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Canadian English (CaE) is a variety of English used in Canada. It is spoken as a first or second language by over 25 million—or 75 percent of—Canadians (2001 census *). Canadian English spelling can be described as a mixture of American English, British English, Quebec French, and unique Canadianisms. Canadian vocabulary is similar to American English, yet with key differences and local variations.

In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, called The Oxford Canadian Dictionary; a second edition was published in 2004. It listed uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use.

History

Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the middle Atlantic states. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by a government worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 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.

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by Rev. A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglo-centric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison to the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.

Of course, the languages of Canadian Aboriginal peoples started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.

Spelling

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings (colour and centre), although American spellings are not uncommon. Also, while the U.S. uses the Anglo-French spelling for defense, Canada uses the British spelling defence. that the spelling defensive is universal. This is true as well for offence and offensive. In other cases, Canadians and Americans stand at odds with British spelling such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb (for the border of a sidewalk *, for other uses Britain uses curb).

Like American English, Canadian English prefers -ize endings whenever British usage allows both -ise Cambridge model and -ize spellings Oxford model (e.g. realize, recognize). However, some of the technical parts of the Air section of Transport Canada, e.g., Air Policy, use the Cambridge model suitably modified; e.g., tires instead of tyres, but organisational rather than organizational. (It appears that the Cambridge model is being phased out.) The Canadian version of Microsoft's spell checker allows both models.

A business-history explanation for some Canadian spelling rules is possible. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's car industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of a car. In fact, a major Canadian retail hardware and home goods chain is known as Canadian Tire.

British spellings which include digraphs (or their two-letter equivalents) are beginning to disappear from Canadian spellings (as they are, for that matter, from British English). Words such as encyclopædia, fœtus, and pædiatrician are frequently spelled encyclopedia, fetus, and pediatrician, although many Canadian dictionaries offer both spellings as an option and medical journals still include ligatures. Manoeuvre (instead of the U.S. maneuver) and archaeology (instead of archeology) are still the more common spelling in Canada, though.

A plausible contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references (see the section "Further reading").

Pronunciation

Overall, the pronunciation of English in most of Canada is very similar to the pronunciation of English found in the Western United States; this is especially true in Central and Western Canada. The island of Newfoundland has its own distinctive dialect of English known as Newfoundland English (often referred to as 'Newfie') while many in the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have an accent sounding more similar to Scottish and, in some places, Irish pronunciation than General American. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians.

Canada shares similarities with British English (and many other varieties of English) in pronouncing words like fragile, fertile, and mobile. While American English pronounce them as , , and , Canadians pronounce them as the British do, sounding like , The American pronunciation of fertile is also becoming very popular in Canada, even though the British pronunciation remains dominant.

In American English, words like semi, anti, and multi are often pronounced as , , and , whereas the British pronounce them like , , and so on. Canadians tend to prefer the British pronunciation of these words, though American pronunciation has made headway. Often, a Canadian will use the former in general use, but the latter in order to add emphasis.

In Canada, the word premier, as meant to be the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is pronounced , , or in most places. Premiere, denoting a first performance, is pronounced the same in Canada as the rest of the world.

French names like René are pronounced by some Canadians as Rennie rather than Renay by speakers of some other English dialects.

Another pronunciation that is typically Canadian is to pronounce asphalt as ash-falt . This pronunciation is also common in Australian English. It is however not the pronunciation used in either American English or British English.

Regional variation in pronunciation

Western/Central

The West/Central dialect is one of the largest and the most homogenous dialect area in North America. It forms a dialect continuum with the accent in the Western United States, and borders the dialect regions of North, Inland North, and North Central. While it is the most homogenous in that the regional differences inside the dialect area are very small, it has very few features that are unique. It is also fairly similar to General American English. While the West/Central dialect is mutually intelligible with many dialects of English spoken in England, especially Received Pronunciation, in general it preserves more archaic features that existed before the dialects diverged.

Maritimes

Maritimer English quirks include the removal of pre-consonantal sounds, and a faster speech tempo. It is heavily influenced by both British and Irish English.

An example of typical Maritime English might be the pronunciation of the letter t. The flapping of intervocalic and to alveolar tap before reduced vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop , is less common in the Maritimes. So, battery is pronounced as "bat-try" instead of with a flapped t.

While the stereotypical Canadian interrogative "Eh?" is used more often in the Maritimes than in most dialects in the U.S., it is actually relatively uncommon compared to the Prairies and Ontario. Alternatively, one might hear the interrogative "Right?" which is in turn used as an adverb (e.g.: "It was right foggy today!") as well. "Some" is used as an adverb as well, by some people (e.g.: "This cake is some good!"). And the two may even be combined to add emphasis. (e.g.: "That cake was right some good!") Such expressions tend to be widely used in the rural maritimes, but are less common in urban areas.

