Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
native to Canada. According to the
2016 census, English was the
first language
A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
of 19.4 million Canadians or 58.1% of the total population; the remainder spoke
French (20.8%) or other languages (21.1%). In
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, 7.5% of the population are
anglophone
Speakers of English are also known as Anglophones, and the countries where English is natively spoken by the majority of the population are termed the ''Anglosphere''. Over two billion people speak English , making English the largest language ...
, as most of Quebec's residents are native speakers of
Quebec French.
Phonologically
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, Canadian and American English are classified together as
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
, emphasizing the fact that most cannot distinguish the typical accents of the two countries by sound alone.
While Canadian English tends to be closer to American English in most regards,
[Labov, p. 222.] it does possess elements from
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
and some uniquely Canadian characteristics.
[Dollinger, Stefan (2008). "New-Dialect Formation in Canada". Amsterdam: Benjamins, . p. 25.] The precise influence of American English, British English and other sources on Canadian English varieties has been the ongoing focus of systematic studies since the 1950s.
Canadians and Americans themselves often have trouble differentiating their own two accents, particularly when someone speaks with an urban
Standard Canadian English accent because it sounds very similar to
Western American English
Western American English (also known as Western U.S. English) is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire Western United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexic ...
. There is also evidence that Standard Canadian English and
Western American English
Western American English (also known as Western U.S. English) is a variety of American English that largely unites the entire Western United States as a single dialect region, including the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexic ...
have been undergoing a very similar
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vow ...
since the 1980s. Canadian English varies very little from
Central Canada to
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
. But, some noticeably different accents can be found in
the Atlantic provinces, most especially in
Newfoundland with
Newfoundland English
Newfoundland English is a term referring to any of several accents and dialects of Atlantic Canadian English found in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of these differ substantially from the English commonly spoken elsewhere in ...
. Accent differences can sometimes be heard between those who live in urban centres versus those living in rural settings.
In the early 20th century, western Canada was largely populated by farmers from
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
who were not anglophones. At the time, most anglophones there were re-settlers from Ontario or Quebec who had
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
,
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
and/or
Loyalist ancestry. Throughout the 20th century, the prairies underwent
anglicization and linguistic homogenization through education and exposure to Canadian and American media.
History
The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the
Canadian Institute
The Royal Canadian Institute for Science (RCIScience), known also as the Royal Canadian Institute, is a Canadian nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting the public with Canadian science.
History
The organization was formed in Toronto as t ...
in 1857 (se
DCHP-1 Online s.v. "Canadian English", Avis ''et al.,'' 1967). Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude that would be prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison with what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.
[Chambers, p. xi.]
Canadian English is the product of five waves of immigration and settlement over a period of more than two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of
Loyalists
Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British Cro ...
fleeing the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
, chiefly from the
Mid-Atlantic States—as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from
northern American English. Canadian English has been developing features of its own since the early 19th century. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
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
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...
country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
.
The languages of
Aboriginal peoples in Canada
In Canada, Indigenous groups comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Although ''Indian'' is a term still commonly used in legal documents, the descriptors ''Indian'' and '' Eskimo'' have fallen into disuse in Canada, and most consider the ...
started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the
French of
Lower Canada
The Province of Lower Canada (french: province du Bas-Canada) was a British colony on the lower Saint Lawrence River and the shores of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence (1791–1841). It covered the southern portion of the current Province of Quebec an ...
provided vocabulary, with words such as ''toque'' and ''portage'',
to the English of
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of th ...
.
While the process of the making of Canadian English—its documentation and codification—goes back to the 1930s, the 1960s were the key period. Like other social developments in Canada, the general acceptance of Canadian English has taken its time. According to a recent study, a noticeable shift in public discourse can only be seen in the middle of the first decade of the 2000s, when Canadian English was seen as a "given", generally accepted default variety, while before such statements were usually "balanced" by doubts.
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, updated to 2017). Until the 2000s, basically all commentators on the history of CanE have argued from the "language-external" history, i.e. social and political history. An exception has been in the area of lexis, where Avis ''et al.'' 1967 ''
Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles'' offered real-time historical data through its quotations. Recently, historical linguists have started to study earlier Canadian English with historical linguistic data. DCHP-1 is now available in open access. Most notably
Dollinger (2008)pioneered the historical corpus linguistic approach for English in Canada with CONTE (Corpus of Early Ontario English, 1776–1849) and offers a developmental scenario for 18th- and 19th-century Ontario. Recently, Reuter (2015), 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
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acqui ...
known as ''Canadian dainty''.
["Some Canadians used to speak with a quasi-British accent called Canadian Dainty"]
. CBC News
CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca. ...
, 1 July 2017. Treated as a marker of upper-class prestige in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Canadian dainty was marked by the use of some features of
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
pronunciation, resulting in an accent similar, but not identical, to the
Mid-Atlantic accent
The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features rega ...
known in the United States.
This accent faded in prominence following
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, when it became stigmatized as pretentious, and is now almost never heard in modern Canadian life outside of archival recordings used in film, television or radio documentaries.
Spelling
Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American conventions, the two dominant varieties, and adds some domestic idiosyncrasies. For many words, American and British spelling are both acceptable. Spelling in Canadian English co-varies with regional and social variables, somewhat more so, perhaps, than in the two dominant varieties of English, yet general trends have emerged since the 1970s.
![International English Spelling updated](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/International_English_Spelling_updated.svg)
* Words such as ''realize'' and ''organization'' are usually given their
Oxford spelling
Oxford spelling (also ''Oxford English Dictionary'' spelling, Oxford style, or Oxford English spelling) is a spelling standard, named after its use by the University of Oxford, that prescribes the use of British spelling in combination with th ...
s with a ''z''.
* Words such as ''anesthesia'' and ''gynecology'' are usually or more commonly spelled as in American English rather than ''anaesthesia'' and ''gynaecology'' as in British English.
* French-derived words that in American English end with ''-or'', such as ''color'' or ''honor'', retain British spellings (''colour'' and ''honour'').
* French-derived words that in American English end with ''-er'', such as ''fiber'' or ''center'', retain British spellings (''fibre'' and ''centre''). This rule is much more relaxed than the ''-our'' rule, with ''kilometer'' (''kilometre'') being quite acceptable while ''meager'' (''meagre'') and ''somber'' (''sombre'') may not even be noticed.
* While the United States uses the Anglo-French spelling ''defense'' and ''offense'' (noun), most Canadians use the British spellings ''defence'' and ''offence''. (But ''defensive'' and ''offensive'' are universal across all forms of English.)
* Some nouns, as in British English, take ''-ce'' while corresponding verbs take ''-se'' – for example, ''practice'' and ''licence'' are nouns while ''practise'' and ''license'' are the respective corresponding verbs. (But ''advice'' and ''advise'', which have distinct pronunciations, are universal.)
