Canadian English

Canadian English
Region Canada
Native speakers
 19.4 million in Canada (2011 census)[1]
about 15 million, c. 7 million of which with French as the L1
Latin (English alphabet)
Unified English Braille[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 –
Glottolog None
IETF en-CA

Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA[3]) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Canada. According to the 2011 census, English was the first language of approximately 19 million Canadians, or 57% of the population; the remainder of the population were native speakers of Canadian French (22%) or other languages (allophones, 21%).[4] A larger number, 28 million people, reported using English as their dominant language.[5] 82% of Canadians outside the province of Quebec reported speaking English natively, but within Quebec the figure was just 7.7% as most of its residents are native speakers of Quebec French.[6]

Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English, as well as many Canadianisms (meaning 2): elements "distinctively characteristic of Canadian usage".[7] While, broadly speaking, Canadian English varieties tend to be close to American English varieties in terms of linguistic distance,[8][9] the precise influence of American English, British English and other unique sources on Canadian English varieties has been the ongoing focus of systematic studies since the 1950s.[10]

Canadian and American English are phonologically classified together as North American English, emphasizing the fact that the vast majority of outsiders, even other native English speakers, cannot distinguish the typical accents of Canadian English from American English by sound. There are minor disagreements over the degree to which even Canadians and Americans themselves can differentiate their own two accents,[11][12] and there is even evidence that some Western American English (Pacific Northwest and California English, for example) is undergoing the Canadian Vowel Shift that was first reported in mainland Canadian English in the early 1990s.[13] The construction of identities and English-language varieties across political borders is a complex social phenomenon.[14]

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 (see DCHP-1 Online, s.v "Canadian English", Avis et al. 1967[15]). 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 the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.[16]

Canadian English is the product of five waves of immigration and settlement over a period of more than two centuries.[17] 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.[18][19] 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,[20] while recent studies have shown the emergence of Canadian English features.[21] 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 peaked 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 the world during the current period of globalization.[22]

The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place,[23] and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.[16]

Historical linguistics

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, is Dollinger (2012).[24] Until the 2000s, basically all commentators on the history of CanE have argued from the "language-external" history, i.e. social and political history (e.g.,[25][26]). 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 though its quotations. Recently, historical linguists have started to study earlier Canadian English on historical linguistic data. DCHP-1 is now available in open access.[27]) 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. Recently, Reuter (2015),[28] with a 19th-century newspaper corpus from Ontario, has confirmed the scenario laid out in Dollinger (2008).

Historically, Canadian English included a class-based sociolect known as Canadian dainty.[29] Treated as a marker of upper-class prestige in the 19th century and the early part of the 20th, Canadian dainty was marked by the use of some features of British English pronunciation, resulting in an accent similar to the Mid-Atlantic accent known in the United States.[29] This accent faded in prominence following World War II, when it became stigmatized as pretentious, and is now almost never heard in contemporary Canadian life outside of archival recordings used in film, television or radio documentaries.[29]

Spelling tendencies

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

Canadian spelling in comparison with American and British spelling.
Canadian spelling in comparison with American and British spelling.

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 (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).[31]

Canada's political history has also had an influence on Canadian spelling. Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, once directed the Governor General of Canada to issue an order-in-council directing that government papers be written in the British style.[32]

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.)

Throughout part of the 20th century, some Canadian newspapers adopted American spellings,[33] for example, color as opposed to the British-based colour. Some of the most substantial historical spelling data can be found in Dollinger (2010)[34] and Grue (2013).[35] 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.[36] 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.[36] 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.[37]

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.[38] Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion in September 1998.[39] The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy in September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.[37][40] 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.

Dictionaries of Canadian English

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. In November 1967, the flagship dictionary, the scholarly A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (Avis et al. 1967) was published and completed the first edition of Gage Publishing's Dictionary of Canadian English Series (online version accessible here, as (Dollinger, Brinton and Fee 2013). Many secondary schools in Canada use the graded dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the Senior Dictionary 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, coinciding with the 57th anniversary of founding editor Charles J. Lovell's passing, a second edition of DCHP was presented on the occasion of Canada's sesquicentennial as DCHP-2, which can be accessed here (as Dollinger & Fee 2017). DCHP-2 incorporates the c. 10,000 lexemes from DCHP-1 and adds c. 1300 novel meanings or 1002 lexemes to the documented lexicon of Canadian English, with a number of methodological innovations (see Dollinger In press [as of June 2017] for a summary of these features).