British terms are very much still a part of Maritime English, although slowly fading away in favour of American or Western terms. "Chesterfield" and "front room" are examples of this.

Cape Breton Island has a distinct dialect due to settlement by speakers of Acadian French and Scottish Gaelic.

Newfoundland

The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in vowel pronunciation, in morphology and syntax, in preservation of archaic adverbal-intensifiers. Dialect can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from region to region, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, and fishing villages in particular remained very isolated.

Vocabulary

Comparison of Canadian, British, and American lexicons

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English. Many terms in standard Canadian English are however shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers; in some cases the British and the American term coexist, while in others Canadians use words that are not or not commonly found elsewhere.

Education
Canadian students add grade before their grade level, instead of after it as is the usual, but not sole, American practice. For example, a student in "10th grade" in the U.S. would be in "Grade 10" in Canada. (In the UK the order is as in Canada, but it would be for example "Year 10" rather than "Grade 10". Quebec anglophones may instead say "sec 5" 5 for Grade 11.) Canadian students receive marks instead of grades in school. ("What mark did you get on that exam?") They also can lose marks on an exam rather than points. ("I lost 5 marks on this question.") Students write exams, they do not take them. The persons who supervise students during an exam are generally called invigilators as in Britain, or sometimes proctors as in the U.S.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution.

Canadian universities publish calendars, not catalogues as in the U.S. (Sears has a catalogue.) It should also be noted that in Canada, the specific high school grade (e.g. Grade 9 or Grade 12) or university year is stated and not the American terms freshman or sophomore.

The term college, which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as federated schools within some Canadian universities. Most often, a "college" is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CÉGEP in Quebec. In Canada a "college student" might denote someone obtaining a diploma in plumbing while "university student" is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, saying you are "going to college" does not have the same meaning as "going to university", unless someone is being specific about which level of post-secondary education they are referring to.

Units of measurement
Adoption of metric units is more advanced in Canada than in the U.S. due to governmental efforts during the Trudeau era; Canadians still often use pounds, feet, and inches to measure themselves, cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons in the kitchen and miles for distances (less common), but outdoor temperatures, fuel volume, and highway speeds are almost always given in metric figures. The term "clicks" is sometimes used interchangeably with kilometres. The prices of gasoline — the American term is preferred over petrol — require some awkward translation between Canadian and American figures. Even before the metrication efforts of the 1970s, the translation of "dollars per gallon" required not only replacing Canadian vs. American currencies but also a conversion between Imperial (4.5 L) vs. U.S. (3.8 L) gallons. It is common to express the rate of gas consumption as mileage, despite the typical notation of gas volumes in litres. However most people still refer to their mileage in "miles per gallon", retaining the use of the Imperial gallon, sometimes to much confusion.

Transportation

Politics

Law
While in England, Wales, Ireland, New South Wales and Queensland solicitors and barristers are distinct, the legal profession being divided and the terms having a practical meaning, in Canada (except civil law Quebec) the profession is fused and the same lawyer legally occupies both roles (even though most Canadian lawyers will choose to act in only one of the two). The terms Barrister and Solicitor and Q.C. (Queen's Counsel, an honour given in some provinces for a certain level of experience or, be it said, service to the political party in office — the practical distinction between QCs or SCs Counsel" and junior counsel in jurisdictions with a divided profession is unknown in Canada) are normally used as formal or official titles; lawyer, or counsel, predominates in everyday contexts, and sometimes (but very rarely) the American term attorney is encountered. As in England, a district attorney is called a crown attorney (in Ontario), crown counsel (in British Columbia), crown prosecutor or the crown. In court — at least in B.C. — crown prosecutors are addressed as "Mr Crown" or "Madam Crown."

Prior to the fusion of law and equity solicitors and attorneys practised, respectively, in the courts of law and equity. When the courts were fused, one of the two terms became superfluous; Americans chose attorney; the English, Irish, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders chose solicitor (although one still hears attorney from time to time in New South Wales, where law and equity were not fused until 1970). In the Indian subcontinent and Malaysia, perplexingly, the term advocate is used — in Canada this would indicate a Quebec legal practitioner who is equivalent to a barrister in England. Among Canadian lawyers themselves, especially those practising in Ontario, the word litigator is often used to refer to a lawyer who works mostly or exclusively as a barrister.