* Canadian spelling sometimes retains the British practice of doubling the consonant ''-l-'' when adding suffixes to words even when the final syllable (before the suffix) is not stressed. Compare Canadian (and British) ''cancelled'', ''counsellor'', and ''travelling'' (more often than not in Canadian while always doubled in British) to American ''canceled'', ''counselor'', and ''traveling'' (''fueled'', ''fuelled'', ''dueling'' and ''duelling'' are all common). In American English, this consonant is only doubled when stressed; thus, for instance, ''controllable'' and ''enthralling'' are universal. (But both Canadian and British English use ''balloted'' and ''profiting''.
)
* In other cases, Canadian and American usage differs from British spelling, such as in the case of nouns like ''curb'' and ''tire'' (of a wheel), which in British English are spelled ''kerb'' and ''tyre''. (But ''tire'' in the sense of "make or become weary" is universal.) Some other differences like Canadian and American ''aluminum'' versus ''aluminium'' elsewhere correspond to different pronunciations.
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'').
Canada's political history has also had an influence on Canadian spelling. Canada's first
prime minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...
,
John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald (January 10 or 11, 1815 – June 6, 1891) was the first prime minister of Canada, serving from 1867 to 1873 and from 1878 to 1891. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, he had a political career that sp ...
, once advised the
Governor General of Canada
The governor general of Canada (french: gouverneure générale du Canada) is the federal viceregal representative of the . The is head of state of Canada and the 14 other Commonwealth realms, but resides in oldest and most populous realm, t ...
to issue an
order-in-council
An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (''Kin ...
directing that government papers be written in the British style.
A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for
Hansard
''Hansard'' is the traditional name of the transcripts of parliamentary debates in Britain and many Commonwealth countries. It is named after Thomas Curson Hansard (1776–1833), a London printer and publisher, who was the first official print ...
transcripts of the
Parliament of Canada
The Parliament of Canada (french: Parlement du Canada) is the federal legislature of Canada, seated at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, and is composed of three parts: the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons. By constitutional convention, the ...
. Many Canadian editors, though, use the ''
Canadian Oxford Dictionary
The ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'' is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it became a well-known reference for Canadian English.
The second edition, published in 2004, contains about 300 ...
'', often along with the chapter on spelling in ''Editing Canadian English'', and, where necessary (depending on context), one or more other references.
Throughout part of the 20th century, some Canadian newspapers adopted American spellings, for example, ''color'' as opposed to the British-based ''colour''. Some of the most substantial historical spelling data can be found in Dollinger (2010) and Grue (2013). The use of such spellings was the long-standing practice of
the Canadian Press
The Canadian Press (CP; french: La Presse canadienne, ) is a Canadian national news agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. Established in 1917 as a vehicle for the time's Canadian newspapers to exchange news and information, The Canadian Pre ...
perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
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
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
was set manually.
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.
In the 1990s, Canadian newspapers began to adopt the British spelling variants such as ''-our'' endings, notably with ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...
'' changing its spelling policy in October 1990. Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the
Southam
Southam () is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. Southam is situated on the River Stowe (called 'The Brook' by many locals), which flows from Napton-on-the-Hill and joins Warwickshire's ...
newspaper chain's conversion in September 1998. The ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...
'' adopted this new spelling policy in September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.
The ''Star'' had always avoided using recognized Canadian spelling, citing the ''
Gage Canadian Dictionary
The ''Gage Canadian Dictionary'' is a dictionary for Canadian English published by Gage Publishers in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The dictionary contains over 140,000 entry words with definitions, International Phonetic Alphabet pronun ...
'' 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
''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian perspe ...
'', continue to prefer American spellings.
Dictionaries
The first Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by
Gage
Gage may refer to:
Measurement
* Gage is a variant spelling of the word ''gauge''
*Stream gauge, aka Stream gage, a site along a stream where flow measurements are made
People
* Gage (surname)
*Gage Golightly (born 1993), American actress
Plac ...
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
A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was published and completed the first edition of Gage's Dictionary of Canadian English Series. The DCHP documents the historical development of Canadian English words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, and bluff, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. Many secondary schools in Canada use the graded dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the ''Senior Dictionary,'' edited by
Robert John Gregg Robert John Gregg (July 2, 1912, Larne, County Antrim, Ireland – November 15, 1998, Vancouver, BC, Canada), known as Bob Gregg or R. J. Gregg, was a linguist, a pioneer of the academic study of Ulster-Scots as well as a linguistic authority on Can ...
, 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
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
. On 17 March 2017 a second edition of DCHP, the online
Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles 2 (DCHP-2), was published. DCHP-2 incorporates the c. 10 000 lexemes from DCHP-1 and adds c. 1 300 novel meanings or 1 002 lexemes to the documented lexicon of Canadian English.
In 1997, the ''ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language'' was another product, but has not been updated since.
In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled ''The Oxford Canadian Dictionary''. A second edition, retitled ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 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.
Phonology and phonetics
In terms of the major sound systems (
phonologies) of English around the world, Canadian English aligns most closely to American English, both being grouped together under a common
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), v ...
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
William Labov ( ; born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist sociolinguistics. He has been described as "an enormously original and influential figure who has created much of ...
, a dialect region in formation, and a homogeneous English dialect has not yet formed. 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 Canada" 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.
This dialect forms a dialect continuum with the far
Western US English, sharply differentiated from the
Inland North
Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of U ...
ern US English of the central and eastern Great Lakes region.
Canadian English raises the diphthong onsets /ə, ʌ/ before voiceless segments; diphthongs /ai/ and /au/.
Standard
Standard Canadian English is socially defined. It is the variety spoken, in Chambers' (1998: 252) definition, by Anglophone or multilingual residents, who are second generation or later (i.e. born in Canada) and who live in urban settings. Applying this definition, c. 36% of the Canadian population speak Standard Canadian English in the 2006 population, with 38% in the 2011 census.
Regional variation
The literature has for a long time conflated the notions of Standard Canadian English (StCE) and regional variation. While some regional dialects are close to Standard Canadian English, they are not identical to it. To the untrained ear, for instance, a BC middle-class speaker from a rural setting may sound like Standard Canadian English, but, given Chambers' definition, such a person, because of the rural provenance, would not be included in the accepted definition (see the previous section). The ''Atlas of North American English'', while being the best source for US regional variation, is not a good source for Canadian regional variation, as its analysis is based on only 33 Canadian speakers. Boberg's (2005, 2008) studies offer the best data for the delimitation of dialect zones. The results for vocabulary and phonetics overlap to a great extent, which has allowed the proposal of dialect zones. Dollinger and Clarke distinguish between:
* West (B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba; with B.C. a sub-zone on the lexical level)
* Ontario (with Northwestern Ontario a transition zone with the West)
* Quebec (concerning the c. 500 000 Anglophone speakers in the province, not the Francophone speakers of English)
* Maritimes (PEI, NS, NB, with PEI a subgroup on the lexical level)
* Newfoundland
Indigenous
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
and
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
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.
Maritimes
![Atlantic Canada IPA chart](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Atlantic_Canada_IPA_chart.PNG)
Many in the Maritime provinces –
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
,
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
and
Prince Edward Island
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...