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. A digital edition in open access is now available.[41] In 2006, a second edition (DCHP-2) was commenced at UBC in Vancouver,[42] and is/was launched on 17 March 2017 on www.dchp.ca/dchp2.[43] The principles of DCHP-2, which includes frequency information on items and rationales for each term's assessment as a Canadianism (or not) are explained in the chief editor's account.[44] An example of the Frequency charts, which are normalized internet domain searches, is shown on the right-hand side for the example chuck wagon 'food cart for mobile lunches etc.'[45]]).

An example of Frequency charts in DCHP-2: international, showing that the form "chuck wagon" is most frequent on the .ca domain and regional, revealing the inner-Canadian distribution of the term (Dollinger & Fee 2017: s.v "chuck wagon", Charts 1 & 2)

Phonology and phonetics

In terms of the major sound systems (phonologies) of English around the world, Canadian English aligns most closely to U.S. English, both being grouped together under a common North American English sound system; the mainstream Canadian accent ("Standard Canadian") is often compared to the very similar and largely overlapping "General American" accent, an accent widely spoken throughout the United States and perceived there as being relatively lacking in any noticeable regional features.

The provinces east of Ontario show the largest dialect diversity. Northern Canada is, according to William Labov, a dialect region in formation, and a homogeneous dialect has not yet formed.[46] A very homogeneous dialect exists in Western and Central Canada, a situation that is similar to that of the Western United States. 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.[9] This dialect forms a dialect continuum with the far Western U.S. English, however it is sharply differentiated from the Inland Northern U.S. English of the central and eastern Great Lakes region.

Standard Canadian English

Throughout all of Canada, English mostly has a uniform phonology and very little diversity of dialects compared with the neighbouring English of the United States;[9] the greatly homogeneous single variety spoken particularly in western and central (inland) Canada, as well as across all of Canada among urban middle-class speakers from Anglophone family backgrounds, is commonly referred to as Standard Canadian English.[47] The Standard Canadian English dialect region is defined by the cot–caught merger to [ɑ] or [ɒ] and an accompanying chain shift of vowel sounds, called the Canadian Shift. A subset of this dialect geographically at its central core, excluding British Columbia to the west as well as Montreal and everything else to the east, has been called Inland Canadian English, and is further defined by both of the phenomena known as "Canadian raising", 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 (almost [eː]).[48]

Phonemic incidence

Although Canadian English phonology is part of the greater North American sound system, and therefore similar to U.S. English phonology, the pronunciation of particular words may have British influence, while other pronunciations are uniquely Canadian. According to the Cambridge History of the English Language, [w]hat perhaps most characterizes Canadian speakers, however, is their use of several possible variant pronunciations for the same word, sometimes even in the same sentence.[49]

Features shared with General American

Based on Labov et al.; averaged F1/F2 means for speakers from Western and Central Canada. Note that /ɒ/ and /ɔ/ are indistinguishable; /æ/ and /ɛ/ are very open.

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 is only pronounced when preceding a vowel.

Like General American, Canadian English possesses a wide range of phonological mergers 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, a distinction between the marry and merry sets remains in Montreal);[9] 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; 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.[58]

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 the same. Therefore, the pronunciation of the word "British" in Canada and the U.S. is most often [ˈbɹɪɾɪʃ], while in England it is commonly [ˈbɹɪtɪʃ]. 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 the typical American dropping of [j] after alveolar consonants, so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute, for instance, are pronounced /nuː/, /duːk/, /ˈtuːzdeɪ/, /suːt/, /ɹɪˈzuːm/, /luːt/.

Canadian raising

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is "Canadian raising," which is found most prominently throughout central and west-central Canada, as well as in parts of the Atlantic Provinces.[9] 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 is often more "raised" in the mouth when these diphthongs come before voiceless consonants, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /f/, in comparison with other varieties of English.

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 this as well as 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].[59] 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 merges with coach, meaning the two sound the same, and about sounds like a boat; this is often inaccurately represented as sounding like "a boot" for comic effect in American popular culture.

