Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of
Canadian English
Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA) encompasses the Variety (linguistics), varieties of English language, English used in Canada. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 2016 census, English was the first language of 19.4 million Canadians or ...
that is spoken particularly across
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
and
Western Canada
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West, or Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a list of regions of Canada, Canadian region that includes the four western provinces and t ...
, as well as throughout
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
among urban middle-class speakers from
English-speaking families, excluding the regional dialects of
Atlantic Canadian English
Atlantic Canadian English is a class of Canadian English dialects spoken in Atlantic Canada that is notably distinct from Standard Canadian English. It is composed of Maritime English (or Maritimer English) and Newfoundland English. It was m ...
. Canadian English has a mostly uniform phonology and much less dialectal diversity than neighbouring
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...
. In particular, Standard Canadian English is defined by the
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger, also known as the merger or low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in words like ''cot'' versus ''caught''. ''Cot'' and ''cau ...
to and an accompanying
chain shift
In historical linguistics, a chain shift is a set of sound changes in which the change in pronunciation of one speech sound (typically, a phoneme) is linked to, and presumably causes, a change in pronunciation of other sounds. The sounds invo ...
of vowel sounds, which is called the
Canadian Shift. A subset of the dialect geographically at its central core, excluding
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
to the west and everything east of
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
, has been called ''Inland Canadian English''. It is further defined by both of the phenomena that are known as
Canadian raising (which is found also in British Columbia and Ontario): the production of and with
back starting points in the mouth and the production of with a front starting point and very little glide that is almost in the
Canadian Prairies
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
.
Phonetics and phonology
* Vowel length is a secondary phonemic feature of tense vowels in Canadian English, with the lowered variant of /ɛ/ and the
tense variant of /æ/ being distinguished entirely by length for some speakers
* The phonemes (as in ''boat'') and (as in ''bait'') behave as
monophthongs
A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...
phonologically, and are often pronounced as such, especially in the
Prairie Provinces
The Canadian Prairies (usually referred to as simply the Prairies in Canada) is a region in Western Canada. It includes the Canadian portion of the Great Plains and the Prairie provinces, namely Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These provin ...
.
Back vowel fronting
The onset of unraised is usually low central ,
though it may be fronted before nasals. usually remains backed , unlike the fronted values found in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...
, the
Midland or
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
. That said, fronted pronunciations of may exist for some younger speakers. In addition, some younger speakers front and lower .
Unlike most
Northern American English, /u/ is generally fronted in Canadian English. In Victoria, where the historical distinction between post-coronal and is often maintained, the latter may be so front as to gain a -like onglide.
Low-back merger
Almost all Canadians have the
cot–caught merger
The ''cot''–''caught'' merger, also known as the merger or low back merger, is a sound change present in some dialects of English where speakers do not distinguish the vowel phonemes in words like ''cot'' versus ''caught''. ''Cot'' and ''cau ...
, which also occurs primarily in the Western United States but also often elsewhere in the country, especially recently. Few Canadians distinguish the vowels in ''cot'' and ''caught'', which merge as (more common in Western and central Canada) or (more common in the Maritimes and eastern mainland Canada in which it can even be fronted). Speakers with the merger often fail to hear the difference when speakers without the merger, such as
General American
General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English used by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent. ...
(GenAm) and
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 throughout much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most di ...
, pronounce the vowels. The merger has existed in Canada for several generations.
Some speakers may not exhibit the merger, especially older speakers and those living in rural areas or in the Prairies.
The standard pronunciation of (as in ''start'') is , as in GenAm, or perhaps somewhat fronted as . As with Canadian raising, the advancement of the raised nucleus can be a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (in the
Maritime Provinces
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of ...
and
Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region of Labrador, having a total size of . As of 2025 the population ...
) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space; it is accompanied by a strong rhoticity ranging from to .
Words such as ''origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren'', as well as ''tomorrow, sorry, sorrow'', generally use the sound sequence of , rather than . The latter set of words often distinguishes Canadian from American pronunciation. In Standard Canadian English, there is
no distinction between ''horse'' and ''hoarse''.