– have an accent that sounds more like
Scottish English
Scottish English ( gd, Beurla Albannach) is the set of varieties of the English language spoken in Scotland. The transregional, standardised variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard ...
and, in some places,
Irish English
Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
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
Atlantic Canadian English is a class of Canadian English dialects spoken in the Atlantic provinces of Canada and notably distinct from Standard Canadian English. It is composed of Maritime English (or Maritimer English) and Newfoundland Engl ...
has some unique features:
* ''Cot–caught'' merger in effect, but toward a central vowel .
* No Canadian Shift of the short
front vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...
s
* Pre-consonantal is sometimes (though rarely) deleted.
* The flapping of intervocalic and to alveolar tap between vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop , is less common in the Maritimes. Therefore, ''battery'' is pronounced instead of .
* Especially among the older generation, and are not merged; that is, the beginning sound of ''why'', ''white'', and ''which'' is different from that of ''witch'', ''with'', and ''wear''.
* Like most varieties of CanE, Maritimer English contains
Canadian raising
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
.
Newfoundland
The dialect spoken in the province of
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, an autonomous dominion until 31 March 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian English dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in
vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or language in a specific dialect ("correct pronunciation") or simply the way a particular ...
,
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
* Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
* Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...
,
syntax
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...
, 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.
Ontario
Canadian raising is quite strong throughout the province of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, except within the
Ottawa Valley
The Ottawa Valley is the valley of the Ottawa River, along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais, Quebec, Canada. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield. Because of the surroun ...
. The
Canadian Shift is also a common
vowel shift
A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language.
The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent a vow ...
found in Ontario. The retraction of was found to be more advanced for women in Ontario than for people from the
Prairies
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...
or
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...
and men.
In the southern part of
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
Inland Northern (American) English, also known in American linguistics as the Inland North or Great Lakes dialect, is an American English dialect spoken primarily by White Americans in a geographic band reaching from the major urban areas of U ...
dialect, though there are minor differences such as Canadian raising (e.g. "ice" vs "my").
The north and northwestern parts of Southwestern Ontario, the area consisting of the Counties of
Huron
Huron may refer to:
People
* Wyandot people (or Wendat), indigenous to North America
* Wyandot language, spoken by them
* Huron-Wendat Nation, a Huron-Wendat First Nation with a community in Wendake, Quebec
* Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi ...
,
Bruce
The English language name Bruce arrived in Scotland with the Normans, from the place name Brix, Manche in Normandy, France, meaning "the willowlands". Initially promulgated via the descendants of king Robert the Bruce (1274−1329), it has been ...
,
Grey
Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...
, and
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...
, referred to as the "Queen's Bush" in the 19th century, did not experience communication with the dialects of the southern part of Southwestern Ontario and Central Ontario until the early 20th century. Thus, a strong accent similar to Central Ontarian is heard, yet many different phrasings exist. It is typical in the area to drop phonetic sounds to make shorter contractions, such as: ''prolly'' (probably), ''goin (going), and "Wuts goin' on tonight? D'ya wanna do sumthin'?" It 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
The Golden Horseshoe is a secondary region of Southern Ontario, Canada, which lies at the western end of Lake Ontario, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Lake Scugog, Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The ...
(including the
Greater Toronto Area) are known to
merge the second with the in ''Toronto'', pronouncing the name variously as , or even or . This is not unique to Toronto; Atlanta is often pronounced "Atlanna" by residents. In the Greater Toronto Area, the ''th'' sound is sometimes pronounced . Sometimes is elided altogether, resulting in "Do you want this one er'iss one?" The word ''southern'' is often pronounced with . In the area north of the
Regional Municipality of York
The Regional Municipality of York, also called York Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, between Lake Simcoe and Toronto. The region was established after the passing of then Bill 102, An Act to Establish The Regional ...
and south of
Parry Sound
Parry Sound is a sound or bay of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, in Ontario, Canada. It is highly irregularly shaped with many deep bays and islands. Killbear Provincial Park is located on the large peninsula that separates the sound from Georgian B ...
, 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
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
tends to be fronted (as a result the word ''about'' is pronounced as ). The Greater Toronto Area is diverse linguistically, with 43 percent of its people having a mother tongue other than English. As a result Toronto English has distinctly more variability than Inland Canada.
In
Eastern Ontario
Eastern Ontario (census population 1,763,186 in 2016) (french: Est de l'Ontario) is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario which lies in a wedge-shaped area between the Ottawa River and St. Lawrence River. It s ...
,
Canadian raising
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
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
Lanark County is a county located in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its county seat is Perth, which was first settled in 1816.Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the Cou ...
, Western Ottawa and
Leeds-Grenville and the rest of
Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, the accent spoken is nearly identical to that spoken in
Central Ontario
Central Ontario is a secondary region of Southern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario that lies between Georgian Bay and the eastern end of Lake Ontario.
The population of the region was 1,123,307 in 2016; however, this number does not in ...
and the
Quinte
The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...
area.
A linguistic enclave has also formed in the
Ottawa Valley
The Ottawa Valley is the valley of the Ottawa River, along the boundary between Eastern Ontario and the Outaouais, Quebec, Canada. The valley is the transition between the Saint Lawrence Lowlands and the Canadian Shield. Because of the surroun ...
, heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, and existing along the Ontario-Quebec boundary, which has its own distinct accent known as the
Ottawa Valley twang (or brogue). Phonetically, the Ottawa Valley twang is characterized by the lack of Canadian raising as well as the
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger or merger, formally known in linguistics as the low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in "cot" and "caught". "Cot" and "caug ...
, two common elements of mainstream Canadian English. This accent is quite rare in the region today.
Quebec
English is a minority language in Quebec (with French the majority), but has many speakers in Montreal, the
Eastern Townships and in the
Gatineau-
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
region. A person whose mother tongue is English and who still speaks English is called an ''Anglophone'', versus a ''Francophone'', or French speaker.
Many people in
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
distinguish between words like ''marry'' versus ''merry'' and ''parish'' versus ''perish'',
which are homophones to most other speakers of Canadian English. 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 (compare French /pi.nœf/). On the other hand, Anglophones pronounce the final ''d'' as in ''Bernard'' and ''Bouchard''; the word ''Montreal'' is pronounced as an English word and ''Rue Lambert-Closse'' is known as ''Clossy Street'' (vs French /klɔs/). 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 those 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, and there are some similarities to English spoken in New York. Words used mainly in Quebec and especially in Montreal are: ''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 those 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".
West
Western Canadian English describes the English spoken in the four most western provinces—
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
,
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
, and
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
.
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, in particular is a sub-zone on the lexical level.
;British Columbia
British Columbia English shares dialect features with both Standard Canadian English and the American Pacific Northwest English. In
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, speakers exhibit more vowel retraction of before nasals than people from
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
, and this retraction may become a regional marker of West Coast English. raising (found words such as bag, vague and bagel), a prominent feature in western American speakers, is also found in Vancouver speakers. Younger speakers in the
Greater Vancouver area do not raise as much, but keep the drop in intonation, causing "about" to sound slightly like "a baht", in the same vein as certain south Californian "surfer accents". The "o" in such words as ''holy, goal, load, know,'' etc. is pronounced as a close-mid back rounded vowel, , but not as rounded as in the Prairies where there are strong Scandinavian, Slavic and German influences, which can lend to a more stereotypical "Canadian" accent.