In General American, out is typically [äʊt], but, with slight Canadian raising, it may sound more like [ɐʊt], or, with the strong Canadian raising of the Prairies and Nova Scotia, more like IPA: [ʌʊt]. Due to Canadian raising, words like height and hide have two different vowel qualities; also, for example, house as a noun (I saw a house) and house as a verb (Where will you house them tonight?) have two different vowel qualities: potentially, [hɐʊs] versus [haʊz].

Especially in parts of the Atlantic provinces, some Canadians do not possess the phenomenon of Canadian raising. On the other hand, certain non-Canadian accents demonstrate Canadian raising. In the U.S., this feature can be found in areas near the border and thus in the Upper Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and northeastern New England (e.g. Boston) dialects, though it is much less common than in Canada. The raising of /aɪ/ alone, is actually increasing throughout the U.S., and unlike raising of /aʊ/, and is generally not perceived as unusual 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 –which can otherwise be impossible, since North American dialects 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: thus, a split between rider as [ˈɹäɪɾɚ] and writer possibly as [ˈɹʌɪɾɚ] ( listen).

When not in a raised position (before voiceless consonants), /aʊ/ is fronted to [aʊ~æʊ] before nasals, and low-central [äʊ] elsewhere.

The cot–caught merger and the Canadian Shift

Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger, which also occurs primarily in the Western U.S., but often elsewhere in the U.S., especially recently. Speakers do not distinguish the vowels /ɔ/ (as in caught) and /ɒ/ (as in cot), which merge as either [ɒ] (more common in Western and Maritime Canada) or [ɑ] (more common in Central and Eastern Canada, where it might even be fronted). 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.[58]

This merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system[60] 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;[61] the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver[62] and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men.[63] 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.[64] 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 dialect of the U.S.

A notable exception to the merger occurs, in which some speakers over the age of 60, especially in rural areas in the Prairies, may not exhibit the merger.

Other common features

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 U.S. 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 can almost rhyme with vague.[65] For most Canadian speakers, /ɛ/ is also realized higher as [e] before /g/.

A comparison of /æ/ tensing in three English accents
Consonant
following /æ/		 Example
words		 Standard Canadian General American Received Pronunciation
/r/ [ɛ~ɛə]
([æ] in Montreal)		 [ɛ~eə]
([æ] in Mid- and North-Atlantic USA)		 [æ]
(except words affected by trap–bath split)
/m/, /n/ [ɛə~æ] [eə~æ]
/ɡ/ [e~ɛ~æ] [æ]
all other consonants [æ]

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.[66]

The vowels /e/, /i/ and /u/ before /ɹ/ may be lowered and laxed to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/, causing pronunciations like [pʰɛɹ], [pʰɪɹ] and [pʰjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure for many speakers.

The words origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, as well as tomorrow, sorry, sorrow,, etc. are all generally use the sound sequence [-ɔɹ-] (as in gory), rather than [-ɑɹ-] (as in starry) or [-ɒɹ-]. The latter set of words often distinguishes Canadian pronunciation from U.S. pronunciation.

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.

The word milk is realized as [mɛɫk] (to rhyme with elk) by some speakers, [mɪɫk] (to rhyme with ilk) by others.

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

Regional variation

The map to the left shows the major regional dialects of Canadian English (each designated in all capital letters), as demarcated primarily by Labov et al.'s Atlas of North American English,[67] as well as the related Telsur Project's regional maps. The broadest regional dialects include:

British Columbia

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.[74] Canadian raising (found in words such as "about" and "writer") is less prominent in BC than other parts of the country and is on the decline further, with many speakers not raising /aɪ/ before voiceless consonants. Younger speakers in the Greater Vancouver area do not even raise /aʊ/, causing "about" to sound somewhat like "a boat". The "o" in such words as holy, goal, load, know, etc. is pronounced as a back and rounded [o], but not as rounded as in the Prairies where there is a strong Scandinavian, Slavic and German influence.

Ontario

Canadian raising is quite strong throughout the province of Ontario, except within the Ottawa Valley. 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 Ontarians than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men.[63]

In Southwestern Ontario (roughly in the line south from Sarnia to St. Catharines), despite the existence of the many characteristics of West/Central Canadian English, many speakers, especially those under 30 speak a dialect which is influenced by the Inland Northern American English dialect found on much of the American regions adjacent to the Great Lakes, though there are minor differences such as Canadian raising (listen to "ice" vs "my"). Additionally, there is a tendency to round the mouth after pronouncing the vowel "o" which is distinct from the General American Accent. Also, the vowel of "bag" sounds closer to "vague" or "egg"; "right" sounds like "rate"; and the "ah" vowel in "can't" is drawn out, sounding like "kee-ant".

