Regional types of English in Canada

INTRODUCTION

 

English spread all over the world. Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are English speaking countries.

During the 17th and 18th centuries British navigators sailed across the seas with the aim of extending Britain's power and prosperity. They colonized new territories around the world, taking their language with them. The first New World settlement was established in Jamestown in America in 1607. Canada was won from the French in 1763. During the 17th century British rule was established in the West Indian islands of Antigua, Barbados, Jamaica, St Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago. Australia and New Zealand were discovered during Capitan Cook's voyage in 1768. English was imposed as the official language of the new colonies; it was the language of education and administration [1].

English speaking countries are situated in different parts of the world and differ in many ways. The weather and climate of these countries, and the way of people's life differ. Each country has its own history customs, traditions, and its own national holidays. All types of English language have their own peculiarities and regional types which are always difficult to get. The same is true for the Canadian English [2].

The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Between 1825 and 1846 more than half a million immigrants came to Canada directly from Britain and France, and by 1871 over 2 million people in Canada listed the British Isles as their land of origin. These new Canadians brought with them the kind of English that they had learned from their parents, and it bore little similarity to what is now often called Standard British English, or simply Standard English.

When people move to a new land isolated from their homeland, 2 things happen to their language: first, it escapes the direct influences of changes in grammar or pronunciation that take place in the parent language; and second, it undergoes great changes in vocabulary in order to allow its users to accommodate their speech to their new circumstances [3].

Canadian English has never elevated any one form of regional speech to a position of prestige. The federal government is in Ottawa; but Ottawa English is not held up as a model of the best speech. However, a form of Canadian English, the language stripped of its regional features, is used by English-speaking Canadians across the country. Although Canadian English does not have the regional dialects of British English, French or German that have developed over the centuries, it does have marked differences in speech among the various regions [4].

The aims and purposes of the work is to analyze regional types of English in Canada, to determine the origin and important features of English in each region in Canada, to show its lexical, phonetic and morphological peculiarities, to find out the differences between regional varieties.

To achieve the set aim I determine the following tasks:

- to search the origin of English language and its development in Canada;

- to educe supposition of originating the regional types of English in Canada;

- to study the words' transition through English vocabulary which used in Canada regions;

- to distinguish differences between Canadian, British and American words;

- to study the specific pronunciation of Canadian sounds;

- to analyze grammar and vocabulary of English in Canada;

- to compare the results of the analysis.

The object of my study is the wealth of English language and its dissemination in Canada, regional varieties of spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar of English language.

The subjects of my research is variety of English language, its history and regional types and linguistic characteristics common for the Canadian words..

The practical value. The problem of existence of the regional types of English in Canada represents a particularly important aspect of the language-learning process. Students of English should be taught how to recognize stylistically difficult words for each particular speech situation in Canadian English. Materials of the work will help students, teachers and particular translators and interpreters who work on the translation Canadian words.

The structure of the work. This work consists of Introduction, 3 Main Parts, Conclusion and at the end the References.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1English language around the world

 

1. A short history of the origins and development of English language

 

The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from Englaland and their language was called Englisc - from which the words England and English are derived. Germanic invaders entered Britain on the east and south coasts in the 5th century.

Old English (450-1100 AD)

The invading Germanic tribes spoke similar languages, which in Britain developed into what we now call Old English. Old English did not sound or look like English today. Native English speakers now would have great difficulty understanding Old English. Nevertheless, about half of the most commonly used words in Modern English have Old English roots. The words be, strong and water, for example, derive from Old English. Old English was spoken until around 1100.

An example of Middle English by Chaucer

In 1066 William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy (part of modern France), invaded and conquered England. The new conquerors (called the Normans) brought with them a kind of French, which became the language of the Royal Court, and the ruling and business classes. For a period there was a kind of linguistic class division, where the lower classes spoke English and the upper classes spoke French. In the 14th century English became dominant in Britain again, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English. It was the language of the great poet Chaucer (c1340-1400), but it would still be difficult for native English speakers to understand today.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be" lines, written in Early Modern English by Shakespeare.

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation (the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This, and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first English dictionary was published.