Grammar
There are a handful of syntactical practices unique to Canadian English. When writing, Canadians may start a sentence with ''As well'', in the sense of "in addition"; this construction is a Canadianism.
North American English prefers ''have got'' to ''have'' to denote possession or obligation (as in ''I've got a car'' vs. ''I have a car''); Canadian English differs from American English in tending to eschew plain ''got'' (''I got a car''), which is a common third option in very informal US English.
The grammatical construction "''be done'' something" means roughly "''have/has finished'' something". For example, "I am done my homework" and "The dog is done dinner" are genuine sentences in this dialect, respectively meaning "I have finished my homework" and "The dog has finished dinner". Another example, "Let's start after you're done all the coffee", means "Let's start after you've finished all the coffee". This is not exactly the same as the standard construction "''to be done with'' something", since "She is done the computer" can only mean "She is done with the computer" in one sense: "She has finished (building) the computer".
Date and time notation
![Queenston Bridge Canada Passport Bridge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d9/Queenston_Bridge_Canada_Passport_Bridge.JPG)
Date and time notation in Canadian English is a mixture of British and American practices. The date can be written in the form of either "" or "1 July 2017"; the latter is common in more formal writing and bilingual contexts.
The
Government of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...
only recommends writing all-numeric dates in the form of YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 2017-07-01), following
ISO 8601
ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. It is maintained by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988, w ...
. Nonetheless, the traditional DD/MM/YY and MM/DD/YY systems remain in everyday use, which can be interpreted in multiple ways: 01/07/17 can mean either 1 July 2017 or 7 January 2017.
Private members' bills
A private member's bill is a bill (proposed law) introduced into a legislature by a legislator who is not acting on behalf of the executive branch. The designation "private member's bill" is used in most Westminster system jurisdictions, in w ...
have repeatedly attempted to clarify the situation. In business communication and filing systems the YYMMDD is used to assist in automatic ordering of electronic files.
The government also recommends use of the
24-hour clock, which is widely used in contexts such as transportation schedules, parking meters, and data transmission.
Many speakers of English use the
12-hour clock in everyday speech, even when reading from a 24-hour display, similar to the use of the 24-hour clock in the United Kingdom.
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 (British) often used interchangeably with (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
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
in
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, 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.
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, , for a police officer of the lowest rank, and .
Education
The term ''college'', which refers to post-secondary education in general in the US, 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, might denote someone obtaining a diploma in business management (this would be an associate degree in the United States); while is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, in Canada does not have the same meaning as , 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 their 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 US. Canadian students ''write'' or ''take'' exams (in the US, 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 US; 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 language, 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/Northern Irish ''Primary 1, Primary 2'' or ''P1, P2'', and Southern Irish ''First Class, Second Class'' and so on.).
[''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 47.] The year of school before grade 1 is usually called "Kindergarten", with the exception of
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, where it is called "grade primary".
In the US, 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").
[''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 48.] As for higher education, only the term ''freshman'' (often reduced to ''frosh'') has some currency in Canada.
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, although ''marks'' more commonly refer to a single score whereas ''grades'' often refers to the cumulative score in that class.
Units of measurement
Unlike in the United States, use of SI, metric units within a majority of (but not all) industries is standard in Canada, as a result of the metrication in Canada, partial national adoption of the metric system during the mid-to-late 1970s that was eventually stalled; this has spawned some colloquial usages such as ''klick'' for kilometre (as also heard in the US military).
Nonetheless, United States customary units, US units are still used in many situations. Imperial units, Imperial volumes are also used, albeit very rarely—although many Canadians and Americans mistakenly conflate the measurement systems despite their slight differences from each other.
For example, most English Canadians state their weight and height in pounds and feet/inches, respectively. This is also the case for many Quebec Francophones. Distances while playing golf are always marked and discussed in yards, though official scorecards may also show metres. Temperatures for cooking or pools 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. Motor vehicle speed limits are measured in kilometres per hour.
Canadians measure property, both residential and commercial, floor areas are in square feet or square metres, property is in square feet, square metres, acres or hectares. Fuel efficiency is less frequently discussed in miles per Gallon#US liquid gallon, US gallon, more often the metric L/100 km despite gasoline being sold by the litre. The Letter (paper size), Letter paper size of 8.5 inches × 11 inches is used instead of the international and metric equivalent ISO 216#A series, A4 size of 210 mm × 297 mm. Beer cans are 355 mL (12 US oz), while beer bottles are typically 341 mL (12 Imperial oz), and draft beer is sold by the pint.
Building materials are used in soft conversions of imperial sizes, but often purchased in relation to the imperial sizes. Example 8" concrete masonry unit can be referred to as a 8" CMU or 190 CMU. The actual material used in the US and Canada is the same.
Transportation
* Although Canadian lexicon features both ''railway'' and ''railroad'', ''railway'' is the usual term in naming (witness Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway), though ''railroad'' can be heard fairly frequently in some regions; most rail terminology in Canada follows American usage (for example, ''ties'' and ''cars'' rather than ''sleepers'' and ''carriages'').
* A two-way ticket can be either a ''round-trip'' (American term) or a ''return'' (British term).
* The terms ''highway'' (for example, Trans-Canada Highway), ''expressway'' (Central Canada, as in the Gardiner Expressway) and ''freeway'' (Sherwood Park Freeway, Edmonton) are often used to describe various high-speed roads with varying levels of access control. Generally, but not exclusively, ''highway'' refers to any provincially funded road regardless of its access control. Often such roads will be numbered. Similar to the US, the terms ''expressway'' and ''freeway'' are often used interchangeably to refer to controlled-access highways, that is, divided highways with access only at grade-separated interchanges (for example, a 400-series highways (Ontario), 400-Series Highway in Ontario).
''Expressway'' may also refer to a limited-access road that has control of access but has At-grade intersection, at-grade junctions, railway crossings (for example, the Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay.) Sometimes the term ''Parkway (disambiguation), Parkway'' is also used (for example, the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph). In
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
, 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
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, freeways and expressways are called Autoroutes of Quebec, autoroutes.
In
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, 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, Victoria Trail or St. Albert Trail, Mark Messier/St.Albert Trail in Edmonton). The British term ''motorway'' is not used. The American terms ''Toll road, turnpike'' and ''tollway'' for a toll road are not common. The term ''throughway'' or ''freeway, thruway'' was used for first tolled limited-access highways (for example, the Deas Island Throughway, now Highway 99, from
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, 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.
* A railway at-grade junction can be called a ''level crossing,'' as well as the term ''grade crossing'', which is commonly used in the US.
* A railway or highway crossing overhead is an ''overpass'' or ''underpass'', depending on which part of the crossing is referred to (the two are used more or less interchangeably); the British term ''flyover'' is sometimes used in Ontario, and in the Maritimes as well as on occasion in the prairies (such as the 4th avenue flyover in Calgary, Alberta), ''subway'' is also used.