The subregion of Midwestern Ontario consists of the Counties of Huron, Bruce, Grey, and Perth. The "Queen's Bush" as the area was called, did not experience communication with Southwestern and Central dialects 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 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 'er' sounds are often pronounced 'air', 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 [tʰoˈɹɒɾ̃o], [tʰəˈɹɒɾ̃o] or even [ˈtʰɹɒɾ̃o] or [ˈtʰɹɒɾ̃ə]. This, however, is not unique to Toronto as Atlanta is often pronounced "Atlanna" by residents. In Toronto and the other areas within the Greater Toronto Area, the th sound /ð/ is often pronounced [d]. 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" 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] or ‘a-beh-oot’).

The Greater Toronto Area is diverse linguistically with 44 percent of its people holding a mother tongue other than English.[75] As a result Toronto has a distinct variation from other regions.[76] In Toronto's ethnic communities there are many words that are distinct; many of which come from the city's large Caribbean community. 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.[77] As a result Toronto shows a more variable speech pattern.[78]

In Eastern Ontario, Canadian raising 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 the Quinte area. Phrases such as "got it" is often pronounced as [ɡɔɾɪʔ]. Okay is often pronounced as [ɔɪke], while "hello" is often pronounced as [helo].

A linguistic exclave has also formed in the Ottawa Valley, heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, and existing along the Ontario-Quebec boundary, has its own distinct accent known as the Ottawa Valley twang or brogue).[79] 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. However, this accent is quite rare in the region today.[80]

Quebec

English is a minority language in Quebec (with French in the majority), but has many speakers in Montreal, the Eastern Townships and in the Gatineau-Ottawa region. Uniquely, many people in Montreal distinguish between words like marry versus merry and parish versus perish,[9] which are homophones to most other speakers of Canadian English. Quebec also has French influence. A person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an Anglophone versus a French speaker, or Francophone. Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. Pie IX Boulevard is pronounced as in French, not as "pie nine", but as "pee-nuff". On the other hand, Anglophones do pronounce final d's as in Bernard and Bouchard; the word Montreal is pronounced as an English word and Rue Lambert-Closse is known as Clossy Street.

In the city of Montreal, especially in some of the western suburbs like Côte-St-Luc and Hampstead, there is a strong Jewish influence in the English spoken in these areas. A large wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union before and after World War II is also evident today. Their English has a strong Yiddish influence; there are some similarities to English spoken in New York. Words used mainly in Quebec and especially in Montreal are:[81] stage for "apprenticeship" or "internship", copybook for a notebook, dépanneur or dep for a convenience store, and guichet for an ABM/ATM. It is also common for Anglophones, particularly of Greek or Italian descent, to use translated French words instead of common English equivalents such as "open" and "close" for "on" and "off" or "Open the lights, please" for "Turn on the lights, please".

Maritimes

Based on Labov et al.; averaged F1/F2 means for speakers from NS, NB, NL.

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 adverbial-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.[9]

Aboriginal north

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.[82]

Grammar

Vocabulary

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English, but also has many non-American terms distinctively shared instead with Britain. British and American terms also can coexist in Canadian English to various extents, sometimes with new nuances in meaning; a classic example is holiday (British) often used interchangeably with vacation (American), though, in Canadian speech, the latter can more narrowly mean a trip elsewhere and the former can mean general time off work. In addition, the vocabulary of Canadian English also features some words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere. A good resource for these and other words is the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, which is currently being revised at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Canadian public appears to take interest in unique "Canadianisms": words that are distinctively characteristic of Canadian English—though perhaps not exclusive to Canada; there is some disagreement about the extent to which "Canadianism" means a term actually unique to Canada, with such an understanding possibly overstated by the popular media.[7][84] 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. This usage is identical to that in Northern Ireland.

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; 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.).[85] The year of school before grade 1 is usually called "Kindergarten", with the exception of Nova Scotia, where it is called "grade primary".