Loanwords that have a low central vowel in their language of origin, such as ''llama'', ''pasta'', and ''pyjamas'', as well as place names like ''Gaza'' and ''Vietnam'', tend to have , rather than (which includes the historical , and because of the father–bother and cot–caught mergers). That also applies to older loans like ''drama'' or ''Apache''. The word ''khaki'' is sometimes pronounced (or even ). The pronunciation of ''drama'' with is in decline, and studies found that 83% of Canadians used in 1956, 47% in 1999, and 10% in 2012. More generally, younger speakers tend to use more than they did before, though there's still quite a bit of variation.
Some words, including ''plaza'', ''façade'', and ''lava'' will take a low central phone , possibly distinct from both and .
Canadian Shift
The cot-caught merger creates a gap in the short vowel subsystem and triggers a sound change known as the
Canadian Shift, which involves the front lax vowels . The of ''bat'' is lowered and retracted in the direction of except in some environments, as is noted below. Indeed, is farther back than in almost all other North American dialects, and the retraction of was independently observed 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 cit ...
and is more advanced for Ontarians and for women 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 ...
and
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (), is the list of regions of Canada, region of Eastern Canada comprising four provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. As of 2021, the landma ...
and men.
[Charles Boberg, "Sounding Canadian from Coast to Coast: Regional accents in Canadian English."]
Then, and may be lowered (in the direction of and ) and/or retracted, but studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift. For example, Labov and others (2006) noted a backward and downward movement of in
apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of was detected.
Therefore, in Canadian English, the short ''a'' of ''trap'' or ''bath'' and the broad ''ah'' quality of ''spa'' or ''lot'' are shifted oppositely from those of the
Northern Cities shift, which is found across the border in
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 throughout much of the U.S. Great Lakes region. The most di ...
, and is causing both dialects to diverge. In fact, the Canadian short-''a'' is very similar in quality to Inland Northern ''spa'' or ''lot''. For example, the production would be recognized as ''map'' in Canada but ''mop'' in Inland Northern United States.
/æ/-raising
Unlike many American English dialects, remains a low-front vowel in most environments in Canadian English. Raising along the front periphery of the vowel space is restricted to two environments, before nasal and voiced velar consonants, and even then varies regionally. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English often show some raising before nasals, but it is less extreme than in many American varieties. Much less raising is heard on the Prairies, and some ethnic groups in
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
show no pre-nasal raising at all. On the other hand, some speakers in the Prairies and British Columbia have raising of before voiced velars ( and , with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, such that ''bag'' may almost rhyme with ''vague''. For most Canadian speakers, is also realized higher as before .
Canadian raising
Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is "
Canadian raising," which is found most prominently throughout central and west-central Canada and in parts of the
Atlantic Provinces. For the beginning points of the diphthongs (
gliding vowels) (as in the words ''height'' and ''mice'') and (as in ''shout'' and ''house''), the tongue is often more "
raised" than in other varieties of English in the mouth when the diphthongs are before
voiceless consonants: , , , , , and .
Before voiceless consonants, becomes . One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of that and . In Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation sometimes approaching , but in the West and the Maritimes, a more retracted sound is heard, which is closer to .
For some speakers in the Prairies and in Nova Scotia, the retraction is strong enough to cause some tokens of raised to merge with ; ''couch'' then merges with ''coach'', and both words
sound the same (). Also, ''about'' then sounds like ''a boat'', which is often inaccurately represented as sounding like "a boot" for comic effect in
American popular culture
The culture of the United States encompasses various social behaviors, institutions, and Social norm, norms, including forms of Languages of the United States, speech, American literature, literature, Music of the United States, music, Visual a ...
.
In GenAm, ''out'' is typically , but with slight Canadian raising, it may sound more like , and with the strong Canadian raising of the Prairies and Nova Scotia, it may sound more like . Canadian raising makes words like ''height'' and ''hide'' have two different vowel qualities. Also, for example, ''house'' as a noun (''I saw a house'') and ''house'' as a verb (''Where will you house them tonight?'') can then have two different vowel qualities: and .