Late Modern English (1800-Present)

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words; secondly, the British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the earth's surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries.

English is a member of the Germanic family of languages. Germanic is a branch of the Indo-European language family [5].

The Germanic Family of Languages

A brief chronology of English

BC 55	Roman invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar	Local inhabitants speak Celtish
BC 43	Roman invasion and occupation. Beginning of Roman rule of Britain
436	Roman withdrawal from Britain complete
449	Settlement of Britain by Germanic invaders begins
450-480	Earliest known Old English inscriptions	Old English
1066	William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, invades and conquers England
c1150	Earliest surviving manuscripts in Middle English	Middle English
1348	English replaces Latin as the language of instruction in most schools
1362	English replaces French as the language of law. English is used in Parliament for the first time
c1388	Chaucer starts writing The Canterbury Tales
c1400	The Great Vowel Shift begins
1476	William Caxton establishes the first English printing press	Early Modern English
1564	Shakespeare is born
1604	Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published
1607	The first permanent English settlement in the New World (Jamestown) is established
1616	Shakespeare dies
1623	Shakespeare's First Folio is published
1702	The first daily English-language newspaper, The Daily Courant, is published in London
1755	Samuel Johnson publishes his English dictionary
1776	Thomas Jefferson writes the American Declaration of Independence
1782	Britain abandons its American colonies
1828	Webster publishes his American English dictionary	Late Modern English
1922	The British Broadcasting Corporation is founded
1928	The Oxford English Dictionary is published

 

English is now the fourth most widely spoken native language worldwide (after Chinese, Spanish, and Hindi), with some 380 million speakers. English is also the dominant member of the Germanic languages. But there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English, Indian English and Caribbean English [6].

 

1.2 Varieties of English language

 

English is spoken today on all five continents as a result of colonial expansion in the last four centuries or so. The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clearly to be seen in the presence of English as an official and often native language in many of the former colonies along with more or less strongly diverging varieties which arose in particular socio-political conditions, so-called pidgins which in some cases later developed into creoles. Another legacy of colonialism is where English fulfils the function of a lingua franca. Many countries, like Nigeria, use English as a lingua franca (a general means of communication) since there are many different and mutually unintelligible languages and a need for a supra-regional means of communication.

English has also come to play a central role as an international language. There are a number of reasons for this, of which the economic status of the United States is certainly one of the most important nowadays. Internal reasons for the success of English in the international arena can also be given: a little bit of English goes a long way as the grammar is largely analytic in type so that it is suitable for those groups who do not wish to expend great effort on learning a foreign language .

English has become the gateway to communication in to the globalized international society today. Overall a third of the world's population is learning English. In the multilingual countries where English is not an official language, English is important for historical reasons. India can be mentioned as an example of countries like this. In other multilingual countries English is used solely because it is the lingua franca. But with so many people worldwide speaking and communicating using English, different varieties of English will inevitably develop. Your way of speaking is shaped by the culture and language you grew up with [7].

With regard to numbers of speakers it is only exceeded by Chinese (in its various forms) and Spanish. But in terms of geographical spread it stands at the top of the league. The distribution is a direct consequence of English colonial policy, starting in Ireland in the late 12th century and continuing well into the 19th century, reaching its peak at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria and embodied in the saying “The sun never sets on the British Empire”. For the present overview the varieties of English in the modern world are divided into four geographical groups as follows:

British Isles	America	Africa	Asia, Pacific
England	United States (with African American English)	West Africa	South- and South-East Asia
Wales	Canada	East Africa	Australia and New Zealand
Ireland	The Caribbean	South Africa	The Pacific islands

The two main groups are Britain and America. For each there are standard forms of English which are used as yardsticks for comparing other varieties of the respective areas.

In Britain the standard is called Received Pronunciation. The term stems from Daniel Jones at the beginning of the present century and refers to the pronunciation of English which is accepted - that is, received - in English society. BBC English, Oxford English, Queen’s English (formerly King’s English) are alternative terms which are not favoured by linguists as they are imprecise or simply incorrect.