* In Quebec, English speakers often use the word "metro" to mean Rapid transit, subway. Non-native Anglophones of Quebec will also use the designated proper title "Metro" to describe the Montreal subway system.
* The term ''Texas gate'' refers to the type of cattle grid, metal grid called a ''cattle guard'' in American English or a ''cattle grid'' in British English.
* Depending on the region, large trucks used to transport and deliver goods are referred to as 'transport trucks' (E.g. used in Ontario and Alberta) or 'transfer trucks' (E.g. used in Prince Edward Island)
Politics
* While in standard usage the terms prime minister and premier are interchangeable terms for the head of an elected parliamentary government, Canadian English today generally follows a usage convention of reserving the title ''prime minister'' for the federal first minister and referring to provincial or territorial leaders as ''premiers''. Because Canadian French does not have separate terms for the two positions, using for both, the title ''prime minister'' is sometimes seen in reference to a provincial leader when a Francophone is speaking or writing English. Also, until the 1970s the leader of the Ontario provincial government was officially styled ''prime minister''.
* When a majority of the elected members of the House of Commons or a provincial legislature are not members of the same party as the government, the situation is referred to as a minority government rather than a hung Parliament.
* To ''table'' a document in Canadian, in parliamentary usage, is to introduce or present it (as in Britain), whereas in the US it means to postpone consideration until a later date, often indefinitely. While the introduction meaning is the most common sense in non-parliamentary usage, the presentation meaning is also used in Canada. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary simply recommends avoiding the term in non-parliamentary context.
* In Canada, a committee is ''struck'', whereas in the US committees are appointed, formed, or created, etc.
* Several political terms are more in use in Canada than elsewhere, including ''riding (division)#Canada, riding'' (as a general term for a Parliament of Canada, parliamentary constituency or electoral district (Canada), electoral district, this term is unique to Canada). The term ''reeve (Canada), reeve'' was at one time common for the equivalent of a mayor in some smaller municipalities in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
and
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, but is now falling into disuse. The title is still used for the leader of a rural municipality in
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
, parts of
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
, and
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
.
* The term ''Tory,'' used in Britain with a tory, similar meaning, denotes a supporter of the present-day federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, federal or provincial Progressive Conservative Party. The term Red Tory is also used to denote the more socially liberal wings of the Tory parties. Blue Tory is less commonly used, and refers to more strict fiscal (rather than social) conservatism. The US use of ''Tory'' to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is not used in Canada, where they are called United Empire Loyalists, or simply Loyalists.
* Members of the Liberal Party of Canada or a provincial Liberal party are sometimes referred to as ''Grits''. Historically, the term comes from the phrase ''Clear Grit'', used in Victorian era, Victorian times in Canada to denote an object of quality or a truthful person. The term was assumed as a nickname by Liberals by the 1850s.
* Members of the New Democratic Party (NDP) are sometimes nicknamed ''dippers'' (a clipped and altered form of ''NDPer'') or ''New Democrats''
* Members of the Bloc Québécois are sometimes referred to as . At the purely provincial level, members of Quebec's Parti Québécois are often referred to as , and members of the Quebec provincial Action démocratique du Québec as .
* The term "Socred" is no longer common due to its namesake party's decline, but referred to members of the Canadian social credit movement, Social Credit Party, and was particularly common in British Columbia. It was not used for Social Credit members from Quebec, nor generally used for the federal caucus of that party; in both cases , the French term, was used in English.
* Members of the Senate of Canada, Senate are referred to by the title "Senator" preceding their name, as in the United States. Members of the House of Commons of Canada, following British parliamentary nomenclature, are termed "Members of Parliament", and are referred to as "Jennifer Jones, MP" during their term of office only. Senators and members of the Privy Council are styled "The Honourable" for life, and the Prime Minister of Canada is styled "The Right Honourable" for life, as is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Governor General. This honorific may also be bestowed by Parliament, as it was to retiring deputy prime minister Herb Gray in 1996. Members of provincial legislatures do not have a pre-nominal style, except in certain provinces, such as Nova Scotia where members of the Queen's Executive Council of Nova Scotia are styled "The Honourable" for life, and are entitled to the use of the post-nominal letters "ECNS". The Cabinet of Ontario serves concurrently (and not for life) as the Executive Council of Ontario, while serving members are styled "The Honourable", but are not entitled to post-nominal letters.
* Members of provincial/territorial legislative assemblies are called Member of the Legislative Assembly, MLAs in all provinces and territories except:
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, where they have been called Member of Provincial Parliament (Ontario), Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) since 1938;
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, where they have been called Member of the National Assembly (Quebec), Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) since 1968; and
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, where they are called Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly, Members of the House of Assembly (MHAs). Each abbreviation is used as a post-nominal during terms of office only.
Law
Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own Civil law (legal system), 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 profession, 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 that 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
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
), ''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 ''civil law notary, notary'' – two distinct professions in Quebec civil law – are used to refer to that province's approximate equivalents of barrister and solicitor, respectively. It is not uncommon for English-speaking advocates in Quebec to refer to themselves in English as "barrister(s) and solicitor(s)", as most advocates chiefly perform what would traditionally be known as "solicitor's work", while only a minority of advocates actually appear in court. 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". This varies by jurisdiction, and some superior court judges prefer the titles "Mister Justice" or "Madam Justice" to "Lordship".
Master (judiciary), 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"''. Justice of The Peace#Canada, Justices of The Peace are addressed as ''"Your Worship"''. ''"Your Honour"'' is also the correct form of address for a Lieutenant-Governor (Canada), 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 (Canada), 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 Employment equity (Canada), Canadian Employment Equity Act, which defines such people as "persons, other than Aboriginal peoples of Canada, Aboriginal people, who are non-Caucasian race, Caucasian in race or non-white in colour." 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 languages of Canada, language (English vs. French) and certain distinctions in religion in Canada, religion (Catholicism in Canada, Catholics vs. Orange Order in Canada, Protestants).
A Counties of British Columbia, 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:
* ''bachelor'': bachelor apartment, an apartment all in a single room, with a small bathroom attached ("They have a bachelor for rent"). The usual American term is ''studio''. In Quebec, this is known as a ''one-and-a-half'' apartment; some Canadians, especially in Prince Edward Island, call it a ''loft''.
[Boberg 2005.] In other provinces ''loft'' refers to a 2nd floor in a condo unit or bungalow usually with 2nd floor bedrooms
* ''camp'': in Northern Ontario, it refers to what is called a ''cottage'' in the rest of Ontario; often more specifically to a vacation home not directly adjacent to a body of water, and a ''cabin'' in the West. It is also used, to a lesser extent, in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, as well as in parts of New England. It generally refers to vacation houses in rural areas.
* ''fire hall'': fire station, firehouse.
* ''height of land'': a drainage divide. Originally American.
* ''parkade'': a parking garage, especially in Western Canada, the West.
* ''washroom'': the general term for what is normally named ''public toilet'' or ''lavatory'' in Britain. In the United States (where it originated) the word was mostly replaced by ''restroom'' in the 20th century. Generally used only as a technical or commercial term outside of Canada. The word ''bathroom'' is also used.
