Canadian English (CaE) is a variety of English used in Canada. More than 25 million Canadians (85 percent of the population) have some knowledge of English (2001census[2]). Canadian spelling contains elements of British and American English; Canadian vocabulary, although similar to American vocabulary, also features many British terms, several distinctive Canadianisms, French influence in many areas, and notable local variations.
Contents
1History
2Spelling
3Phonology and Pronunciation
3.1Pronunciation
4Vocabulary
4.1Comparison of Canadian, British, and American lexicons
4.1.1Education
4.1.2Units of measurement
4.1.3Transportation
4.1.4Politics
4.1.5Law
4.1.6Household items
4.1.7Food and beverage
4.1.8Colloquialisms
4.1.9Grammar
4.1.10Miscellaneous
4.2Words used mainly in Canadian English - (Canadian slang)
4.3Regional vocabularies
4.3.1Newfoundland
4.3.2French influence on English spoken in Quebec
4.3.3Chinook Jargon words in British Columbia, Alberta and The Yukon
4.3.4Ottawa Valley
4.3.5Toronto
5Dictionaries
6Notes
7References
8Further reading
9See also
10External links
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 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.[1]
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 British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the middle Atlantic states. 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.[2]
The languages of Canadian Aboriginal peoples started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place,[3] and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.[4]
Spelling
Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings (colour and centre), although American spellings are not uncommon. Also, while the U.S. uses the Anglo-French spelling defense (noun), Canada uses the British spelling defence. (Note that defensive is universal.) In other cases, Canadians and Americans stand at odds with British spelling such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb.
Like American English, Canadian English prefers -ize endings whenever British usage allows both -ise (the Cambridge model) and -ize spellings (the Oxford model) (e.g. realize, recognize). However, some of the technical parts of the Air section of Transport Canada, e.g., Air Policy,[3] use a compromised Cambridge model; e.g., tires instead of tyres, but organisational rather than organizational.
Canadian spelling rules 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.
A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English, and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references. (See the section "Further reading.")
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page
Although there is no single linguistic definition that includes Canada as a whole, a fairly homogeneous dialect exists in Western and Central Canada. 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.[5]
The following features distinguish Canadian English from a phonologically conservative Northern U.S. accent:
Canadian raising: Diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants. For example, IPA /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ become [əɪ] and [əʊ], respectively, before [p], [t], [k], [s], [f]. It is found throughout Canada, including much of the Atlantic Provinces.[6] It is the strongest in the Inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland BC, as well as certain parts of Ontario. Many Canadians do not possess this feature, and defining the dialect by this would exclude parts of Atlantic Canada and include some adjacent portions of the U.S.
Cot-caught merger: Speakers do not distinguish between the open-mid back rounded vowel [ɔ] and open back unrounded vowel [ɑ].
Canadian Shift: It is the defining feature of all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces.[7] It is a chain shift triggered by the cot-caught merger. The vowels in the words cot and caught merge to [kɔt]. The /æ/ of bat is retracted to [a], the /ɛ/ of bet shifts to [æ], the /ɪ/ in bit then shifts to the [ɛ] in bet.[8] The Canadian shift is absent from the U.S., except for some speakers scattered throughout the far West, although the California vowel shift contains similar features.
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.
Words such as borrow, sorry or tomorrow are realized as [-ɔr-], rather than [-ɑr-].
The island of Newfoundland has a distinctive dialect of English known as Newfoundland English; 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. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians.
The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] between vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop [ʔ], is less common in the Maritimes. Therefore, battery is pronounced as [ˈbætɹi] instead of [ˈbæɾ(ə)ɹi].
Northern Canada is, according to Labov, a dialect region in formation.[9]
Pronunciation
The /ɑ/ of foreign loanwords (such as pasta) is pronounced as /æ/.
Been is pronounced by many speakers as /bin/ rather than /bɪn/.
Words such as fragile, fertile, and mobile are pronounced as [fɹædʒajl̩], [fɝtajl̩], and [moʊbajl̩]. The American pronunciation of fertile as [fɝɾl̩] is also becoming somewhat common[citation needed] in Canada, even though [fɹædʒajl̩] remains dominant.
Words like semi, anti, and multi tend to be pronounced as [sɛmi], [ænti], and [mʌlti] rather than [sɛmaɪ], [æntaɪ], and [mʌltaɪ]. Often, a Canadian will use the former in general use, but the latter in order to add emphasis[citation needed].
