A Unique Dialect

Canada’s history of English-speaking settlement might be expected to have

created a hybrid variety of English with a distinctive blend of American and
British features. This is indeed what we find, together with a few features that
are uniquely Canadian. Nevertheless, in the most general sense, the English
spoken today by most Canadians from British Columbia to Nova Scotia is clearly
a type of North American English, most similar to that of the western United
States and to General American English. This is particularly true of its grammar
and of the most systematic aspects of its pronunciation
Many linguists attribute this North American character to the influence of
the Loyalists and post-Loyalists, who to a large extent founded Canada’s
English-speaking population and thereby created a common origin with
American English. In most places, the children of 19th-century British settlers
and those who came after them would have adopted the local variety of English
that had developed from 18th-century Loyalist speech, which was later
transferred to western Canada when Ontarians settled there in the late-19th
century. Several of the main features of Canadian English, however, can also be
found in the regional dialects brought to Canada by British settlers from northern
and western England, Scotland and Ireland, so their presence in Canada may
reflect a combination of both sources of influence.
The English of Newfoundland, which remained a separate British colony until
1949, has traditionally been seen as distinct from that of mainland Canada,
reflecting its more specific origins in southwestern England and southeastern
Ireland (especially the region around Waterford). Though many young
Newfoundlanders have recently been shifting their speech toward general
Canadian patterns, the speech of most people in the capital, St. John’s, still
retains a notably Irish-influenced character that separates it from general
Canadian English. The rich local vocabulary of Newfoundland has been
catalogued in a Dictionary of Newfoundland English with thousands of entries
(see Dictionary).

Canadianisms

Canadians also display a small set of their own unique vocabulary, which can be
called Canadianisms. In discussing Canadianisms, it is important to distinguish
between international words for things that occur only or mostly in Canada, and
uniquely Canadian words for things that occur internationally.

Only, where Canadians use their own word for something that has other names
in other dialects, is a true Canadianism in the linguistic sense. Some examples
include the following: a small apartment without a separate bedroom is
a bachelor in Canada but a studio in the US and Britain; a machine that
performs banking services is a bank machine in Canada but an ATM in the US
and a cash dispenser in Britain; the structures along the edge of a roof for
collecting rainwater are eavestroughs in much of Canada but gutters in the US
and Britain; the years of school are grade one, grade two, etc., in Canada
but first grade, etc., in the US and year one, etc., in Britain; pencils used for
colouring are usually pencil crayons in Canada but colored pencilsin the US
and colouring pencils in Britain; orange cones used to manage traffic during road
repairs are pylons in Canada but traffic cones in the US and Britain; a tight-fitting
woolen winter hat is a toque in Canada but a beanie in the US and Britain; and,
a public toilet is a washroom in Canada but a restroom in the US and
a lavatory or loo in Britain.

Nonetheless, Canadian English often shows variation in the use of these words,
with Canadianisms competing with other words, usually the American variants.
This sometimes results in the decline or disappearance of Canadianisms. The
best-known example is chesterfield, which used to be the standard Canadian
term for what is called a couch in the US and a sofa or settee in Britain; today,
while some older Canadians continue to use chesterfield, most younger
Canadians say couch.

Loanwords

The French and British were not, of course, the first people to occupy the land
that became Canada; for thousands of years before their arrival, it was home to
a wide array of Indigenous cultures and their languages. When European
settlers arrived, many of the things they encountered, like aspects of the
natural environment, were already familiar to them and were given pre-existing
European
names: bay, bear, beaver, birch, bison, cod, deer, duck, eagle, fir, fox, frost, glac
ier, grasshopper, gull, hail, hare, ice, lake, lobster, loon, maple, marsh, mosquito
, mountain, owl, pine, poplar, prairie, puffin, river, salmon, seal, sleet, slushand s
now are all European words, among thousands of other examples. Even many
unfamiliar things were given European names, adapted to fit new, North
American meanings, like robin, which denotes different birds in North America
and Europe.