* ''Indian reserve'', rather than the US term ''federal Indian reservation''. Often shortened to ''reserve'', especially when the meaning is clear from context; another slang variant of this term is the shortened ''res'' or (more commonly) ''rez''. Not to be confused with ''res'', which in the context of universities refers strictly to ''residences'' or ''halls of residence'' (compare to the US American ''dorms'' or ''dormitories''). Therefore, the sentences ''when I lived on rez'' and ''when I lived in res'' mean very different things. The territory of the particular band nation is usually referred to on a map as ''(Band name here) First Nations I.R.''
* ''rancherie'': the residential area of a First Nation reserve, used in BC only.
* ''quiggly hole'' and/or ''quiggly'': the depression in the ground left by a ''kekuli'' or pithouse. Groups of them are called "quiggly hole towns". Used in the BC Interior only.
* ''gas bar'': a filling station (gas station) with a central island, having pumps under a fixed metal or concrete awning.
* ''booze can'': an after-hours establishment where alcohol is served, often illegally.
* ''dépanneur'', or the diminutive form ''dep'', is often used by English speakers in Quebec. This is because convenience stores are called ''dépanneurs'' in Canadian French.
* ''snye'', a side-stream channel that rejoins a larger river, creating an island.
Daily life
Terms common in Canada, Britain and Ireland but less frequent or nonexistent in the United States are:
* ''tin'' (as in ''tin of tuna''), for ''can'', especially among older speakers. Among younger speakers, ''can'' is more common, with ''tin'' referring to a can which is wider than it is tall as in "a tin of sardines" as opposed to a "can of soup".
* ''cutlery'', for ''silverware'' or ''flatware'', where the material of which the utensil is made is not of consequence to the context in which it is used.
* ''serviette'', especially in Eastern Canada, for a paper table ''napkin''.
* ''Tap (valve), tap'', conspicuously more common than ''faucet'' in everyday usage.
The following are more or less distinctively Canadian:
* ''ABM'', ''bank machine'': synonymous with automated teller machine, ATM (which is also used, but much more widely than ABM by financial organizations in the country).
* ''BFI bin'': Dumpster, after a prominent Canadian waste management company, BFI Canada (which was eventually bought out and merged to become Waste Connections of Canada) in provinces where that company does business; compare to other generic trademarks such as Kleenex, Xerox, and even Dumpster itself.
* ''chesterfield'': originally British and internationally used (as in classic furnishing terminology) to refer to a sofa whose arms are the same height as the back, it is a term for ''any'' couch or sofa in Canada (and, to some extent, Northern California). Once a hallmark of CanE, ''chesterfield'', as with ''settee'' and ''davenport'', is now largely in decline among younger generations in the western and central regions. ''Couch'' is now the most common term; ''sofa'' is also used.
* ''dart'': cigarette, used primarily by adolescents and young adults.
* ''dressing gown'' or ''housecoat or bathrobe'': a dressing gown and house coat can be of silk or cotton, usually an attractive outer layer, while a bathrobe is made of absorbent fabric like a towel. in the United States, called a ''bathrobe''.
* ''eavestrough'': rain gutter. Also used, especially in the past, in the Northern and Western United States; 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 , Flask."
* ''flush'': toilet, used primarily by older speakers throughout the Maritimes.
* ''garburator'': (rhymes with ''carburetor'') a garbage disposal.
* ''homogenized milk'' or ''homo milk'': milk containing 3.25% milk fat, typically called "whole milk" in the United States.
* ''hydro'': a common synonym for mains electricity, electrical service, used primarily in New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. Most of the power in these provinces is hydroelectricity, and suppliers' company names incorporate the term "Hydro". Usage: "I didn't pay my hydro bill so they shut off my lights." Hence ''hydrofield'' or ''hydro corridor'', a line of electricity transmission towers, usually in groups cutting across a city, and ''hydro lines/poles'', electrical transmission lines/poles. These usages of ''hydro'' are also standard in the Australian state of Tasmania. Also in slang usage can refer to hydroponically grown marijuana.
* ''loonie'': the Canadian one-dollar coin; derived from the use of the common loon on the reverse. The ''toonie'' (less commonly spelled ''tooney'', ''twooney'', ''twoonie'') is the two-dollar coin. ''Loonie'' is also used to refer to the Canadian dollar, Canadian currency, particularly when discussing the exchange rate with the United States dollar, US dollar; ''loonie'' and ''toonie'' describe coinage specifically. (for example, "I have a dollar in pennies" versus "I have three loonies in my pocket").
* ''pencil crayon'':
coloured pencil.
* ''pogie'' or ''pogey'': term referring to unemployment insurance, which is now officially called ''Employment'' Insurance in Canada. Derived from the use of ''pogey'' as a term for a poorhouse. Not used for welfare, in which case the term is ''"the dole"'', as in ''"he's on the dole, eh?"''.
* ''Multistorey car park, parkade:'' multistorey parking garage.
Apparel
The following are common in Canada, but not in the United States or the United Kingdom.
* ''runners'': running shoes, especially in Western Canada. Also used in Australian English and
Irish English
Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
. Atlantic Canada prefers ''sneakers'' while central Canada (including Quebec and Ontario) prefers ''running shoes''.
* ''touque'' (also spelled ''toque'' or ''tuque''): a knitted winter hat. A similar hat would be called a ''beanie'' in the western United States and a ''watch cap'' in the eastern United States, though these forms are generally closer-fitting, and may lack a brim as well as a pompom. There seems to be no exact equivalent outside Canada, since the tuque is of French Canadian origin.
* ''bunnyhug'': a hooded sweatshirt, with or without a zipper. Used mainly in Saskatchewan.
Food and beverage
* Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, Prairie and Inland North prefer ''pop'' over ''soda'' to refer to a carbonated beverage, but ''soda'' is understood to mean the same thing, in contrast to British English where ''soda'' refers specifically to soda ''water'' (US/Canadian ''seltzer water''). ''Soft drink'' is also extremely common throughout Canada.
* What Americans call ''Canadian bacon'' is named ''back bacon'' in Canada, or, if it is coated in cornmeal or ground peas, ''cornmeal bacon'' or ''peameal bacon''.
* What most Americans call a ''chocolate bar, candy bar'' is usually known as a ''chocolate bar'' (as in the United Kingdom). In certain areas surrounding the Bay of Fundy, it is sometimes known as a ''nut bar''; this use is more popular in older generations. Legally only bars made of solid chocolate may be labelled chocolate bars.
* Even though the terms ''French fries'' and ''fries'' are used by Canadians, some speakers use the word ''chips'' (and its diminutive, ''chippies'') (chips is always used when referring to ''fish and chips'', as elsewhere).
* ''brown bread'' refers to whole-wheat bread, as in "Would you like white or brown bread for your toast?"
* An ''expiry date'' is the term used for the date when a perishable product will go bad (similar to the UK ''Use By'' date). The term ''expiration date'' is more common in the United States (where ''expiry date'' is seen mostly on the packaging of Asian food products). The term ''Best Before'' also sees common use, where although not spoiled, the product may not taste "as good".
