Canadian English
[14] Standard Canadian and General American English share identical or near-identical phonemic inventories, though their exact phonetic realizations may sometimes differ.
While early linguistic approaches date back to the second half of the 19th century, the first textbook to consider Canadian English in one form or another was not published until 1940.
[18] 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.
Further waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910, 1960, and at the present time had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.
[32] While Canadian English has borrowed many words and expressions from other languages, it has also developed its own unique vocabulary and pronunciation that reflects the country's distinct identity.
[46] The use of such spellings was the long-standing practice of the Canadian Press perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to World War II.
[47] 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 was set manually.
[47] Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, so it was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided.
The Consortium comprises the Editors' Association of Canada, the UBC Canadian English Lab, and Queen's University's Strategy Language Unit.
[58] Labov's research focused on urban areas, and did not survey the country, but they found similarities among the English spoken in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
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.
Although it has not been studied extensively, the speech of Cape Breton specifically seems to bear many similarities with the nearby island of Newfoundland, which is often why Westerners can have a hard time differentiating the two accents.
[76] In the southern part of Southwestern Ontario (roughly in the line south from Sarnia to St. Catharines), despite the existence of many characteristics of West/Central Canadian English, many speakers, especially those under 30, speak a dialect influenced by the Inland Northern American English dialect (in part due to proximity to cities like Detroit and Buffalo, New York)[citation needed] though there are minor differences such as Canadian raising (e.g. "ice" vs "my").
In the area north of the Regional Municipality of York and south of Parry Sound, 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 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.
[13][96] 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, constable, for a police officer of the lowest rank, and chartered accountant.
[100] The francophone dominance in Quebec makes the province a linguistic anomaly within Canada, where English maintains a negligible role in government and public domains.
[100] The French influence on Quebec English operates through five distinct processes, as identified by Charles Boberg: elective direct lexical transfer of non-English words (e.g., garderie for daycare), imposed direct lexical transfer of non-English words, for example, SAQ for Société des alcools du Québec, loan translation/calques such as 'all-dressed' for the French equivalent 'toute garnie'.
[101] Walter S. Avis identified several linguistic features characteristic of Ontarians, including their preference for the word vacation, rather than holiday—which is considered more British English—and sack over paper bag.
While there may be numerous such lexical differences in the speech of provincial and national borderers, Avis asserts that these are relatively minor compared to the linguistic features held in common.
It should be further noted that it is assumed based on circumstantial evidence that teenagers played a crucial and special role in the spread and adoption of the term bunnyhug for hooded sweatshirts.
The historical immigrants from Europe have shaped cultures and lexical catalogs across the regions of Atlantic Canada that reflect British, Scottish, Gaelic, and French customs.
[114] Sarah Sawler, a writer from Halifax, highlights terms that are common to Maritimes, such as dooryard for front yard, owly for when someone is angry or irritable, and biff for throw.
Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own civil law system, are called "barristers and solicitors" because any lawyer licensed in any of the common law provinces and territories 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 legal profession).
The words advocate and notary – two distinct professions in Quebec civil law – are used to refer to that province's approximate equivalents of barrister and solicitor, respectively.
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.
In the early 1950s, McDavid noted the value of using a lexical WQ for the Linguistic Atlas of Scotland, but later, Chambers and Trudgill stated that WQs were no longer the primary method of data-gathering.
This newly suggested approach allowed Labov to capture the "vernacular" which is the casual style of speech that people use within a day-to-day basis when they are not being observed.
The historical overview of written surveys in Canadian-English dialectology includes Avis's study of speech differences among the Ontario-United States borders through the use of questionnaires.
Unlike the assumption that Toronto or Ontario English would be the most prestigious considering these regions are the most economically robust, BC had the best public opinion regarding pleasantness and correctness among the participants.
