Regional types of English in Canada

In contrast to General American:

- The /ɑː/ of foreign loan words in words such as drama or lava are usually pronounced like the a in bat: [dɹæmə], [lævə].

- Been is usually pronounced /bin/ rather than /bɪn/.

- Words such as borrow, sorry, and sorrow are generally pronounced with [-ɔr-], instead of with [-ɑr-].

- Americans sometimes claim to be able to recognize the Western/Central Canadian dialect instantly by their use of the word eh. However, only a certain usage of eh (detailed in the article) is peculiar to Canada. It is common in Northern/Central Ontario, the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. eh is used quite frequently in the North Central dialect, so a Canadian accent is often detected in people from North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin [20].

3.1.1 Canadian raising

Perhaps the most recognizable feature of Canadian English is Canadian raising. The diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ are "raised" before voiceless consonants, namely /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /f/. In these environments, /aɪ/ becomes [ʌɪ~ɜɪ~ɐɪ]. One of the few phonetic variables that divides Canadians regionally is the articulation of the raised allophone of /aʊ/: in Ontario, it tends to have a mid-central or even mid-front articulation, sometimes approaching [ɛʊ], while in the West and Maritimes a more retracted sound is heard, closer to [ʌʊ]. Among some speakers in the Prairies and in Nova Scotia, the retraction is strong enough to cause some tokens of raised /aʊ/ to merge with /oʊ/, so that couch and coach sound the same, and about sounds like a boat. Canadian raising is found throughout western and central Canada, as well as in parts of the Atlantic Provinces. It is the strongest in the inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland British Columbia, as well as certain parts of Ontario.

Many Canadians, especially in parts of the Atlantic provinces, do not possess Canadian raising. In the U.S., this feature can be found in areas near the border such as the Upper Midwest and parts of New England, although it is much less common than in Canada; raising of /aɪ/ alone, however, is increasing in the U.S., and unlike raising of /aʊ/, is generally not noticed by people who do not have the raising.

Because of Canadian raising, many speakers are able to distinguish between words such as writer and rider –  a feat otherwise impossible, because North American dialects turn intervocalic /t/ into an alveolar flap. Thus writer and rider are distinguished solely by their vowels, even though the distinction between their consonants has since been lost. Speakers who do not have raising cannot distinguish between these two words based on vowel length alone [21].

3.1.2 The cot–caught merger and the Canadian Shift

Almost all Canadians have the cot–caught merger, which also occurs in the Western U.S. Speakers do not distinguish /ɔ/ (as in caught) and /ɒ/ (as in cot), which merge as either [ɒ] (more common in Western Canada and) or [ɑ] (more common in Southern Ontario and in Atlantic Canada, where it might even be fronted). Speakers with this merger produce these vowels identically, and often fail to hear the difference when speakers who preserve the distinction (for example, speakers of General American and Inland Northern American English) pronounce these vowels. This merger has existed in Canada for several generations.

This merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift, which involves the front lax vowels /æ, ɛ, ɪ/. The /æ/ of bat is lowered and retracted in the direction of [a] (except in some environments, see below). Indeed, /æ/ is further back in this variety than almost all other North American dialects; the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men. Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ may be lowered (in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ]) and/or retracted; studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift. For example, Labov and others noted a backward and downward movement of /ɛ/ in apparent time in all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces, but no movement of /ɪ/ was detected.

Therefore, in Canadian English, the short-a and the short-o are shifted in opposite directions to that of the Northern Cities shift, found across the border in the Inland Northern U.S., which is causing these two dialects to diverge: the Canadian short-a is very similar in quality to the Inland Northern short-o; for example, the production [maːp] would be recognized as map in Canada, but mop in the Inland North [22].

3.1.3 Other features

Most Canadians have two principal allophones of /aɪ/ (raised to lower-mid position before voiceless consonants and low-central or low-back elsewhere) and three of /aʊ/ (raised before voiceless consonants, fronted to [aʊ] or [æʊ] before nasals, and low-central elsewhere).

Unlike in many American English dialects, /æ/ 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 varies regionally even in these. Ontario and Maritime Canadian English commonly show some raising before nasals, though not as extreme as 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 Prairie speech exhibits raising of /æ/ before voiced velars (/ɡ/ and /ŋ/), with an up-glide rather than an in-glide, so that bag sounds close to vague.

The first element of /ɑr/ (as in start) tends to be raised. As with Canadian raising, the relative advancement of the raised nucleus is a regional indicator. A striking feature of Atlantic Canadian speech (the Maritimes and Newfoundland) is a nucleus that approaches the front region of the vowel space, accompanied by strong rhoticity, ranging from [ɜɹ] to [ɐɹ]. Western Canadian speech has a much more retracted articulation with a longer non-rhotic portion, approaching a mid-back quality, [ɵɹ] (though there is no tendency toward a merger with /ɔr/). Articulation of /ɑr/ in Ontario is in a position midway between the Atlantic and Western values.