* ''double-double'': a cup of coffee with two measures of cream and two of sugar, most commonly associated with the Tim Hortons chain of coffee shops.
* Canadianisms relating to alcohol:
** ''mickey'': a bottle of hard liquor (informally called a pint in the Maritimes and the United States). In Newfoundland, this is almost exclusively referred to as a "hip flask, flask". In the United States, "mickey", or "Mickey Finn (drugs), Mickey Finn", refers to a drink laced with drugs.
** ''two-six'', ''twenty-sixer'', ''twixer'': a bottle of hard liquor (called a quart in the Maritimes). The word ''handle'' is less common. Similarly, a bottle of hard liquor is known as a ''forty'' and a bottle is known as a ''sixty'' or ''half gallon'' in Nova Scotia.
** ''Texas mickey'' (especially in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; more often a "Saskatchewan mickey" in western Canada): a bottle of hard liquor. (Despite the name, Texas mickeys are generally unavailable outside of Canada.)
** ''two-four'': a case of 24 beers, also known as a ''case'' in Eastern Canada, or a ''flat'' in Western Canada (referencing that cans of beer are often sold in packages of six, with four packages to a flat box for shipping and stacking purposes).
** ''six-pack'', ''half-sack'', ''half-case'', or ''poverty-pack'': a case of six beers
* ''poutine'': a snack of french fries topped with cheese curds and hot gravy.
* There are also genericized trademarks used in Canada:
** ''cheezies'': cheese puffs. The name is a genericized trademark based on a brand of crunchy cheese snack sold in Canada.
** Kraft Dinner or "KD": for any packaged dry macaroni and cheese mix, even when it is not produced by Kraft.
* ''freezie'': A frozen flavoured sugar water snack common worldwide, but known by this name exclusively in Canada.
* ''dainty'': a fancy cookie, pastry, or square served at a social event (usually plural). Used in western Canada.
* ''Smarties'': a bean-sized, small candy-covered chocolate, similar to plain M&M's. This is also seen in British English. Smarties (tablet candy), Smarties in the United States refer to small tart powdered disc sold in rolls; in Canada these tart candies are sold as "Rockets (wafer candy), Rockets".
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 Germany, 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 people (Canada), Métis population in
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...
and
Manitoba
Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...
also carries with it certain linguistic traits inherited from French people, French, Aboriginal and Celtic forebears.
Some terms are derived from immigrant groups or are just local inventions:
* bluff: small group of trees isolated by prairie
* bunny hug: elsewhere ''hoodie'' or ''hooded sweat shirt'' (mainly in Saskatchewan, but also in Manitoba)
* ginch/gonch/gitch/gotch: underwear (usually men's or boys' underwear, more specifically briefs; whereas women's underwear are ''gotchies''), probably of Eastern European or Ukrainian origin. ''Gitch'' and ''gotch'' are primarily used in Saskatchewan and Manitoba while the variants with an ''n'' are common in Alberta and British Columbia.
* jam buster: jelly-filled doughnut.
* porch climber: moonshine or homemade alcohol. ''Porch climber'' has a slightly distinguished meaning in Ontario where it refers to a beverage mixed of beer, vodka, and lemonade.
* slough: pond – usually a pond on a farm
* Vi-Co: occasionally used in Saskatchewan instead of ''chocolate milk''. Formerly a brand of chocolate milk.
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.
Descendants of marriages between Hudson's Bay Company workers of mainly Scottish descent and Cree women spoke Bungi, a creole language, creole that blends Cree and English. A few Bungi speakers can still be found in Manitoba. It is marked by no masculine, feminine or third-person pronouns.
British Columbia
British Columbian English decreasingly uses several words borrowed from the Chinook Jargon. The most famous and widely used of these terms are ''skookum'' and ''Chinook Jargon use by English-language speakers, saltchuck''. In the Yukon, ''cheechako'' is used for newcomers or greenhorns.
Ontario
Northern Ontario English has several distinct qualities stemming from its large Franco-Ontarian population. As a result several French language, 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, such as the use of ''camp'' for a summer home where Southern Ontario speakers would idiomatically use cottage.
In the early 2010s, certain words from London slang, Jamaican Patois, and Arabic were popularized among
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
youth, especially in immigrant communities, which have fallen into a new separate category of sociolect, notably named Greater Toronto English, Multicultural Toronto English. These examples included words such as ''mandem'', ''styll'', ''wallahi'', ''wasteman'', and ''yute''.
Informal speech
One of the most distinctive Canadian phrases is the spoken interrogation or tag ''eh''. 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 Canadian Prairies, 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 ''rubber'' in the US and Canada is slang for a condom. In Canada, it sometimes means an eraser (as in the United Kingdom and Ireland).
The word ''bum'' can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain), or to a homeless person (as in the US). 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 ''buttocks, arse'' (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west) or ''buttocks, 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 US), 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).
![Curtiss JN-4 CAN](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Curtiss_JN-4_CAN.jpg)
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.) The only Canadian-built version of the popular World War I-era American Curtiss JN-4 ''Jenny'' training biplane aircraft, the JN-4C, 1,260 of which were built, got the "Canuck" nickname; so did another aircraft, the Fleet Model 80, built from the mid-1940s until the late 1950s. 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. It is also the name of the Vancouver Canucks, the National Hockey League team of
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
, British Columbia.
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 froze smooth. Bob & Doug also popularized the use of ''Beauty, eh'', another western slang term which may be used to describe something as being of interest or note or deserving approval.
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 Newfoundland (island), 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
Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...
(the same term is used in
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
for people from Vancouver Island, or the numerous islands along it). A ''Haligonian'' refers to someone from the city of Halifax Regional Municipality, Halifax.
Cape Bretoners and Newfies (from Newfoundland and Labrador) often have similar slang. "Barmp" is often used as the sound a car horn makes, example: "He cut me off so I barmped the horn at him". When saying "B'y", while sounds like the traditional farewell, it is a syncopated shortening of the word "boy", referring to a person, example: "How's it goin, b'y?". Another slang that is commonly used is "doohickey" which means an object, example: "Pass me that doohickey over there". When an individual uses the word "biffed", they mean that they threw something. Example: "I got frustrated so I biffed it across the room".
Other Canadianisms
* The alphanumeric code appended to mail addresses (the equivalent of the similar British postcode and the all-numeric American ZIP code) is called a ''Canadian postal code, postal code''.
* The term ''
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
'' is often used in Canada to refer to what are called American Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native Americans in the United States. This term does include the Métis people (Canada), Métis and
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
. "Aboriginal peoples" is preferred when all three groups are included. The term ''Eskimo'' has been replaced by the term Inuit in the past few decades. It is now considered offensive to use the term ''Eskimo'', but is still used commonly (without pejorative intent) by those born in the early-mid-20th century.