Especially in parts of the Atlantic Provinces, some Canadians do not have Canadian raising. On the other hand, certain non-Canadian accents use Canadian raising. In the United States, it can be found in areas near the border in dialects in the
Upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wi ...
,
Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...
, and
Northeastern New England (like
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
) dialects, but Canadian raising is much less common than in Canada. The raising of alone is actually increasing throughout the United States and, unlike the raising of , is generally not perceived as unusual by people who do not exhibit the raising.
Because of Canadian raising, many speakers can distinguish between words such as ''writer'' and ''rider'', which can otherwise be pronounced the same in North American dialects, which typically turn both intervocalic and into an
alveolar flap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based pri ...
. Thus, ''writer'' and ''rider'' are distinguished solely by their vowel characteristics as determined by Canadian raising, which causes a
split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, enter ...
between ''rider'' as and ''writer'' as ().
Phonemic incidence
Although Canadian English phonology is part of the
greater North American sound system and so is therefore similar to American English phonology, the pronunciation of particular words may have British influence, and other pronunciations are uniquely Canadian. The ''Cambridge History of the English Language'' states, "What perhaps most characterizes Canadian speakers, however, is their use of several possible variant pronunciations for the same word, sometimes even in the same sentence."
* The name of the letter
Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) ''zed'', and the American ''zee'' is less common in Canada and often stigmatized but remains common, especially for younger speakers.
* ''Lieutenant'' was historically pronounced as the British , rather than the American ,
and older speakers and official usage in military and government contexts typically still follow the older practice, but most younger speakers and many middle-aged speakers have shifted to the American pronunciation. Some middle-aged speakers cannot even remember the existence of the older pronunciation, even when they are specifically asked whether they can think of another pronunciation. Only 14-19% of 14-year-olds used the traditional pronunciation in a survey in 1972, and in early 2017, they were at least 57 years old.
[
* In the words ''adult'' and ''composite'', the stress is usually on the first syllable ( ~ , ), as in Britain.
* Canadians often side with the British on the pronunciation of ''lever'' , and several other words; ''been'' is pronounced by many speakers as , rather than ; and ''either'' and ''neither'' are more commonly and , respectively.
* Furthermore, in accordance with British traditions, ''schedule'' is sometimes ; ''process'', ''progress'', and ''project'' are occasionally pronounced , , and , respectively; ''harass'' and ''harassment'' are sometimes pronounced and respectively, and ''leisure'' is rarely .
* ''Shone'' is pronounced , rather than .
* ''Again'' and ''against'' are often pronounced , rather than .
* Words like ''semi'', ''anti'', and ''multi'' tend to be pronounced , , and , rather than , , and .
* Words of French origin, such as ''clique'' and ''niche'', are pronounced with a high vowel as in French, with rather than and rather than . Other words such as ''foyer'' () have a French-influenced pronunciation.
* ''Pecan'' is usually or , as opposed to , which more common in the United States.
* The most common pronunciation of ''vase'' is . ''Resource'', ''diagnose'', and ''visa'' also have .
* The word ''premier'', the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is commonly pronounced , but and are rare variants.
* Some Canadians pronounce ''predecessor'' as and ''asphalt'' as .
* The word ''room'' is pronounced or .
* Many anglophone Montrealers pronounced French names with a Quebec accent: ''Trois-Rivières'' or .
* The pour-poor merger is less common than in GenAm.
]
Features shared with General American
Like most other North American English
North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar ...
dialects, Canadian English is almost always spoken with a rhotic accent
The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant, , is preserved in all ph ...
, meaning that the ''r'' sound is preserved in any environment and not "dropped" after vowels, as commonly done by, for example, speakers in central and southern England where it is only pronounced when preceding a vowel.