The word premier "leader of a provincial or territorial government" is commonly pronounced [ˈpɹi.mjiɹ], with [ˈpɹɛ.mjɛɹ] and [ˈpɹi.mjɛɹ] being rare variants.
The herb and given masculine name basil is usually pronounced [ˈbæzəl] rather than [ˈbezəl].
Some Canadians pronounce asphalt as "ash-falt" [ˈaʃ.fɒlt].[10] This pronunciation is also common in Australian English, but not quite so in General American English or British English.
The factual accuracy of this section is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page
Comparison of Canadian, British, and American lexicons
Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English; many terms in standard Canadian English are, however, shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers. In some cases the British and the American term coexist, to various extents; a classic example is holiday, often used interchangeably with vacation. In addition, the vocabulary of Canadian English also features words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere.
As a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Canada shares many items of institutional terminology with the countries of the former British Empire – e.g., 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 CÉGEP 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 clarifies the specific level of post-secondary education that is meant.
Canadian universities publish calendars or schedules, not catalogs as in the U.S.
Students write exams, they do not take or sit them[citation needed]. Those who supervise students during an exam are generally called invigilators as in Britain, or sometimes proctors as in the U.S.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution[citation needed].
Successive years of school are often, if not usually, referred to as grade one, grade two, and so on. (Compare American first grade, second grade, sporadically found in Canada, and British Year 1, Year 2.)[11]
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, these are simply grade 9 through 12.[12] As for higher education, only the term freshman (or frosh) has some currency in Canada.[13] The specific high-school grades and university years are therefore stated and individualized; for example, the grade 12s failed to graduate; John is a second year at Carleton.
Canadian students use the term marks (more common in England) or grades to refer to their results; usage is very mixed.[14]
Units of measurement
Use of metric units is more advanced in Canada than in the U.S. as a result of the national adoption of the Metric System during the 1970s by the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Official measurements are given in metric, including highway speeds and distances, fuel volume and consumption, and weather measurements (with temperatures in degrees Celsius). However, it is not uncommon for Canadians to use Imperial units such as pounds, feet, and inches to measure their bodies; cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons in the kitchen; and (with older generations) miles for distances. The term klicks is sometimes used interchangeably with kilometres.
A two-way ticket can be either a round-trip (American term) or a return (British term).
The terms highway (e.g. Trans-Canada Highway), expressway (Central Canada, as in the Gardiner Expressway) and freeway are used to describe a high speed, limited access road. Quebec speakers may call this an autoroute. The British term motorway is not used.
Politics
To table a document in Canada is to present it (as in Britain), whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.
Several political terms are more in use in Canada than elsewhere, including riding (as a general term for a parliamentary constituency or electoral district).
Members of the Liberal Party of Canada or a provincial Liberal party are sometimes referred to as Grits, and members of the Bloc Québécois are sometimes referred to as Bloquistes. At the purely provincial level, members of Quebec's Parti Québécois are sometime referred to as Péquistes, and members of the Quebec provincial Action démocratique du Québec as Adéquistes.
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 is permitted to engage in two specific types of legal practice which are separated in other common-law jurisdictions such as England, Wales, and Ireland. Yet the words lawyer or counsel (not counsellor) predominates in everyday contexts, though the American term attorney is sometimes encountered.
The words advocate and notary – two distinct professions in civil law Quebec – 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.
The word attorney is ordinarily used in Canada to mean:
a lawyer who prosecutes criminal cases on behalf of the government, i.e. crown attorney;
an American lawyer with whom a Canadian lawyer is interacting regarding a cross-border transaction or legal case; or
an American lawyer who works in Canada and advises Canadian clients on issues of American law.
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.
Household items
Terms common in Canada, Britain, and Ireland but less frequent or nonexistent in the U.S. are:
Tin (as in tin of tuna), for can, especially among older speakers. Among younger speakers, can is more common, with tin[citation needed] referring to a can which is wider than it is tall.
Cutlery, for silverware or flatware.
Serviette, for a table napkin, though this is fast being changed to the latter.[citation needed]
Tap, conspicuously more common than faucet in everyday usage.
Food and beverage
Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, and Inland North prefer pop over soda to refer to a carbonated beverage (but neither term is dominant in British English; see further at Soft drink).
What Americans call Canadian bacon is named back bacon or, if it is coated in cornmeal or ground peas, peameal bacon in Canada.