In America there is a standard which is referred to by any of a number of titles, General American and Network American English being the two most common. There is a geographical area where this English is spoken and it is defined negatively as the rest of the United States outside of New England (the north east) and the South. General American is spoken by the majority of Americans, including many in the North-East and South and thus contrasts strongly with Received Pronunciation which is a prestige sociolect spoken by only a few percent of all the British. The southern United States occupy a unique position as the English characteristic of this area is found typically among the African American sections of the community. These are the descendents of the slaves originally imported into the Caribbean area, chiefly by the English from the 16th century onwards. Their English is quite different from that of the rest of the United States and has far more in common with that of the various Anglophone Caribbean islands.

Those varieties of English which are spoken outside of Britain and America are variously referred to as overseas or extraterritorial varieties. A recent practice is to use the term Englishes (a plural created by linguists) which covers a multitude of forms. The label English World-Wide (the name of an academic journal dedicated to this area) is used to refer to English in its global context and to research on it, most of which has been concerned with implicitly comparing it to mainland varieties of Britain and America and then with trying to determine its own linguistic profile. Extraterritorial varieties are not just different from mainland varieties because of their geographical distance from the original homeland but also because in many cases a type of suspension has occurred vis à vis changes in point of origin, i.e. in many respects the overseas varieties appear remarkably unchanged to those from the European mainland. This phenomenon is known as colonial lag. It is a term which should not be overworked but a temperate use of the term is appropriate and it can be cited as one of the features accounting for the relative standardness of overseas varieties, such as Australian or New Zealand English with regards to British forms of English [8].

In Singapore two varieties of the English language has developed, Standard Singapore English and Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish). They are influenced by Chinese and Malay.  Most of the educated Singaporeans speak Standard Singapore English, mostly because it is not too far from British English grammatically. Examples of how they are similar in this way are the use of the word "tyre" over "tire”, and "shopping centres" over "shopping centers".  The difference between the British and the Standard English is confined to accent and rhythmic patterning. According to the National Institute of Education in Singapore, Singapore English is described as syllable-timed, while British English is more assumed to be stress-timed.

In Asia, English is widely spoken in countries like India and Pakistan. Indian English is somewhat diverse across the different parts of the country, but some features are typical for Indian English all over. The use of -ing forms is one. They write and say:  "She is knowing the answer" when the "correct" way to say it is: "She knows the answer". The rhythm of Indian English is very different from Standard English as well as the pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar. Therefore Indian English sometimes can be very difficult to understand.

Another country with varieties of English is South-Africa. Wikipedia defines South Africa as an Anglo-American language. English is actually an official language in many African countries; all of whom have developed their own version of the so called Proper English or Standard English. The South-African English is very influenced by Afrikaans, a language with similarities to the Dutch language [9].

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. GENERAL FEATURES OF CANADIAN ENGLISH

 

1. Canadian English: development through settlement (first and second waves)

 

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

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude that would be prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain [10].

Canadian English is by and large the outcome of the two earliest settlement waves. English-speaking settlers began to enter mainland Canada in significant numbers after the Treaty of Paris ceded New France to Great Britain in 1762. The first wave was a direct result of the American Revolution in 1776, with about ten thousand so-called United Empire Loyalists fleeing the territory of the newly-founded United States. The Loyalists were New World dwellers who preferred to remain British subjects in what was to become Canada. They came from the mid-Atlantic states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, upstate New York, on the one hand and New England on the other hand. Some 10,000 went to Quebec, 2,500 settling in the Eastern Townships south-east of Montreal and 7,500 in western Quebec, which was named Upper Canada in 1791, Canada West in 1840, and Ontario in 1867. Government promotion of settlement resulted in the arrival from the US of at least 80,000 ‘late loyalists’ after 1791. By 1812, Upper Canada's population of around 100,000 was 80% of American background. This population consolidated its values by fighting against American attack during the War of 1812. By 1871, the population of Ontario had risen to 1.6m.  Their speech patterns are responsible for the general make-up of Canadian English today (that is, the notion of the ‘founder principle’), including its more ‘American’ than British twang.