Many terms connected with Indigenous cultures,

like chief, dogsled, harpoon, peace pipe, snowshoe, sun dance and sweat lodge,
are also of European origin. In a few cases, however, words were borrowed from
Indigenous languages. Many of these are shared with American English, since
the international border is irrelevant to the natural and Indigenous worlds. A few
examples of Indigenous loanwords in North American English
are caribou, chinook, chipmunk, husky, igloo, inukshuk, kamik, kayak, moccasin, 
moose, mucky-muck, mukluk, muskeg, powwow, raccoon, saskatoon, skunk, so
ckeye, teepee, toboggan, wapiti and wigwam. Admittedly, most of these do not
occur very often in everyday speech and their number is remarkably small,
compared to the much larger vocabulary transferred from European languages.
The major contribution of Indigenous languages to Canadian English is therefore
not in common nouns or other parts of ordinary vocabulary, but in place names,
something few modern Canadians stop to think about: the
names Manitoba, Mississauga, Niagara, Nunavut, Ontario, Ottawa, Quebec, Sa
skatchewan, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Yukon — as well as the name Canadaitself
— all come from Indigenous languages.

Spelling

One domain where Canadian English shows a more balanced mixture of

American and British standards is spelling, reflecting a continued belief among
many Canadian educators and others in positions of linguistic authority that
British English is more correct than American. Thus, Canadians tend to use
British “-our” spellings in words like color, labor and vigor and “-re” spellings
in center, fiber and theater. Other British spellings preferred by Canadians
are cheque over American check, grey over gray and travelled over traveled.
There are many inconsistencies, however: Canadians prefer British catalogue to
American catalog but not British programme to American program, while use of
British defence and American defense is mixed. Even the use of “-our,” which is
the most systematic and iconic pattern, has exceptions: most Canadians
prefer odor and favorite over odour and favourite. Moreover, some British
spellings rarely occur in Canada, like kerbfor curb and tyre for tire, or some
foreign-influenced spellings of fancy words
like analyse, criticise, paediatrics and foetus. Technological developments have
tended to increase American influence on Canadian spelling, with American
spellings normalized by the use of American-made spell-checker applications in
word-processing programs and intensive exposure to written American English
on the Internet, especially among younger Canadians.

While some Canadians have strong opinions on these matters, often pointing to
arbitrary and isolated examples of British spelling as symbols of Canadian
cultural independence from the United States, most linguists agree that the main
characteristic of Canadian spelling is the absence of any consistent pattern, with
choices between American and British forms varying by word, context,
publication, genre, region and social group, thereby reflecting Canada’s
transitional position between the two main standards of World English. It might
be said that tolerance of disagreement about spelling is in any case a truer
reflection of the modern Canadian character than a rigid adherence to British
standards. As a result, however, Canadian writers, editors and other language
professionals face sometimes perplexing choices and uncertainties that do not
burden their British or American colleagues, at least not to the same extent.

Regional Variation

Canadian English is notable for its comparative lack of regional variation, with a
very similar type of English spoken by most people across the vast territory
between Victoria and Halifax. Compared to Britain and the eastern United
States, regional differences are small and subtle and they decrease from east to
west. In the Maritimes, distinctive enclaves of traditional speech remain on Cape
Breton Island, in several parts of mainland Nova Scotia (like Pictou County) and
on Prince Edward Island. Quebec English is highly distinctive because of its
comparative lack of Loyalist influence and its close contact with French. The
Ottawa Valley that divides Quebec and Ontario also has a distinctive traditional
dialect reflecting Scottish and Irish settlement. Further west, from southern
Ontario to British Columbia, only very subtle differences are found, with a few
exceptions, like religious communities on the Prairies. In northern Canada, we
find distinct types of English spoken by many Indigenous people, reflecting the
influence of Indigenous languages, but most of the non-Indigenous population is
too recent and diverse to have formed a regional dialect in the traditional sense.
Even in eastern Canada, many traditional dialect enclaves are now recessive, as
younger people shift their speech toward general Canadian models. The
isolation that once sustained dialect enclaves has all but disappeared.

Regional Pronunciation

important regional indicators can be identified, even within the domain of what
we might label Standard Canadian English. Some of these involve
pronunciation. For instance, the vowel of words like start (e.g., bar, far, market),
is pronounced further forward in the mouth by Atlantic Canadiansthan by
westerners, while Canadian Raising produces slightly different sounds in Ontario
and the West. In words like doubt, house and mouth, the diphthong used by
southern Ontarians begins with a sound something like the vowel of bet,
whereas that used by people on the Prairies begins with a sound more like the
vowel of but. In words like bag, flag and tag, westerners tend to use a higher
vowel than central or eastern Canadians, like that of vague, so that bag sounds
something like the first syllable of bagel. Montreal is the only place in mainland
Canada where most people still distinguish between the trap and dress vowels
when they occur before an intervocalic /r/, in words
like arrow versus error, barrel versus berry, or marry versus merry. For most
Canadians, the first syllables of these words sound the same, so arrow sounds
like air, barrel like bare and marry like mare. In Montreal, as in the eastern US
and Britain, they sound different, with the first word in each pair having a vowel
sound more like that of trap than that of dress.
Canadian Raising

Another distinctive Canadian pronunciation pattern is called Canadian Raising.