Another change in progress in Canadian English, part of a continental trend affecting many North American varieties, is the fronting of /uː/, whereby the nucleus of /uː/ moves forward to high-central or even high-front position, directly behind /iː/. There is a wide range of allophonic dispersion in the set of words containing /uː/ (i.e., the GOOSE set), extending over most of the high region of the vowel space. Most advanced are tokens of /uː/ in free position after coronals (do, too); behind these are tokens in syllables closed with coronals (boots, food, soon), then tokens before non-coronals (goof, soup); remaining in back position are tokens of /uː/ before /l/ (cool, pool, tool). Unlike in some British speech, Canadian English does not show any fronting or unrounding of the glide of /uː/, and most Canadians show no parallel centralization of /oʊ/, which generally remains in back position, except in Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland.

Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as /oʊ/ (as in boat) and /eɪ/ (as in bait) have qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers especially in the Inland region.

Some older speakers still maintain a distinction between whale and wail, and do and dew [23].

3.1.4 British Columbia

British Columbia (BC or B.C.) is the westernmost province of Canada. In 1871, it became the sixth province of Canada. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest, along with the U.S states of Oregon and Washington. The province's name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858, reflecting its origins as the British remainder of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company. The capital of British Columbia is Victoria, the 15th largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for Canada's Queen at Confederation. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, and the second largest in the Pacific Northwest.

British Columbia English has several words still in current use borrowed from the Chinook Jargon although the use of such vocabulary is observably decreasing. The most famous and widely used of these terms are skookum and saltchuck. However, among young British Columbians, almost no one uses this vocabulary, and only a small percentage is even familiar with the meaning of such words.

In the Yukon, cheechako is used for newcomers or greenhorns. A study shows that people from Vancouver exhibit more vowel retraction of /æ/ before nasals than people from Toronto, and this retraction may become a regional marker of West Coast English [24].

Chinook Jargon (also known as chinuk wawa) originated as a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest, and spread during the 19th century from the lower Columbia River, first to other areas in modern Oregon and Washington, then British Columbia and as far as Alaska and Yukon Territory, sometimes taking on characteristics of a creole language. It is related to, but not the same as, the aboriginal language of the Chinook people, upon which much of its vocabulary is based.

Many words from Chinook Jargon remain in common use in the Western United States and British Columbia and the Yukon, in indigenous languages as well as regional English usage, to the point where most people are unaware the word was originally from the Jargon.

The Jargon was originally constructed from a great variety of Amerind words of the Pacific Northwest, arising as an intra-indigenous contact language in a region marked by divisive geography and intense linguistic diversity. The participating peoples came from a number of very distinct language families, speaking dozens of individual languages. It peaked in usage from approximately 1858 to 1900, and declined as a result of the Spanish Flu, World War I and residential schools.

After European contact, the Jargon also acquired English and French loans, as well as words brought by other European, Asian, and Polynesian groups. Some individuals from all these groups soon adopted The Jargon as a highly efficient and accessible form of communication. This use continued in some business sectors well into the 20th century and some of its words continue to feature in company and organization names as well as in the regional toponymy.

In the Diocese of Kamloops, British Columbia, hundreds of speakers also learned to read and write the Jargon using Duployan shorthand via the publication Kamloops Wawa. As a result, the Jargon also had the beginnings of its own literature, mostly translated scripture and classical works, and some local and episcopal news, community gossip and events, and diaries. Novelist and early Native American activist Marah Ellis Ryan (1860?-1934) used Chinook words and phrases in her writing.

According to Nard Jones, Chinook Jargon was still in use in Seattle until roughly the eve of World War II, especially among the members of the Arctic Club, making Seattle the last city where the language was widely used. Writing in 1972, he remarked that at that later date "Only a few can speak it fully, men of ninety or a hundred years old, like Henry Broderick, the realtor, and Joshua Green, the banker." [25]

Skookum. The most versatile - is skookum, which was used in the Jargon either as a verb auxiliary for to be able or an adjective for able, strong, big, genuine, reliable - which sums up its use in British Columbia English, although there are a wide range of possible usages: a skookum house is a jail or prison (house in the Jargon could mean anything from a building to a room). "He's a skookum guy" means that the person is solid and reliable while "we need somebody who's skookum" means that a strong and large person is needed. A carpenter, after banging a stud into place, might check it or refer to it as "yeah, that's skookum". Asking for affirmation, someone might say "is that skookum" or "is that skookum with you?" Skookum can also be translated simply as "O.K." but it means something a bit more emphatic.

Chuck, saltchuck. Other Jargon words in British Columbia English include chuck, originally meaning water or any fluid but adapted into English to refer to bodies of water, particularly "the saltchuck" in reference to salt water. In combination with skookum the compound word skookumchuck, meaning a rapids (lit. "strong water"), is found in three placenames although not used with its true meaning in ordinary speech. Chuck and saltchuck, however, remain common, notably in local broadcast English in weather/marine reports) [26].