The second wave started in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic wars and, until 1867 when Canada gained considerable independence from Britain (Confederation), was responsible for over a million immigrants from England, Scotland, Wales, and importantly, Ireland. There is some dispute as to the degree of influence of this wave, which was much larger than the first one. However, existing studies strongly suggest that the first (American) wave was most influential in everything but one area of language: that is, language attitudes—the evaluation of linguistic items as more or less ‘desirable’ and interference with consciously accessible language features.

Starting in the late-nineteenth century, Canada encouraged immigration from a much broader range of countries, while maintaining barriers against non-Europeans at first. After the Second World War, these remaining barriers were lifted and, today, Canadians come from all possible backgrounds [11].

One of the most interesting questions about Canadian English is why it is at all different from US English dialects. Given Canada’s proximity to the US and its close ties in terms of trade and business or its exposure to American media outlets, TV, radio and magazines, it is striking that US-Canadian differences persist.

Generally speaking, the linguistic features in the west (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia) are less diversified than in the east (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec), which has been settled for a century or more longer. The island of Newfoundland, which joined Canada only in 1949 after hundreds of years as a separate British colony, is the most distinctive linguistic community as compared to Standard Canadian English.

Relative similarity, or homogeneity, of dialects is a common denominator of regions that have been settled for relatively short periods of time. As time progresses, regional, and social dialects are being formed, examples of which include the distinctive neighborhoods of Montreal. For Ontario westwards, relative linguistic homogeneity has been proposed since at least 1951. Incidentally, the concept is paired with the question of Canadian linguistic autonomy. Canadian linguistic features are maintained by the country’s communication lines that run along the east-west axis, across mountain ranges, vast stretches of prairie land, and other physical barriers. The existence and persistence of Canada, successful in staving off American expansion in the nineteenth century, has given rise to national, pan-Canadian networks: it is not uncommon for Canadians to grow up in the Golden Horseshoe (the area surrounding Toronto and home to one sixth of the population), study in Edmonton on the Prairies, go to graduate school in Vancouver, BC and find work in Halifax, NS These east-west connections and travel streams weave Canadian English together since the completion of the trans-Canada railway in 1886 and have, so far, put a check on larger linguistic diversification [12].

 

2.2 Grammar

 

Variation in grammar—morphology and syntax—can also be found in Canadian English. Reported since the early 1980s, but never thoroughly studied, Standard Canadian English allows (to give just one example) the placing of as well sentence-initially. Thus, in a sentence such as The Canucks had good forwards that day. As well, their blue liners were better than last time, other standard dialects would usually accept as well only after ‘last time’, i.e. sentence-finally.

The study of Canadian English has come a long way since the first serious attempts in the mid-1950s. It has reached critical mass and is now in the position to tell the story of Canadian English and its varieties. 2010 marked a milestone with the publication of Charles Boberg’s The English Language in Canada, the first scholarly overview monograph on Canadian English. The book is a symbol of how far the field has come as a collective effort, while also serving as a spring board for further work on the ‘other’ North American English.

Where Canadian English differs grammatically from British English it tends to agree with American English. However, where such differences exist, Canadians are often more aware of both usages than Americans, either because they use both or have been exposed to both. Middle-class Canadians over 40 prefer have you got as in Have you got a match? to either the American English Do you have a match? or the conservative British English Have you a match?, but the younger generation and those with some post-secondary education are moving to the American form [13].

 

2.3 Pronunciation

 

Generally, the standard forms of Canadian English and Northern American English are alike whereas such regional varieties as the Maritimes and Newfoundland are more distinctive. The main features of standard Canadian English are:

• Canadian Raising. There is a shibboleth that Canadians say such words as house and out differently from Americans, and by and large they do. Canadian Raising (a term coined by J.K. Chambers in 1973) is a convenient term for what is in fact a non-lowering of certain diphthongs is knife, house than in knives, houses. In general terms, these diphthongs have a raised onset before voiceless consonants: /ai/ becomes /˄i/ and /au/ becomes /˄u/. In the following pairs, only the first word has the raised onset:/tribe, bite/bide, tyke/tiger, knife/knives, price/prizes, lout/loud, mouth(n)/mouth (v). Many Americans from western New England across the Great Lakes have the raised onset for /ai/, but far fewer have it for /au/. These raised diphthongs appear to be an innovation resulting from dialect mix. Studies of the speech of Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria show that Canadian Raising is a majority usage (over 90% in Vancouver, over 60% in Ottawa), but that there is a majority usage (over 90% in Vancouver, over 60% in Ottawa), but that there is a trend away from raising toward standard American English values, led by women under 40.
• The cot/caught distinction. Many phonological features shared with Northern American English are distributed distinctively in standard Canadian English: for example, the low back vowels have merged, so that Canadians pronounce cot/caught, Don/Dawn, awful/offal, caller/collar with the same vowel sound, although the quality of this sound varies. This merger is widespread in the US (in eastern New England and western Pennsylvania) and is spreading in the Midwest and West, but a distinction between cot/caught, etc. is maintained in all US areas bordering on Canada.
• T-flapping and T-deletion. Especially in casual speech, many Canadians, like many Americans, pronounce /t/ as /d/ between vowels and after /r/, a feature known as t-flapping. Such pairs as waiting/wading, metal/medal, latter/ladder, hearty/hardy are therefore often homophones and the city of Ottawa is called ‘Oddawa’. In addition, the /t/ is usually deleted after n, so that Toronto is pronounced ‘Toronna’ or ‘Trawna’ by most of the city’s inhabitants.
• Use of W.H. Speakers of standard Canadian English tend more than speakers of standard Northern American English to drop the distinction between initial /hw/ and /w/, making homophones out of which/witch. 
• Different regional and social groups vary the pronunciation of some words, such as lever, schedule, aunt, route, hostile. As with the lexical variants like tap/faucet, pail/bucket, porch/verandah, the differences are generally ascribed to the degree of influence from American English [14].

 

4. Vocabulary

 

English Canadians have developed the vocabulary they have needed in their special environment by borrowing from indigenous languages and from French, by extending and adapting traditional English words, and by coining new words, in addition to which, Canadian English vocabulary has been affected by institutional bilingualism:

• Borrowing from indigenous languages.

There are two sources of native borrowing: the Canadian Indian languages such as Cree, Dene, and Ojibwa, and Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit or Eskimo. Such words tend to relate to flora and fauna, early economic and social activities, travel, and survival. From the Indian languages come chipmunk, mackinaw (a bush jacket), moose, muskeg (boggy, mossy land),muskrat. From Inuktitut come kayak, mukluk, anorak, parka, malemute, husky. A productive borrowing from Micmac through French is toboggan, a runnerless wooden sled still used by children. The word produced the logging terms bogan and logboggan. A motorized sled was first called a motor toboggan and autoboggan, then bombardier (after the trade name of one such vehicle). Now a vehicle of this kind, widely used in the North instead of a dog team and in the South for sport, is a skimobile, skidoo, or snowmobile.

• Borrowing from French

In addition to the ancient legacy of French expressions in English, Canadian English has a range of usages which are distinctively North American: caboteur (a ship engaged in coastal trade), cache (a place for storing supplies; a supply of goods kept for future use), coureur du bois (a French or MÉTIS trader or woodsman), Métis (a person or people of ‘mixed’ blood), portage (the carrying of canoes past rapids), voyageur (a French-Canadian canoeman in the service of the fur companies; someone travelling the northern wilderness), mush (from French marcher, used to order sled dogs to run), and tuque (a knitted cap). In addition, there are such technical terms as anglophone and francophone (without an initial capital, in the French style), caisse populaire (a credit union, a bank-like institution, especially in QUEBEC). The existence of two official languages has led to various usages, including the attributive use of Canada in the names of government departments, crown corporations, and national organizations, often with French word order, the attributive after the noun: Canada Post, Revenue Canada, Air Canada, Loto Canada. French and English often mix, as in names like the Jeunesses Musicales of Canada and on hybrid signs, especially those used for official purposes: Postes Canada Post. During the recent Canada games, some anglophone announcers referred to them as the Jeux Canada Games as if Jeux were an English word. In addition, the delicate relationship between English and French allows for originality: for example, the visual form of the name of the airline called Canadian in English and Canadian in French, in which the variable vowel is replaced by the company logo a red arrow.

