Standard Canadian English

Standard Canadian English is the largely homogeneous variety of Canadian English that is spoken particularly across Ontario and Western Canada, as well as throughout Canada among urban middle-class speakers from English-speaking families, excluding the regional dialects of Atlantic Canadian English. Canadian English has a mostly uniform phonology and much less dialectal diversity than neighbouring American English. In particular, Standard Canadian English is defined by the cot–caught merger to and an accompanying chain shift of vowel sounds, which is called the Canadian Shift. A subset of the dialect geographically at its central core, excluding British Columbia to the west and everything east of Montréal, 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 Prairie Provinces.

Phonetics and phonology

The phonemes (as in ''boat'') and (as in ''bait'') have qualities that are almost monophthongal for some speakers, especially in the Prairie Provinces.

Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger, 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 Maritime Canada) or (more common in central and eastern mainland Canada in which it can even be fronted). Speakers with the merger produce the vowels identically and often fail to hear the difference when speakers without the merger, such as General American and Inland Northern American English, pronounce the vowels. The merger has existed in Canada for several generations.

The standard pronunciation of (as in ''start'') is , as in General American, 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 and Newfoundland) 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''.

The 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 and is more advanced for Ontarians and for women than for people from the Prairies and Atlantic Canada 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 in the opposite way from those of the Northern Cities shift, which is found across the border in Inland Northern American English, 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.

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

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.

In General American, ''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, Pacific Northwest, and Northeastern New England (like Boston) 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 are able to 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. Thus, ''writer'' and ''rider'' are distinguished solely by their vowel characteristics as determined by Canadian raising, which causes a split between ''rider'' as and ''writer'' as ().

When not in a raised position and before voiceless consonants, is fronted to before nasals and low-central elsewhere.

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 show no pre-nasal raising at all. On the other hand, some speakers in the Prairies have raising of before voiced velars ( and ), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, and so ''bag'' can almost rhyme with ''vague''. For most Canadian speakers, is also realized higher as before .

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 .
* The stressed vowel of words such as ''borrow'', ''sorry'', and ''tomorrow'' is , like the vowel of , rather than of .
* Words like ''semi'', ''anti'', and ''multi'' tend to be pronounced , , and , rather than , , and .
* 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: see below). That also applies to older loans like ''drama'' or ''Apache''. The word ''khaki'' is sometimes pronounced or . The latter was the preferred pronunciation of the Canadian Army during World War II. 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.
* Words of French origin, such as ''clique'' and ''niche'', are pronounced with a high vowel as in French, with rather than and rather than .
* ''Pecan'' is usually or , as opposed to , which more common in the United States.
* ''Syrup'' is commonly pronounced or .
* 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 ''milk'' is pronounced (to rhyme with ''elk'') by some speakers but (to rhyme with ''ilk'') by others.
* The word ''room'' is pronounced or .
* Many anglophone Montrealers pronounced French names with a Québec accent: ''Trois-Rivières'' or .

Features shared with General American

Like most other North American English dialects, Canadian English is almost always spoken with a rhotic accent, meaning that the ''r'' sound is preserved in any environment and not "dropped" after vowels, as commonly done by, for example, speakers in central and southern England where it is only pronounced when preceding a vowel.

Like General American, Canadian English possesses a wide range of phonological mergers, 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 that makes ''lager/logger'', ''con/Kahn'', etc. sound identical; the very common horse–hoarse merger making pairs like ''for/four'', ''horse/hoarse'', ''morning/mourning'', ''war/wore'' etc. perfect homophones (as in California English, the vowel is phonemicized as due to the cot–caught merger: etc.); 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 of intervocalic and to alveolar tap 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 't'; thus ''greater'' and ''grader'', and ''unbitten'' and ''unbidden'' are distinguished.

Many Canadian speakers have the typical American dropping of after alveolar consonants, 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 distinguishing Canadians from Americans. However, in a survey conducted in the Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario in 1994, over 80% of respondents under the age of 40 pronounced ''student'' and ''news'', for instance, without .

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 but also from other Western states and Midwestern areas including the Upper Midwest. 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 incorrect and was described as a "corruption of the language" to listeners.

Notes

References

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{{Language phonologies

Canadian English
English language in Canada