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 (i.e., "grade nine").[86] As for higher education, only the term freshman (often reduced to frosh) has some currency in Canada.[86] 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.[86]

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). Nonetheless, Imperial units are still used in many situations. For example, English Canadians state their weight and height in pounds and feet/inches, respectively. Distances while playing golf are always marked and discussed in yards, though official scorecards may also show metres. Temperatures for cooking are often given in Fahrenheit, while the weather is given in Celsius. Directions in the Prairie provinces are sometimes given using miles, because the country roads generally follow the mile-based grid of the Dominion Land Survey. Canadians measure property, both residential and commercial, in square feet exclusively. Fuel efficiency is less frequently discussed in miles per gallon, more often the metric L/100 km. 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

However, expressway may also refer to a limited-access road that has control of access but has at-grade junctions, railway crossings (for example, the Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay.) Sometimes the term Parkway is also used (for example, the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph). In Saskatchewan, the term 'grid road' is used to refer to minor highways or rural roads, usually gravel, referring to the 'grid' upon which they were originally designed. In Quebec, freeways and expressways are called autoroutes.

In Alberta, the generic Trail is often used to describe a freeway, expressway or major urban street (for example, Deerfoot Trail, Macleod Trail or Crowchild Trail in Calgary, Yellowhead Trail in Edmonton). The British term motorway is not used. The American terms turnpike and tollway for a toll road are not common. The term throughway or thruway was used for first tolled limited-access highways (for example, the Deas Island Throughway, now Highway 99, from Vancouver, BC, to Blaine, Washington, USA or the Saint John Throughway (Highway 1) in Saint John, NB), but this term is not common anymore. In everyday speech, when a particular roadway is not being specified, the term highway is generally or exclusively used.

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", 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." In British Columbia, masters are addressed as "Your Honour."

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.

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.

In Canada, visible minority refers to a non-aboriginal person or group visibly not one of the majority race in a given population. The term comes from the Canadian Employment Equity Act, which defines such people as "persons, other than Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour."[89] The term is used as a demographic category by Statistics Canada. The qualifier "visible" is used to distinguish such minorities from the "invisible" minorities determined by language (English vs. French) and certain distinctions in religion (Catholics vs. Protestants).

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 United States are:

The following are more or less distinctively Canadian:

Apparel

The following are common in Canada, but not in the United States or the United Kingdom.

Food and beverage

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.

British Columbia

British Columbian 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.

Northern Ontario

Northern Ontario English has several distinct qualities stemming from its large Franco-Ontarian population. As a result several French and English words are used interchangeably. A number of phrases and expressions may also be found in Northern Ontario that are not present in the rest of the province,[116] such as the use of camp for a summer home where Southern Ontario speakers would idiomatically use cottage.

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, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British 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).

One of the most distinctive Canadian phrases is the spoken interrogation or tag eh.[117] 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 and New Zealand. 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. It is common in Northern/Central Ontario, the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. The word eh is used quite frequently in the North Central dialect, so a Canadian accent is often perceived in people from North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

A Canadian-built Curtiss JN-4C "Canuck" training biplane of 1918, with a differing vertical tail to the original U.S. version

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, while the only Canadian-built version of the popular World War I-era American Curtiss JN-4 Jenny training biplane aircraft, the JN-4C, got the "Canuck" nickname, 1,260 of which were built. The nickname Janey Canuck was used by Anglophone women's rights 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.[118] 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 and is a euphemism for "loser" coming from the earlier days of hockey played on an outdoor rink and the losing team would have to hose down the ice after the game so it refreezes smooth. Bob & Doug also popularized 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.

Other Canadianisms

Attitudes towards Canadian English

In 2011, just under 21.5 million Canadians, representing 65% of the population, spoke English most of the time at home, while 58% declared it their mother language.[120] English is the major language everywhere in Canada except Quebec, and most Canadians (85%) can speak English.[121] While English is not the preferred language in Quebec, 36.1% of Québécois can speak English.[122] Nationally, Francophones are five times more likely to speak English than Anglophones are to speak French – 44% and 9% respectively.[123] Only 3.2% of Canada's English-speaking population resides in Quebec—mostly in Montreal.[nb 1]

More Canadians know how to speak English than speak it at home.[nb 2]