The words advocate and notary, which are two separate and distinct professions in civil law Quebec, are used to refer to that province's equivalent of barrister and solicitor, respectively. In Canada's common law provinces and territories, the word notary means strictly a notary public, a more limited legal professional who is not required to possess a law degree to practise and who may not represent a person in a court case or any complex business transaction. Although Canadian lawyers may qualify to practise the powers of a notary public (e.g. use of the notarial seal on documents), only the smallest law firms indicate their notary public capacity in their letterheads and business cards. Instead, it is very common for Canadian law firms to title themselves in the following manner: of firm's partners, Barristers and Solicitors. Further, it is common for an individual lawyer to title him/herself as Barrister and Solicitor even though he/she normally practises in only one of these two capacities.

Although the legal community in Canada recognizes the conceptual distinction between a barrister (a court and tribunal focused lawyer) and a solicitor (a office and boardroom focused lawyer), the word solicitor is still often used to refer to a Canadian lawyer in general. For example, Canadian court documents would contain a phrase such as "John Smith, solicitor for the Plaintiff" even though "John Smith" probably works mostly, if not exclusively, as a barrister or litigator representing clients in court. Another example would be how a Canadian lawyer introduces him/herself in a letter to an opposing party or an opposing lawyer: "I am the solicitor for Mr. Tom Jones, who had signed a contractual agreement with your client regarding...". Courthouses use the phrase solicitor on record to mean the lawyer who has been officially recorded in the court's registry as the representing lawyer for a particular party in a particular case, even if this lawyer practises strictly as a barrister or litigator.

Meanwhile, the word attorney is almost always used in Canada to mean

  • an individual who has been granted Power of Attorney;
  • a lawyer who prosecutes criminal cases on behalf of the government, i.e. 'Crown Attorney'
  • an American lawyer with whom a Canadian lawyer is interacting (via telephone, email, fax, correspondence, etc.) regarding a cross-border transaction or legal case; or
  • an American lawyer who works in Canada and advises Canadian clients on issues of American law.

Formerly, justices of the provincial Supreme Courts and Courts of Queens Bench were referred to as "The Honourable Mr/Madam Justice N." and addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lady" whereas district or county court judges were "His/Her Honour Judge N." and addressed as "Your Honour." With the abolition of the county and district courts and, somewhat previously, the upgrading of magistrates courts to provincial courts, the distinction passed into desuetude and Provincial Court judges' address was upgraded to "Your Honour." Meanwhile, Chief Justice McLachlin of the Supreme Court of Canada has indicated a preference for "Your Honour" and the elimination of "My Lord" and "My Lady." It remains to be seen whether this will take hold.

As a point of interest, Canadian lawyers and judges almost always cite England's Oxford Dictionary, and almost never America's Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as an authoritative source for the definition of a non-legal or generic word. Yet, Black's Law Dictionary, an American legal dictionary with American legal citations, is considered the more authoritative legal dictionary despite the existence of The Dictionary of Canadian Law by Daphne A. Dukelow, a well-known law dictionary with Canadian legal citations and the fact that numerous U.S. legal doctrines and terms have no application in Canadian common law.

Household items
Terms common in Canada (and in Britain) but not in the U.S. are:
  • tin (as in "tin of tuna") rather than can; however, as elsewhere, the latter is used more often.
  • cutlery rather than silverware
  • serviette for a table napkin. Considered a give-away of low-class antecedents in the UK and also generally in English Canada, but sometimes in Canada assumed to be indicative of a knowledge of French and therefore sometimes to be heard among upper middle class people.
  • tap, conspicuously more common than faucet.
  • The chiefly Canadian chesterfield and the more international couch and sofa are all used, with chesterfield sometimes referring as in classic furnishing terminology to sofas whose arms are the same height as the back but more usually to any couch or sofa. However the term chesterfield is largely in decline among younger generations in the western and central regions.

Food and beverage
  • Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, and Inland North prefer pop over soda to refer to a carbonated beverage. (But neither term is dominant in British English; see further at Soft drink.)
  • What Americans call Canadian bacon is named back bacon in Canada.
  • What most Americans call a candy bar is usually known as a chocolate bar (as in the UK).
  • In Canada the herb and given masculine name basil is pronounced with a short A as internationally rather than a long A as in in the USA.

Colloquialisms
A rubber in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is sometimes another term for eraser (as it is in England) and, in the plural, for overshoes or galoshes. On the other hand an elastic in the Canadian English is used interchangeably with the American rubber-band . In the same vein is pissed, which in the U.S. means "angry" but in Canada can also mean "drunk" but rarely; the Canadian equivalent to the American usage most often requires the context pissed off, although the off is not mandatory. Similarly, pissed up means "(got) drunk" and the phrase "it was a real piss-up" means that everybody involved became really inebriated.

The terms "booter" and "soaker" refer to getting water in one's shoe. The former is generally more common in the prairies, the latter in the rest of Canada.