3.1.5 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 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 population in Saskatchewan and Manitoba also carries with it certain linguistic traits inherited from 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 /sluː/: 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 [27].

3.1.6 Ontario

Ontario is one of the provinces of Canada, located in east-central Canada.  It is Canada's most populous province or territory and fourth largest in total area. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto.

Ontario is bordered by the province of Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and Quebec to the east, and to the south by the U.S. states of Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania. All but a small part of Ontario's 2,700 km (1,677 mi) border with the United States follows inland waterways: from the west at Lake of the Woods, eastward along the major rivers and lakes of the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence River drainage system. These are the Rainy River, the Pigeon River, Lake Superior, the St. Mary's River, Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and along the St. Lawrence River from Kingston, Ontario to the Quebec boundary just east of Cornwall, Ontario.

Ontario is sometimes conceptually divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontario's population and its arable land is located in the south. In contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated.

The area to the north and west of Ottawa is heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, with many French loanwords. This is frequently referred to as the Valley Accent [28].

Ottawa Valley Twang is the accent, sometimes referred to as a dialect of English, that is spoken in the Ottawa Valley, in Ontario, Canada. The Ottawa Valley is considered to be a linguistic enclave within Ontario, in the same manner that Lunenburg, Nova Scotia is within the Maritime Provinces. Ottawa Valley Twang originated with the Irish settlers of the valley the 1840s. There are at least ten distinct varieties of English in the Ottawa valley [ 29].

Toronto is the largest city in Canada and the provincial capital of Ontario. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. Toronto is a relatively modern city. Its history begins in the late 18th century, when the British Crown purchased its land from the Mississaugas of the New Credit. The British established a settlement there, called the Town of York, which its lieutenant governor, John Graves Simcoe, designated as the capital of Upper Canada. The city was ransacked in the Battle of York during the War of 1812. In 1834, York was incorporated as a city and renamed Toronto. It was damaged in two huge fires, in 1849 and 1904. Over the years, Toronto has several times expanded its borders through amalgamation with surrounding municipalities, most recently in 1998.

Toronto is at the heart of the Greater Toronto Area, and of the densely populated region in Southern Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe. Its cosmopolitan and international population reflects its role as an important destination for immigrants to Canada. Toronto is one of the world's most diverse cities by percentage of non-native-born residents, with about 49% of the population born outside Canada.

Although only 1.5% of Torontonians speak French, a relatively low proportion of them (56.2%) are native speakers of English, according to the 2006 Census. As a result Toronto shows a more variable speech pattern. Although slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities, there is also an influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian and African words.

Suburban residents are known to merge the second /t/ with the /n/ in Toronto, pronouncing the name variously as [toˈɹɒɾ̃o], [təˈɹɒɾ̃o] or even [ˈtɹɒɾ̃o] or [ˈtɹɒɾ̃ə]. This, however, is not unique to Toronto as Atlanta is often pronounced "Atlannna" by residents.

In Toronto and the areas surrounding Toronto (Central Ontario, Greater Toronto Area), the th sound /ð/ is often pronounced [d]. Sometimes /ð/ is elided altogether, resulting in "Do you want this one er'iss one?" The word southern is often pronounced with [aʊ]. In the regional area north of York and south of Parry Sound, notably among those who were born in these bedroom communities (Barrie, Vaughan, Orillia, Bradford, Newmarket, Keswick, etc.), the cutting down of syllables and consonants often heard, e.g. "probably" is reduced to "prolly", or "probly" when used as a response.

In Toronto's ethnic communities there are many words that are distinct; many of which come from the city's large Caribbean community [30].

Northern Ontario is a geographic and administrative region of the Canadian province of Ontario. The geographic region lies north of Lake Huron (including Georgian Bay), the French River, Lake Nipissing, and the Mattawa River.

Northern Ontario English has several distinct qualities from West/Central Canadian English. With a francophone population of nearly 100,000, there are several French and English words that are used interchangeably. For example, Northern Ontario Francophones often use the English 'truck' instead of the French 'camion', e.g. "J'ai achete' un nouveau truck." [31]

Southern Ontario is a region of the province of Ontario, Canada. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. Situated south of Algonquin Park it covers between 14 to 15% of the province, depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts.

Southern Ontario differs very greatly from Northern Ontario. The region has a larger population, different climate, and different culture than its northern counterpart. Southern Ontario can also be broken into smaller subregions, such as Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Southwestern Ontario, and the Golden Horseshoe.

Southern Ontarians often refer to a cottage as such, while Northern Ontarians would refer to it as a 'camp'. Similarly, Northern Ontarians often refer to backpacks as pack sacks. Northerns often say "I seen", where the standard English is "I saw" or "I have seen", e.g. "I seen him go to the shop." [32]