Attitude studies on Canadian English are somewhat rare. A perceptual study on Albertan and Ontarians exists[125] in combination with older literature from the 1970/80s. Sporadic reports can be found in the literature, e.g. on Vancouver English,[126] in which more than 80% believe in a "Canadian way of speaking", with those with a university education reporting higher than those without.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ 18,858,908 Canadians identify their mother tongue as English. 599,230 Québécois identify their mother tongue as English and of that 309,885 live in Montreal.[121]
  2. ↑ In 2011 28,360,245 Canadians had knowledge of English while only 21,588,285 Canadians spoke it most often at home.[121][124]

References

  1. ↑ English (Canada) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ "History of Braille (UEB)". Braille Literacy Canada. 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
  3. ↑ 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).
  4. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan. "English in Canada".
  5. ↑ "Population by knowledge of official language, by province and territory (2006 Census)". 0.statcan.ca. 2007-12-11. Archived from the original on 2008-06-17. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  6. ↑ "Population by mother tongue and age groups, percentage distribution (2006), for Canada, provinces and territories – 20% sample data". Statistics Canada. 2007. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
  7. 1 2 Dollinger, Stefan (2008)."New-Dialect Formation in Canada." Amsterdam: Benjamins, 978 90 272 31068 6. p. 25."
  8. ↑ Boberg, Charles (2004) Standard Canadian English." In Raymond Hickey. Standards of English: Codified Varieties Around the World. Cambridge University Press. p. 159.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Labov, p. 222.
  10. ↑ <Boberg (2010:49)
  11. ↑ "Canadian English - Oxford English Dictionary".
  12. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2011). "Canadian English". Public OED.com. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 16 May 2016.
  13. ↑ Harbeck, James (2014) "Why It's Difficult to Tell a Canadian Accent from a Californian One." The Week. The Week Publications, Inc.
  14. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (December 2015). "The Written Questionnaire in Social Dialectology". academia.edu. Benjamins. pp. 191–221. Retrieved 16 May 2016. pages 191-221 (sections 6.5 though 6.8)
  15. ↑ Avis, Walter S. (1967). A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Toronto, ON: Gage Ltd. pp. s.v. "Canadian English". OCLC 299968792.
  16. 1 2 Chambers, p. xi.
  17. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2016). "English in Canada". Handbook of World Englishes (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. Retrieved 6 Apr 2016.
  18. ↑ "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 978-0-521-26479-2. 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)."
  19. ↑ "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.
  20. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan. (2008)."New-Dialect Formation in Canada." Amsterdam: Benjamins, 978 90 272 31068 6. p. 279."
  21. ↑ "Labov, Ash, Boberg. 2006. The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton, ch. 15.
  22. ↑ Chambers, p. xi–xii.
  23. ↑ "Factors which shaped the varieties of English". AskOxford.com. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  24. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan. 2012. Canadian English in real-time perspective. In: English Historical Linguistics: An International Handbook. Vol. II. (HSK 34.2), ed. by Alexander Bergs & Laurel Brinton, 1858-1880. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
  25. ↑ Bloomfield, Morton W. 1948. Bloomfield, Morton W. 1948. Canadian English and its relation to eighteenth century American speech. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 47: 59-66
  26. ↑ Scargill, Matthew H. 1957. Sources of Canadian English. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 56: 611-614
  27. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (ed.-in-chief), Laurel J. Brinton and Margery Fee (eds). 2013. DCHP-1 Online: A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles Online. Based on Walter S. Avis et al. (1967). Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia.
  28. ↑ Reuter, David. 2015.Newspaper, politics, and Canadian English: a corpus-based analysis of selected linguistic variables in early nineteenth-century Ontario newspapers. Ph.D. thesis. University of Kiel, Germany.
  29. 1 2 3 "Some Canadians used to speak with a quasi-British accent called Canadian Dainty". CBC News, July 1, 2017.
  30. ↑ Sir Ernest Gowers, ed., Fowler's Modern English Usage, 2nd ed. (Oxford: OUP, 1965), 314.
  31. 1 2 Oxford Press; Katherine Barber (2001). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Toronto, Ontario: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541731-3.
  32. ↑ Richard Gwyn, John A.: The Man Who Made Us, ([Place of publication not listed]: Random House Canada), 2007, pp. 3–4.