• Extension and adaptation of traditional words.

Many British English words have had their meanings extended and adapted to conditions in North America. Canadian English shares with American English many usages relating to landscape and social life, etc., but has a range of distinctive additional usages, such as: Native officially referring to the indigenous peoples of Canada (the Native Peoples); the distinction between prime minister (federal chief minister) and premier (provincial chief minister); province, provincial (referring to the major political divisions of the country, most of which were once distinct British colonies); riding (a political constituency); status Indian (someone officially registered as a Canadian Indian); Canadian English reserve as opposed to American English reservation as a term describing land set aside for Native peoples [15].

British influence.

The social institutions of Canada have been profoundly influenced by the British imperial connection: for example, Parliament in Ottawa, in which usage is comparable to that of the British Parliament in Westminster. The ties of blood are still strong in many places, but have been considerably weakened by the influx into Canada of immigrants from parts of the world where the British connection has been either minimal (as with China and Vietnam) or equivocal (as with India and the West Indies). In addition, the generation that fought alongside the British in the Second World War is growing old, the Queen's representative in Canada (the Governor-General) is no longer a British aristocrat but a Canadian, and where Britain's economic and military interests now lie with Europe, Canada's lie with the US. Nonetheless, some British English forms are either holding their own or gaining. Younger Canadians of both sexes pronounce been to rhyme with queen and not bin, anti, semi, and multi- to rhyme with me, not with my; words ending in -ile to rhyme with Nile and not ill. These all run against the tide of American English. It may not be clear to these speakers, however, that they are sustaining British English forms [16].

Social issues.

- Stigmatized usages include ‘dropping the g’ in the words ending -ing, especially in going (‘goin’), dropping the t in words like just (‘jus’), and the use of the contraction had've, sometimes written ‘had of’ (We would've helped you if you had've asked us).

- The trend away from Canadian Raising led by young women seems to indicate that standard American English rather than standard Canadian English or standard British English is becoming the prestige dialect. Jennifer Coates notes, ‘it seems as though women are more sensitive to status-giving prestige norms, while men are more sensitive to vernacular norms, which represent solidarity and values traditionally associated with masculinity’ (Women, Men and Language, 1986). English Canadians have said and written relatively little about linguistic nationalism and in this they are different from Americans, Australians, Brazilians, Argentinians, and French Canadians: ‘The normal and natural development of linguistic nationalism has apparently been blighted by the peculiar condition of Anglo-Canadian culture, caught between the Scylla of England and the Charybdis of the United States’ (David Haberley, ‘The Search for a National Language’, Comparative Literature Studies, 11, 1974, p. 87). However, it can be argued that linguistic nationalism is only ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ where its presence does not risk fragmenting the nation. Canadian English could be described as bland and Canadian attitudes to it as blighted, but Canadian English, like all varieties of English, is a practical response to a unique set of social, linguistic, and political pressures [17].

3 REGIONAL TYPES OF ENGLISH IN CANADA

3.1 West–Central Canadian English

The West–Central Canadian English dialect is one of the largest and most homogeneous dialect areas in North America, ranging from Ontario, through the Prairie Provinces to British Columbia. It forms a dialect continuum with the accent in the Western United States, and borders the Canadian North, and U.S. North Central and Inland North dialect regions. While it is one of the most homogeneous in that the regional differences inside the dialect area are very small, it has a few unique features.

Pronunciation

A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below:

	Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p  b			t  d			k  ɡ
Affricate					tʃ  dʒ
Nasal	m			n			ŋ
Fricative		f  v	θ  ð	s  z	ʃ  ʒ			h
Approximant				ɹ		j
Lateral approximant				l

 

The vowel phonemes are shown in the table below:

Monophthongs	Front	Central	Central rhotacized	Back
Close	i			u
Near-close	ɪ			ʊ
Close-mid	e			o
Mid		ə	ɚ
Open-mid	ɛ		ɝ	ʌ
Open	æ			ɑ/ɒ

 

The diphthongs are shown in the next table:

Diphthongs	Closer component is front	Closer component is back
Opener component is unrounded	aɪ	aʊ
Opener component is rounded	ɔɪ

While the West/Central dialect is mutually intelligible with many dialects of English spoken in England, especially Received Pronunciation, in common with much of the US it lacks two distinctive RP innovations:

- Unlike RP, the West/Central dialect is rhotic. This means it maintains the pronunciation of r after vowels. Rhoticity has been largely influenced by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. The sound corresponding to the letter "R" is a retroflex or alveolar approximant rather than a trill or a tap. The 'er' sound of (stressed) fur or (unstressed) butter, which is represented in IPA as stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] is realized in Canadian English as a monophthongal r-colored vowel.

