. ^ Doubletongued.org, reference for gonch.
  43. ^ "Gov.on.ca" (PDF). http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/english/economy/demographics/census/cenhi06-8.pdf. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  44. ^ Labov p. 214–215.
  45. ^ Boberg, p. 36.
  46. ^ Lavov, William; Ash, Sharon; and Boberg, Charles. The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology, and Sound Change. Walter de Gruyter, 2006, p. 216: "In general, the English spoken in the Canadian North can be viewed as a dialect in formation ... The region's European population is too sparsely settled, too diverse in origin, and too recently arrived to have produced an identifiable, homogeneous dialect distinct from southern Canadian English, while its large Aboriginal population speaks a range of varieties influenced by non-English substrates ..."
  47. ^ Trudgill and Hannah, International English (4th edition), p. 76.
  48. ^ "UTA.edu" (PDF). http://ling.uta.edu/~laurel/stvan98_ch1.pdf. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  49. ^ "CBC.ca". CBC.ca. 2005-06-17. http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2005/06/16/midwives050616.html. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  50. ^ American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 47.
  51. ^ a b c American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 48.
  52. ^ "Gov.ns.ca". Gov.ns.ca. http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/legc/bills/60th_1st/1st_read/b198.htm. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  53. ^ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, "bachelor".
  54. ^ "Federal-Realestate.com". Federal-Realestate.com. http://www.federal-realestate.com/info-montreal-apartments/montreal-apartment-sizes.html. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  55. ^ a b Boberg 2005.
  56. ^ Boberg 2005, p. 38.
  57. ^ "Fire hall – Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary". M-w.com. 2010-08-13. http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/fire%20hall. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  58. ^ Webster's New World College Dictionary, Wiley, 2004.
  59. ^ "OUP.com". OUP.com. http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/images/un212.gif. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  60. ^ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ABM; Boberg 2005.
  61. ^ OUP.com
  62. ^ Chesterfield. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000
  63. ^ Utoronto.ca J.K. Chambers, "The Canada-U.S. border as a vanishing isogloss: the evidence of chesterfield." Journal of English Linguistics 23 (1995): 156-66.
  64. ^ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, eavestrough; Oxford English Dictionary; American Heritage Dictionary.
  65. ^ According to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (second edition), garburator is "Canadian" and garbage disposal is "North American."
  66. ^ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, hydro.
  67. ^ Barber, Katherine, ed (1998). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1st Edition ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press. pp. .1075. ISBN 0-19-541120-X. 
  68. ^ "Pogey: What Does it Mean? Bonny, 2006" (PDF). http://home.comcast.net/~russ1980/stuff/Pogey.pdf. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 
  69. ^ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, runner.
  70. ^ American Speech 80.1 (2005).
  71. ^ Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
  72. ^ Sometimes the gym doesn't fix it, The Irish Times, Tuesday, January 06, 2009
  73. ^ Machismo . . . or masochism?, The Irish Times – Saturday March 22, 2008
  74. ^ Stars in the running, The Irish Times, Tueesday October 7, 2008
  75. ^ American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 36.
  76. ^ CBC.ca Arts – 'Double-double'? Now you can look it up
  77. ^ Nestlé Smaties – '...It's a brand name after all.'
  78. ^ "The Crazy Canucks: Canada's Heroes ''CBC Digital Archives'' Retrieved 27 Oct 2009". Archives.cbc.ca. http://archives.cbc.ca/sports/skiing/topics/417/. Retrieved 2011-02-26. 

Further reading

External links