  33. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan. 2010. ”New data for an English usage puzzle: the long history of spelling variation in Canadian English and its linguistic implications”. Paper given at the 16th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Pécs, Hungary, 26 Aug. 2010. http://www.icehl-16.pte.hu/files/tiny_mce/File/Abstracts%20of%20SECTION%20PAPERS.pdf
  34. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2010). "New data for an English usage puzzle: the long history of spelling variation in Canadian English and its linguistic implications". 19th International Conference on the History of the English Language, Pécs, Hungary, Paper presented on 26 Aug. 2010. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  35. ↑ Grue, Dustin (2013). "Testing Canada’s ‘honour’: Does orthography index ideology?". Strathy Student Working Papers on Canadian English. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  36. 1 2 MacPherson, William (31 March 1990). "Practical concerns spelled the end for -our". Ottawa Citizen. p. B3.
  37. 1 2 Sellar, Don (8 March 1997). "Let's hear what the readers say". Toronto Star. p. C2.
  38. ↑ Allemang, John (1 September 1990). "Contemplating a U-turn". The Globe and Mail. p. D6.
  39. ↑ "Herald's move to Canadian spellings a labour of love". Calgary Herald. 2 September 1998. p. A2.
  40. ↑ Honderich, John (13 September 1997). "How your Star is changing". Toronto Star. p. A2.
  41. ↑ "Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles Online (DCHP-1 Online)". University of British Columbia. 2013.
  42. ↑ "Dollinger 2006". Let.leidenuniv.nl. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  43. ↑ "How to write a historical dictionary: a sketch of the dictionary of Canadianisms on historical principles" (PDF). Oz Words. October 2015. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  44. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2015). "How to write a historical dictionary: a sketch of DCHP-2". Ozwords.
  45. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2016). "Googleology as Smart Lexicography: Big Messy Data for better Regional Labels". Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. 37: 60–98 – via JSTOR.
  46. ↑ Labov, p. 214
  47. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan (2012). "Varieties of English: Canadian English in real-time perspective." In English Historical Linguistics: An International Handbook (HSK 34.2), Alexander Bergs & Laurel J. Brinton (eds), 1858-1880. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 1859-1860.
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  49. ↑ The Cambridge History of the English Language, edited by John Algeo, Volume 6, p. 431
  50. ↑ Bill Casselman. "Zed and zee in Canada". Archived from the original on 2012-06-26. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  51. ↑ J.K. Chambers (2002). Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and Its Social Significance (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Retrieved 2012-10-13.
  52. 1 2 Ballingall, Alex. "How do you pronounce Lieutenant Governor?". www.thestar.com. Toronto Star. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  53. ↑ The pronunciation with the stress on the second syllable is the most common pronunciation, but is considered incorrect by some people. - Canadian Oxford Dictionary
  54. ↑ The pronunciation /ˈkɑːrki/ was the one used by author and veteran Farley Mowat.
  55. ↑ pecan ˈpi:kan, pi:ˈkan, pəˈkɒn - Canadian Oxford Dictionary
  56. ↑ Vase. (2009). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Retrieved 2009-03-03.
  57. ↑ Barber, p. 77.
  58. 1 2 Labov p.218.
  59. ↑ Boberg
  60. ↑ Martinet, Andre 1955. Economie des changements phonetiques. Berne: Francke.
  61. ↑ Labov p. 219.
  62. ↑ Esling, John H. and Henry J. Warkentyne (1993). "Retracting of /æ/ in Vancouver English."
  63. 1 2 Charles Boberg, "Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast: Regional accents in Canadian English."
  64. ↑ 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."
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  66. ↑ Labov, p. 219.
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  69. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:182)
  70. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:217)
  71. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:223)
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  73. ↑ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:221)
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  82. ↑ Labov, 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 ..."
  83. ↑ Trudgill and Hannah, International English (4th edition), p. 76.
  84. ↑ "Uniquely Canadian, Eh?" Review of Barber, Katherine by Stefan Dollinger. 2007. Only in Canada You Say: A Treasury of Canadian Language. Oxford University Press.
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  86. 1 2 3 American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 48.