Like GenAm, Canadian English possesses a wide range of phonological mergers, many of which are not found in other major varieties of English:
the Mary–marry–merry merger which makes word pairs like ''Barry/berry'', ''Carrie/Kerry'', ''hairy/Harry'', ''perish/parish'', etc. as well as trios like ''airable/errable/arable'' and ''Mary/merry/marry'' have identical pronunciations (however, a distinction between the ''marry'' and ''merry'' sets remains in Montreal); the father–bother merger
The phonology of the open back vowels of the English language has undergone changes both overall and with regional variations, through Old and Middle English to the present. The sounds heard in modern English were significantly influenced by th ...
that makes ''lager/logger'', ''con/Kahn'', etc. sound identical;
the very common horse–hoarse merger making pairs like ''for/four'', ''horse/hoarse'', ''morning/mourning'', ''war/wore'' etc. perfect homophone
A homophone () is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning or in spelling. The two words may be spelled the same, for example ''rose'' (flower) and ''rose'' (past tense of "rise"), or spelled differently, a ...
s (as in California English, the vowel is phonemicized as due to the cot–caught merger: etc.);
the hurry-furry merger
In English, many vowel shifts affect only vowels followed by in rhotic dialects, or vowels that were historically followed by that has been elided in non-rhotic dialects. Most of them involve the merging of vowel distinctions, so fewer vowel ...
;
and the prevalent wine–whine merger which produces homophone pairs like ''Wales/whales'', ''wear/where'', ''wine/whine'' etc. by, in most cases, eliminating ( ʍ), except in some older speakers.
In addition to that, flapping
Flapping or tapping, also known as alveolar flapping, intervocalic flapping, or ''t''-voicing, is a phonological process involving a voiced alveolar tap or flap; it is found in many varieties of English, especially North American, Cardiff, Uls ...
of intervocalic and to alveolar tap
The voiced alveolar tap or flap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents a dental consonant, dental, alveolar consonant, alveolar, or postalveolar consonant, p ...
before reduced vowels is ubiquitous, so the words ''ladder'' and ''latter'', for example, are mostly or entirely pronounced the same. Therefore, the pronunciation of the word "British" in Canada and the U.S. is most often , while in England it is commonly or . For some speakers, the merger is incomplete and 't' before a reduced vowel is sometimes not tapped following or when it represents underlying
In finance, a derivative is a contract between a buyer and a seller. The derivative can take various forms, depending on the transaction, but every derivative has the following four elements:
# an item (the "underlier") that can or must be bou ...
't'; thus ''greater'' and ''grader'', and ''unbitten'' and ''unbidden'' are distinguished.
Many Canadian speakers have the typical American dropping of after alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants (; UK also ) are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wi ...
s, so that ''new'', ''duke'', ''Tuesday'', ''suit'', ''resume'', ''lute'', for instance, are pronounced (rather than ), , , , , . Traditionally, glide retention in these contexts has occasionally been held to be a shibboleth
A shibboleth ( ; ) is any custom or tradition—usually a choice of phrasing or single word—that distinguishes one group of people from another. Historically, shibboleths have been used as passwords, ways of self-identification, signals of l ...
distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in 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. T ...
area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced ''student'' and ''news'', for instance, without . This glide-deletion is less common in Victoria, though younger speakers front to such a degree after coronals that some words can take a -like onglide.
Canadians do include in ''revenue'' and ''avenue''.
Especially in Vancouver and Toronto, an increasing number of Canadians realize as when the raising of to before the underlying is applied even after the "g" is dropped, leading to a variant pronunciation of ''taking'', . Otherwise it primarily is found in speakers from not just California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
but also from other Western states
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. ...
and Midwestern areas including the Upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a northern subregion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. Although the exact boundaries are not uniformly agreed upon, the region is usually defined to include the states of Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Wi ...
. Speakers who use the variant use it only for the underlying , which makes ''taking'' with a dropped "g" no longer homophonous with ''taken''. This pronunciation is otherwise perceived as incorrect and has been described as a "corruption of the language" by some listeners.
Notes
References
Bibliography
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{{Language phonologies
Canadian English
English language in Canada