* "Going camping" still refers to staying in a tent in a campground or wilderness area, while "going out to camp" may refer to a summer cottage or home in a rural area. "Going to camp" refers to children's summer camps. In British Columbia, "camp" was used as a reference for certain company towns (for example, Bridge River, British Columbia, Bridge River). It is used in western Canada to refer to logging and mining camps such as Juskatla Camp. It is also a synonym for a mining district; the latter occurs in names such as Camp McKinney and usages such as "Cariboo gold camp" and "Slocan mining camp" for the Cariboo goldfields and Slocan silver-galena mining district, respectively. A "cottage" in British Columbia is generally a small house, perhaps with an English design or flavour, while in southern Ontario it more likely means a Vacation property, second home on a lake. Similarly, "chalet" – originally a term for a small warming hut – can mean a second home of any size, but refers to one located in a ski resort. In Northern Ontario, these second homes tend to be called "camps". In Western Canada, these second homes tend to be called "cabins". A "bunkie" is a secondary building at these second homes that are small enough to require no building permits and house extra guests visiting.
* One of the other distinctions between Canadian English and British English is the use of the phrase "try to + infinitive" versus the use of the phrase "try and + infinitive". Canadian English uses "try to" while British English uses "try and". Originally, the distinction did not exist, but through the evolution of the French term , meaning to 'sort', into the English ''try'', a number of meanings were adopted along the way, including 'attempt'. Canadian English speakers use "try and" 30% of the time while British English speakers use it 73% of the time. Since the 2000s, the two terms have had equally frequent usage in British English.
* A ''stagette'' is a female bachelorette party (US) or hen party (UK).
* A "shag" is thought, erroneously, to be derived from "shower" and "stag", and describes a dance where alcohol, entry tickets, raffle tickets, and so on, are sold to raise money for the engaged couple's wedding. Normally a Northwest Ontario, Northern Ontario and sometimes Manitoba term, a "stag and doe" or "buck and doe" is used elsewhere in Ontario. The more common term for this type of event in Manitoba is a "social". In many contexts shag can also refer to intercourse.
* The ''humidex'' is a measurement used by meteorologists to reflect the combined effect of heat and humidity (vs. US term ''heat index'' quantifying the apparent temperature).
* ''The States'': Commonly used to refer to the United States or almost as often ''the U.S.'', much less often ''U.S.A.'' or ''America'' which are commonly used in other countries, the latter more often used in other English-speaking nations.
* ''Drop the gloves'': to begin a fight. A reference to a practice in hockey of removing gloves prior to fighting, and the idiom "throw down the gauntlet" as well as a reference to medieval knights and gentlemen.
* ''Back east'' typically means 'Ontario or possibly Quebec' whereas ''Down East'' instead refers to the Maritimes. The former term is also used in the US to describe someone from east of the Mississippi River (e.g. ''I'm moving back East'', ''She's from back East''); the latter term is used in New England, especially in areas very close to
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundlan ...
, to refer to Maine accent#Lexicon, the two eastern coastal counties of Maine (i.e. ''I'm going Down East for the weekend.'')
Attitudes
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.
English is the major language everywhere in Canada except Quebec, and most Canadians (85%) can speak English.
While English is not the preferred language in Quebec, 36.1% of the Québécois can speak English. Nationally, Francophones are five times more likely to speak English than Anglophones are to speak French – 44% and 9% respectively. Only 3.2% of Canada's English-speaking population resides in Quebec—mostly in Montreal.
Attitude studies on Canadian English are somewhat rare. A perceptual study on Albertan and Ontarians exists in combination with older literature from the 1970s–80s. Sporadic reports can be found in the literature, e.g. on Vancouver English,
in which more than 80% believe in a "Canadian way of speaking", with those with a university education reporting higher than those without.
Jaan Lilles argues in an essay for ''English Today'' that there is no variety of "Canadian English". He acknowledges that no variety of English is more "real" or "natural" than any other, but that, in the words of American linguist John Algeo, "All linguistic varieties are fictions." According to Lilles, Canadian English is simply not a "useful fiction".
He goes on to argue that too often national identity is conflated with linguistic identity, and that in the case of "Canadian English", supposedly unique features of Canadian speakers, such as certain lexical terms such as ''muskeg'' are artificially exaggerated to distinguish Canadian speech primarily from that found in the United States.
See also
* List of Canadian English dictionaries
* Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles 2, Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles, Second Edition
* American and British English spelling differences
* Bungi creole
* Canadian Gaelic
* Franglais
* Regional accents of English
*Canadian Language Museum
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
* Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. .
* Barber, Katherine.
11 Favourite Regionalisms Within Canada, in David Vallechinsky and Amy Wallace (2005). ''The Book of Lists'', Canadian Edition. Knopf. .
* Boberg, Charles (2005). "The North American Regional Vocabulary Survey: Renewing the study of lexical variation in North American English." ''American Speech'' 80/1
Dukejournals.org* Boberg, Charles,
Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast: Regional accents in Canadian English', McGill University.
* Courtney, Rosemary, and others., senior editors (1998). ''The Gage Canadian Dictionary'', second edition. Toronto: Gage Learning Corp. .
* Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 2nd ed., p. xi.
* Clark, Joe (2008).
Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English' (e-book). .
*
*
* Peters, Pam (2004). ''The Cambridge Guide to English Usage''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
*
* Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, ''Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction'', 3rd ed., pp. 67–68.
* Canadian English: Editors' Association of Canada
''Editing Canadian English: The Essential Canadian Guide'' 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).
* Canadian usage: Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, ''Guide to Canadian English Usage'' (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2001).
* Hamilton, Sandra A. M. (1997)
Canadianisms and their treatment in dictionaries', Thesis (M.A.), University of Ottawa,
* 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).
** The Canadian Press
''The Canadian Press Stylebook'', 13th ed.and its quick-reference companio
''CP Caps and Spelling'', 16th ed.(both Toronto: Canadian Press, 2004).
* Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). ''
Canadian Oxford Dictionary
The ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'' is a dictionary of Canadian English. First published by Oxford University Press Canada in 1998, it became a well-known reference for Canadian English.
The second edition, published in 2004, contains about 300 ...
'', second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. .
* Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 2nd ed., p. xi.
* Clarke, Sandra, Ford Elms, and Amani Youssef (1995). "The third dialect of English: Some Canadian evidence", in ''Language Variation and Change'', 7:209–228.
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.
* Dollinger, Stefan (2008)
New-Dialect Formation in Canada: Evidence from the English Modal Auxiliaries 1776–1849 Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins.
* Dollinger, Stefan, Laurel J. Brinton and Margery Fee (2013)
DCHP-1 Online: A Dictionary of Canadiansims on Historical Principles 1st Edition. Ed. by Walter S. Avis et al. (1967).
* Peters, Pam (2004). ''The Cambridge Guide to English Usage''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
*
External links
Termium Plus the
Government of Canada
The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...
terminology and linguistic databank
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Words: Woe & Wonder– comparisons of Canadian English, American English, British English, French, and Spanish
and compare side by side with other English accents from around the world.
Canadian Oxford Dictionaries(Oxford University Press – sales only)
from the University of Arizona
Dictionary of Newfoundland English Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles OnlineSecond Edition of A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles
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Canadian English,
Dialects of English
English language in Canada,
North American English