- It has also not shifted [æ] to [ɑ] (the so-called "broad A") before [f], [s], [θ], [ð], [z], [v] alone or preceded by [n] [18].

Both RP, and the West/Central dialect have gone through the following changes:

- The horse–hoarse merger of the vowels [ɔ] and [oʊ] before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning etc. homophones.

-The wine–whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /hw/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. This is preserved in some older speakers, as well as being an archaicism.

The following changes are innovations, and do not occur in RP. It shares these changes with General American:

- The merger of [ɑː] and [ɒ], making father and bother rhyme.

- The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, and because.

- Vowel merger before intervocalic /r/.

- The merger of [ʊɹ] and [ɝ] after palatals in some words, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir in some speech registers for some speakers.

- Some speakers have dropping of [j] after alveolar consonants so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute are pronounced /nuː/, /duːk/, /tuːzdeɪ/, /suːt/, /ɹɪzuːm/, /luːt/.

- Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones for some speakers. This does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.

- Laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure for some speakers.

- The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before reduced vowels. The words ladder and latter are mostly or entirely homophonous, possibly distinguished only by the length of preceding vowel. 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.

- The vowels in words such as Mary, marry, merry are merged to the open-mid front unrounded vowel [ɛ], except in Quebec.

The following changes are shared with the Western dialect in the US:

- Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as [oʊ] as in boat and [eɪ], as in bait, have acquired qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers. However, the continuing presence of slight offglides (if less salient than those of, say, British Received Pronunciation) and convention in IPA transcription for English account for continuing use of [oʊ] and [eɪ].

- The cot–caught merger exists. A notable exception occurs with some speakers over the age of 60, especially in rural areas in the Prairies, although the merger is the most widespread overall.

- For most speakers, /ɛ/ is realized as [e] before g.

- The words origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, are all generally realized as [-ɔr-], rather than [-ɑr-].

- /u/ is slightly fronted after coronals.

- The -ing ending in words of more than two syllables is realized as [in], [ɪn], or [ɪŋ].

- Milk is realized as [mɛlk] by some speakers, [mɪlk] by others, although words such as pillow are pronounced with [-ɪl-].

The following changes are shared with the Pacific Northwest English dialect, as well as other dialects:

- æ-tensing /æ/ is tense before velar stops. This can cause words such as "bag" and "beg" to sound very similar, and some speakers pronounce both [beɡ]. Some speakers, especially in Ontario have tense æ-tensing before nasals as well.

- Tomorrow is generally pronounced [-ɔr-], instead of [-ɑr-].

- The following feature is most prominent in the Prairies, Ontario, and the Maritimes: "Canadian raising": diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants (e.g., [p], [t], [k], [s], [f]). For example, IPA /aɪ/ (the vowel of "eye") and /aʊ/ (the vowel of "loud") become [ʌɪ] and [ʌʊ], respectively, the /a/ component of the diphthong going from a low vowel to a mid vowel ([ʌ]). Note also that this phenomenon preserves the recoverability of the phoneme /t/ in "writer" despite the North American English process of flapping, which merges /t/ and /d/ into [ɾ] before unstressed vowels, so "writer" and "rider" can be distinguished from each other even though the t and d in those words are pronounced the same. The most noticeable feature is the raising of /aʊ/ to [ʌʊ] because [əʊ] is an allophone of /oʊ/ (as in "road") in many other dialects, so the (mainly Eastern) Canadian pronunciation of "about the house" may sound like *"a boat the hoas" to speakers of dialects without the raising, and in many cases is misheard or exaggerated to "aboot the hoose" [19].