This is a shortening of the diphthongs in words like price and mouth, causing the
vowel to be produced somewhat higher in the mouth than in other dialects.
(Diphthongs are two-part vowels; in the vowel of spy, for instance, the first part
sounds like the vowel of spa and the second part sounds like the vowel
of see [“spah-ee”].) Since Canadian Raising only occurs before the voiceless
consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /th/ and /s/, Canadian English distinguishes the raised
and unraised vowels in pairs of words
like type v. tie, write v. ride, spike v. spy, shout v. loud, south v. sound,
or house v. how. While some American dialects also raise the vowels
of price words, raising in mouth words is more distinctively Canadian.

Vocabulary

American Versus British Words

British and American English have developed distinct vocabularies for many
aspects of modern life, especially in such semantic domains as clothing, food
and transportation. In general, Canadians follow the American model in these
cases; like Americans, they say apartment rather than flat, diaper rather
than nappy, elevator rather than lift, flashlight rather than torch, freight car rather
than goods wagon, fries rather than chips (Canadian chips are what the British
call crisps), pants rather than trousers, sweater rather than jumper, truck rather
than lorry, and wrenchrather than spanner. Canadian cars, like American,
have hoods, fenders, mufflers, trunks, turn signals and windshields —
not bonnets, wings, silencers, boots, indicators and windscreens — and drive
on gas from gas stations, not petrol from filling stations or petrol stations.

In a few cases, however, most Canadians prefer British words: billrather

than check for the tally of charges in a restaurant; cutleryrather
than silverware for knives, forks and spoons; icing rather than frosting for the top
layer of a cake; icing sugar rather than powdered sugar for the finely ground
sugar sprinkled on desserts; tap rather than faucet for the device that controls
the flow of water into a sink; and, zed rather than zee for the last letter of the
alphabet.

Pronunciation

The colonial American English that the Loyalists brought to Canada was

established in the 17th century, before several of the changes that created
modern Standard British English had occurred in southeastern England. In
particular, most modern North American English retains the /r/ sound after
vowels, in words like start and north, and has the same short-a sound in words
like trap and bath, rather than the lengthened and further-back /ah/-sound
of bath and similar words (past, staff, etc.) that is heard today in London.

Other general North American features shared by Canadian English may reflect
more recent American influence. The /t/ sound, when it occurs after a stressed
vowel in the middle of a word, as in city, better, Ottawa, battle and party, sounds
more like a /d/: “siddy,” “bedder,” “Oddawa,” “baddle” and “pardy” (linguists call
this “flapping”). The vowel sound of words like news, student and Tuesday,
which is like that of few in British English, is more like that of food in the US and
Canada: “nooze,” “stoodent,” “toozeday” rather than “nyooze,” “styoodent,”
“tyoozeday” (though some Canadians prefer the British variants).

In discussing Canadianisms, it is important to distinguish between international

words for things that occur only or mostly in Canada, and uniquely Canadian
words for things that occur internationally.

The first type of word represents the uniqueness of Canada but not of Canadian
English. It is not difficult to think of distinctively Canadian things: flora and fauna
that are found only or mostly in Canada, like the Canada goose, Canada
jay or Canada lynx; aspects of Canadian Indigenous cultures, like the buffalo
jump,pemmican or the totem pole; Canadian historical artifacts, like
the Hudson’s Bay point blanket, the Red River cart or the York boat; Canadian
inventions, like IMAX films, kerosene, , poutine, the Robertson screw or
the snowmobile; Canadian institutions, like the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the United Church of
Canada. All of these things contribute to a Canadian cultural identity and their
names are Canadian words in one sense, yet if people outside Canada found
occasion to refer to them, they would use the same words as Canadians. In a
parallel way, Canadians use Australian words like boomerang, didgeridoo,
kangaroo and koala; these words are part of World English, not of Canadian or
Australian English exclusively.