What most Americans call a candy bar is usually known as a chocolate bar (as in the UK).
Colloquialisms
A rubber in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is sometimes another term for eraser (as it is in the United Kingdom) and, in the plural, for overshoes or galoshes. (Canadians and British often use "toe rubbers" to refer to rubber overshoes, to distinguish them from other "rubbers".[15])
The terms booter and soaker refer to getting water in one's shoe. The former is generally more common in the prairies, the latter in the rest of Canada[citation needed].
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 and Australasian use, as it is commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as butt, arse (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west), or ass[citation needed].
Grammar
The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) zed; the American zee is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.
When writing, Canadians will start a sentence with As well, in the sense of "in addition."
Canadian and British English share idioms like in hospital and to university[16][4], while in American English the definite article is mandatory; to/in the hospital is also common in Canadian speech[citation needed].
Miscellaneous
The code appended to mail addresses (the equivalent of the British postcode and the American ZIP code) is called a postal code.
Although the American World War I and World War II are popular in Canadian public use, they are considered substandard in some Canadian academic circles, which prefer First World War (or the Great War) and Second World War[citation needed].
Words used mainly in Canadian English - (Canadian slang)
Canadian English has words or expressions not found, or not widely used, in other variants of English. Additionally, like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English.
ABM, bank machine: synonymous with ATM (which is also used).
allophone: a resident whose first language is one other than English or French. Used only by linguists in other English-speaking countries, this word has come to be used by journalists and broadcasters, and then by the general public, in some parts of Canada.
bachelor: bachelor apartment ("They have a bachelor for rent").
Canuck: a slang term for "Canadian" in the U.S. and Canada. It sometimes means "French Canadian" in particular, especially when used in the Northeast of the United States and in Canada. The term was adopted as the name of the National Hockey League team in Vancouver: Vancouver Canucks, and is used as the nickname for the Canada national rugby union team. Sometimes jokingly pronounced can-OOK (not used this way for the hockey team).
chesterfield: a sofa or couch. Used somewhat in Northern California; obsolete in Britain (where it originated). Sometimes (as in classic furnishing terminology) refers to a sofa whose arms are the same height as the back, but more usually to any couch or sofa. The more international terms sofa and couch are also used; among younger generations in the western and central regions, chesterfield is largely in decline.
chinook: a warm, dry wind experienced along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. Most common in winter and spring, a chinook wind can result in a rise in temperature of 20 C° (36 F°) in a quarter of an hour. In Alaska, the word is pronounced with an affricatech instead of the fricativesh sound as used in Canada, and means an extremely wet, warm, constant southwesterly, which actually is the same weather pattern as the drying wind that it becomes when it hits Alberta. The use of the word to mean a wind is from the Chinook Jargon, "i.e., the wind from the direction of the country of the Chinooks" (the lower Columbia River), as transmitted to the Prairies by the francophone employees of the North West Company, hence the Frenchified pronunciation east of the Rockies. A Chinook in BC is also one of the five main varieties of salmon, and can also mean the Chinook Jargon, although this older usage is now very rare (as is the Jargon itself).
concession road: in southern Ontario and southern Quebec, one of a set of roads laid out by the colonial government as part of the distribution of land in standard lot sizes. The roads were laid out in squares as nearly as possible equal to 1,000 acres (4 km²). Many of the concession roads were known as sidelines, and in Ontario many roads are still called lines.
cooked it: something got messed up.
double-double: a cup of coffee with two creams and two sugars.
eavestroughs: rain gutters. Also used, especially in the past, in the Northern and Western U.S.; the first recorded usage is in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick: "The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs [sic], Flask."
eh: a spoken interjection to ascertain the comprehension, continued interest, agreement, etc., of the person or persons addressed ("That was a good game last night, eh?"). May also be used instead of "huh?" or "what?" meaning "please repeat or say again." Frequently mis-represented by Americans as A, or hey. May have its origins from the French hein, which is pronounced in a very similar fashion.
humidex: measurement used by meteorologists to reflect the combined effect of heat and humidity.
homo milk: homogenized milk.