The word bum can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain), or, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British and Australasian use, as it is commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as butt, arse (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west), or ass (more idiomatic among younger people west of the Ottawa River). Robert Munsch found it necessary to change "You are a bum" to "You are a toad" in the British edition of his children's story The Paper Bag Princess. The 1940s United Church Young People's Union song "There's not a bum in the Yonge Street Mission/... Put a nickel in the drum, save another dirty bum" provokes considerable shock among fellow Methodists in other Commonwealth countries. In both of these examples, these are usages to mean a homeless or shiftless person.

Grammar
  • The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) zed; the American zee is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.
  • When writing, Canadians will start a sentence with As well, in the sense of "in addition".
  • Occasionally, Canadian usage omits the definite article with the word hospital after to or in. That is, many Canadians go to the hospital or stay in the hospital, as in the U.S.; some go to hospital or stay in hospital, as in Britain and elsewhere. (An example from CBC News: *)

Miscellaneous

Other lexical items coming from Britain are lieutenant (pronounced ) other than in the UK Royal Navy) and light standard (an obsolete British word for lamp-post, rarely used today). Light standard is used more often when referring to the lights at the end of driveways than street lighting.

Unlike the American names, World War I and World War II, it is proper Canadian English to say the First World War, (or the Great War) and the Second World War. Although the WWI and WWII uses do see popular use in Canadian public use, they are considered substandard in some Canadian academic circles.

Words mainly used in Canadian English

Canadian English has words or expressions not found, or not widely used, in other variants of English. Additionally, like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English.

Regional vocabularies

French influence on English spoken in Quebec
  • A person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an Anglophone. The corresponding term for a French speaker is Francophone and the corresponding term for a person who is neither Anglophone nor Francophone is Allophone.
  • Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. Pie IX Boulevard is pronounced as in French, not as "pie nine". On the other hand, Anglophones do pronounce final d's as in Bernard and Bouchard; the word Montreal is pronounced as an English word and Rue Lambert-Closse is known as Clossy Street.

Chinook Jargon words in British Columbia and Yukon
Main article: Chinook Jargon in West/Central Canadian English
British Columbia English has several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon, which was widely spoken throughout the province by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th Century. Most famous and widely used of these are skookum and saltchuck. The Chinook Jargon originally came from the lower Columbia River and the west coast of Vancouver Island (for the most part) but the Jargon came to B.C. before the mainland colony was declared and the development of the Jargon in the form it spread to here as is the direct result of British influence (the HBC's activity) in the region. These words tend to be shared with the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana.

Toronto
The English spoken in Toronto has some similarities with the English in the Northern US. Slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities. There is also a heavy influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities, of which the vast majority speak English only as a second or minor language. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian, and African words. Many Torontonians use buddy (without a capital) as it is often used in Newfoundland English—as equivalent to that man (I like buddy's car). Native Torontonians typically pronounce the name of their city as the elided "Trana" but, paradoxically, spin out the name of the province of Saskatchewan as "Saskatchew-on," a pronunciation never heard west of the Great Lakes. Toronto broadcasters on the other hand over-pronounce the second 't' in Toronto.

In Toronto's ethnic communities there are many words that are distinct, or come straight from Jamaica.

  • mans (Toronto): Slang for 'men', popular with the youth of Toronto
  • fete (Barbados but also elsewhere in the British Commonwealth): a really big party.
  • jam (Toronto): a big party.
  • waste (Toronto) : something is "waste," something sucks, is stupid, is pointless
  • brainer, (one gets…) brainz (Toronto): one who gives oral sex to men, synonym to "head"
  • live (Toronto): cool, good, lively.
  • snuff (Toronto) : punch.

Prairies

The noun "bluff" (and the adjective "bluffy") in reference to an aspen and willow grove typically surrounding a slough, appears to be unknown outside the Canadian prairies, whereas the eastern Canadian and international use of the term in reference to a low cliff or abutment, is largely unknown in western Canada and causes some puzzlement to newly arrived westerners in Ontario.

Prairie housewives formerly used the somewhat disparaging adjective "boughten" in reference to bread purchased commercially rather than home-baked.

References

  • Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541816-6.
  • Chambers, J.K. (1998). “Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making,” in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
  • Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052162181X.

Further reading

  • Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd ed., pp. 67-68.
  • Canadian English: Editors' Association of Canada, Editing Canadian English: The Essential Canadian Guide, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).
  • Canadian federal government style guide: Public Works and Government Services Canada, The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
  • Canadian newspaper and magazine style guides:
  • Canadian usage: Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, Guide to Canadian English Usage (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2001).

See also

External links

Canadian English | English dialects | North American English | Languages of Canada | English language

Kanadese Engels | Kanadisches Englisch | Anglais canadien | 캐나다 영어 | אנגלית קנדית | Canadees Engels | Kanadanenglanti

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Canadian English".

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