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  88. ↑ "Gov.ns.ca". Gov.ns.ca. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  89. ↑ Visible Minority Population and Population Group Reference Guide, 2006 Census from StatsCan
  90. ↑ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, "bachelor".
  91. ↑ "Federal-Realestate.com". Federal-Realestate.com.
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  93. ↑ Boberg 2005, p. 38.
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  95. ↑ Webster's New World College Dictionary, Wiley, 2004.
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  98. ↑ OUP.com
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  101. ↑ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, eavestrough; Oxford English Dictionary; American Heritage Dictionary.
  102. ↑ According to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary (second edition), garburator is "Canadian" and garbage disposal is "North American."
  103. ↑ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, hydro.
  104. ↑ Barber, Katherine, ed. (1998). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1st ed.). Toronto: Oxford University Press. p. .1075. ISBN 0-19-541120-X.
  105. ↑ "Pogey: What Does it Mean? Bonny, 2006" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-12. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
  106. ↑ Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, runner.
  107. ↑ American Speech 80.1 (2005).
  108. ↑ Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
  109. ↑ Sometimes the gym doesn't fix it, The Irish Times, Tuesday, January 06, 2009
  110. ↑ Machismo . . . or masochism?, The Irish Times – Saturday March 22, 2008
  111. ↑ Stars in the running, The Irish Times, Tuesday October 7, 2008
  112. ↑ American Speech 80.1 (2005), p. 36.
  113. ↑ "Decisions: Chocolate and Cocoa Products". Canadien Food Inspection Agency. Archived from the original on 2010-04-27. Retrieved 2012-06-04.
  114. ↑ "'Double-double'? Now you can look it up".
  115. ↑ Doubletongued.org, reference for gonch.
  116. ↑ Stone, Laura (27 September 2011). "Looking for true Canadian English, there? Go north". Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 5 August 2014.
  117. ↑ Nosowitz, Dan (January 10, 2017). "Why Do Canadians Say 'Eh'?: The story behind Canada’s most distinctive verbal tic". Atlas Obscura. Atlas Obscura. Retrieved January 12, 2017.
  118. ↑ "The Crazy Canucks: Canada's Skiing Heroes". Archives.cbc.ca. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  119. ↑ "Where is Back East?". 3 August 2016.
  120. ↑ Don J. DeVoretz (2011). "Canada's Secret Province: 2.8 Million Canadians Abroad". Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
  121. 1 2 3 Canada, Government of Canada, Statistics. "Census Data Navigator".
  122. ↑ "Dynamique des langues en quelques chiffres : Tableaux - Secrétariat à la politique linguistique". www.spl.gouv.qc.ca (in French). Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  123. ↑ Marmen, Louise and Corbeil, Jean-Pierre, "New Canadian Perspectives, Languages in Canada 2001 Census," Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication, Statistics Canada Cat. No. Ch3-2/8-2004, (Canadian Heritage, 2004), pg. 60.
  124. ↑ 1931–1991: Statistics Canada, The 1997 Canada Year Book, “3.14 Official Language Knowledge,” Catalogue No. 11-402XPE/1997.
    1996: Statistics Canada. Population by Knowledge of Official Languages (20% sample data), (table), 1996 Census of Population (Provinces, Census Divisions, Municipalities) (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). (accessed: June 28, 2010).
    2001: Statistics Canada. Languages, Mobility and Migration, 2001 – Provinces and Territories in Canada (table), 2001 Census of Population (Provinces, Census Divisions, Municipalities) (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). (accessed: June 28, 2010)
    2006: Statistics Canada. Languages, Mobility and Migration, 2006 – Provinces and Territories in Canada (table), 2006 Census of Population (Provinces, Census Divisions, Municipalities) (database), Using E-STAT (distributor). (accessed: June 28, 2010).
  125. ↑ McKinnie, Meghan and Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain. 2002. A perceptual dialectology of Anglophone Canada from the perspective of young Albertans and Ontarians. In Handbook of Perceptual Dialectology. Vol. 2, ed. by Daniel Long, 277-94. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  126. ↑ Dollinger, Stefan. 2015. The Written Questionnaire in Social Dialectology: History, Theory, Practice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins, p. 253. See https://www.academia.edu/18162995/The_Written_Questionnaire_in_Social_Dialectology_History_Theory_Practice_Dec._2015_

Further reading

Dollinger, Stefan (2015). The Written Questionnaire in Social Dialectology: History, Theory, Practice. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. The book's examples are exclusive taken from Canadian English and represent one of the more extensive collections of variables for Canadian English.

Look up Canadian English in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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