hydro: (except Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Maritimes) commonly as a synonym for electrical service. Many Canadian provincial electric companies generate power from hydroelectricity, and incorporate the term "Hydro" in their names: Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa, etc. Usage: "Manitoba Hydro... It's not just a Power Company anymore."; "How long did you work for Hydro?" "When's Hydro gonna get the lines back up."; "The hydro bill is due on the fifteenth."; "I didn't pay my hydro bill so they shut off my lights." Hence hydrofield, a line of electricity transmission towers, usually in groups cutting across a city, and hydro lines/poles, electrical transmission lines/poles.
joe job: a low-class, low-paying job. Not to be confused with the American term joe job.
loonie: Canadian one dollar coin. Derived from the use of the loon on the reverse.
lumber jacket: A thick flannel jackeolett either red and black or green and black favoured by blue collar workers and heavy metal/grunge aficionados. This apparel is more commonly referred to as a mackinac (pron mackinaw). In parts of British Columbia, it is referred to as a doeskin, and in New Brunswick, it is also called a dinner jacket.
pencil crayon:[17] coloured pencil origin: bilingual package label Pencil (English) Crayon (French word for pencil).
pogie: term referring to unemployment insurance, which replaced the word 'stamps'.
runners: running shoes, sneakers, especially in Central Canada. Also used somewhat in Australian English.
The Peg: Winnipeg.
toonie: Canadian two dollar coin. Modelled after loonie (q.v.). Also spelled tooney, twooney, twoonie, twonie, or twoney.
tuque: a knitted winter hat, often with a pompon on the crown. Sometimes misspelled toque, which is in fact an unrelated type of hat.
two-four: a 24-container case of beer, also called a flat.
washroom[5]: the general term for what is normally named public toilet or lavatory in Britain. In the U.S. (where it originated) mostly replaced by restroom in the 20th century. Usage may be affected by U.S. businesses in Canada that often post restroom in place of washroom signs on doors, and (usually ethnic) restaurants that buy signs from U.S. suppliers. Generally used only as a technical or commercial term outside of Canada. The word bathroom is also used.
The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in vowelpronunciation, 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 person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an Anglophone. The corresponding term for a French speaker is Francophone and the corresponding term for a person who is neither Anglophone nor Francophone is Allophone. Anglophone and Francophone are used in New Brunswick, an officially bilingual province.
Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. Pie IX Boulevard is pronounced as in French («pi-neuf»), not as "pie nine." On the other hand, Anglophones do pronounce final Ds, as in Bernard and Bouchard.
Chinook Jargon words in British Columbia, Alberta and The Yukon
British Columbia English has several words still in current use borrowed from the Chinook Jargon. Most famous and widely used of these terms are skookum and saltchuck.
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. This dialect is heavy with slang phrases and terminology.
Toronto
The English spoken in Toronto has some similarities with the English in the Northern U.S. Slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities. There is also a heavy influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities, of which the vast majority speak English only as a second or tertiary language. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian, and African words. Among youths in ethnically diverse areas, a large number of words borrowed from Jamaican patois can be heard, owing to the large number of Jamaican immigrants in Toronto's urban neighborhoods.
Some Torontonians pronounce the name of their city in an elided form as T'rana, T'ronno or Ch'ronno (often with nasal alveolar flap instead of N).
An abbreviated way of speaking about the city is T.O., which stands for "Toronto, Ontario." Toronto is also referred to as Tdot, which is derived from this abbreviation.
Hogtown is another slang term for Toronto, deriving from West Toronto's history as a major meatpacking area (especially, of swine).
The environs of Toronto as well as the surrounding suburbs and cities are often called "The Greater Toronto Area," or GTA.
The name of the city Etobicoke is pronounced without the final two letters (i.e., "ke").
Dictionaries
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. It listed uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use.
Gage Learning Corp. published The Gage Canadian Dictionary in 1993, with "a major revision" in 1998.
Boberg, Charles (2005). "The North American Regional Vocabulary Survey: Renewing the study of lexical variation in North American English." American Speech 80/1.[6]
Courtney, Rosemary, et al., senior editors (1998). The Gage Canadian Dictionary, second edition. Toronto: Gage Learning Corp. ISBN 0-7715-7399-5.
Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.
Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.
Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward, editors (2006). American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 140, 234-236. ISBN 1-4051-2108-4.
Further reading
Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd ed., pp. 67-68.
Canadian federal government style guide: Public Works and Government Services Canada, The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
Canadian newspaper and magazine style guides:
J.A. McFarlane and Warren Clements, The Globe and Mail Style Book: A Guide to Language and Usage, 9th ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998).
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