Newfoundland English

Newfoundland English is a name for several dialects of English specific to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, distinct from Canadian English. Some specific Newfoundland English dialects are similar to the accent heard in the southeast of Ireland, while others are similar to those of West Country England, or a combination of both, due to mass immigration from a limited number of ports in those specific regions. It would be reasonable to say that for many speakers of American English, Newfoundland English dialects are among the most difficult English dialects to understand.

In Newfoundland, the heaviest speakers of these dialects do not live in the capital, but in outport communities. The generations are slowly losing their roots with the language, with only 25% of Newfoundland youth speaking it fluently. Another 56% speak in a "Newfoundland Accent" only when they are angry, annoyed or trying to get a point across, and 92% of the older generation are completely fluent.

These separate dialects developed because of Newfoundland's history as well as its geography. Newfoundland, was one of the first areas settled by English speakers in North America beginning in small numbers in the early 1600s before peaking in the early 1800s, most of the population remained rather isolated on the island, allowing the dialects time to develop independent of that on the North American continent.

Newfoundland English was recognized as a separate dialect by the late 1700s when George Cartwright published a glossary of Newfoundland words. Newfoundland remained separate from Canada as a British colony (apart from a period of self-government from 1855 to 1934) until 1949. Newfoundland is an island in the Atlantic Ocean separated by the Strait of Belle Isle from the mainland portion of Labrador, a large region of sparsely populated sub-arctic land.

Phonological and grammatical features

Some Newfoundland English differs from Canadian English in vowel pronunciation (for example: in much of Newfoundland, the words "fear" and "fair" are homophones); in morphology and syntax (for example: in Newfoundland the word "bes" is sometimes used in place of the normally conjugated forms of "to be" to describe continual actions or states of being: "that rock usually bes under water" instead of "that rock usually is under water", but normal conjugation of "to be" is used in all other cases - "bes" is likely a carryover of Irish Gaelic grammar into English); in preservation of archaic adverbal-intensifiers (for example: in Newfoundland "that play was right boring" and "that play was some boring" both mean "that play was very boring"). 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.

Other marked characteristics of Newfoundland English include the loss of dental fricatives (voiced and unvoiced 'th' sounds) in many varieties of the dialect (as in many other varieties of non-standard English --they are usually replaced with the closest voiced or voiceless alveolar stop ('t/d')-- as well as non-standard or innovative features in verb conjugation. For example, in many varieties, the third person singular inflection is generalised to a present tense marker (so the verb "to like" is conjugated "I likes, you (or 'dee' in one or two communities on the Northeast Coast of the island of Newfoundland) likes, he/she/it likes, we likes, you (or ye in some areas) likes, they (dey) likes"). Another interesting verb form is almost certain to have been taken from Hiberno-English, which, influenced by the Irish language avoids using the verb "to have" (Irish doesn't have a verb "to have" per se). Many Newfoundlanders from all areas will form past participles using "after" instead of "have" so for example "I'm after telling him to stop," instead of "I told him to stop," or "I have told him to stop." Another interesting feature is the rounding of "long i"; the name "Mike" for example, can sound like "moike".

To non-Newfoundlanders, speakers of Newfoundland English may seem to speak faster than speakers of Canadian English. This perceived tempo difference may be a coupling of subtle pronunciation differences and unusual sayings, and can be a contributing factor to the difficulty non-Newfoundlanders sometimes experience with the dialect.

Other languages and dialects which have influenced Newfoundland English

There is also a dialect of French centred mainly on the Port au Port Peninsula on the west coast of the island which has had an impact on the syntax of English in the area. One example of these constructs unique to Newfoundland is "Throw grandpa down the stairs, his hat," in which the hat makes the trip, not the grandfather. Another is the use of French reflexive constructions in sentences such as the reply to a question like "Where are you going?", reply: "Me I'm goin' downtown." (however this reflexive form of grammar also exists in Irish Gaelic.), or "Borrow me your pencil".

Newfoundland French was deliberately discouraged by the Newfoundland government through the public schools during the mid-20th-century, along with all other languages except for English, and only a small handful of mainly elderly people are still fluent in the French-Newfoundland dialect. In the last couple of decades, many parents in the region have demanded and obtained French education for their children, but this would be Standard French education and does not represent a continuation of the old dialect per se. Some people living in the Codroy Valley on the south-west tip of the island are also ancestrally Francophone, but represent Acadian settlers from the Maritime Provinces of Canada who arrived during the 19th century. This population has also lost the French language.

The greatest distinction between Newfoundland English and Canadian English is its vocabulary. It includes some Inuit and First Nations words (for example: "tabanask" - a kind of sled), preserved archaic English words no longer found in other English dialects (for example: "pook" - a mound of hay), compound words created from English words to describe things unique to Newfoundland (for example: "stun breeze" - a wind of at least 20 knots (37 km/h)), English words which have undergone a semantic shift (for example: "rind" - the bark of a tree), and unique words whose origins are unknown (for example: "diddies" - a nightmare).

Deterioration of the dialectic distinctiveness

Newfoundland English dialects are steadily losing their distinctiveness through the action of the mass media and an education system that has traditionally regarded the dialect as a backward corruption of "proper" English. This perception occurs in both the public and private sectors of the system. Institutional education steadily became more and more available and normative after Confederation in 1949. This encouraged many Newfoundlanders, particularly in the urban centres, to take positive steps to ensure their children spoke in a fashion similar to their mainland counterparts lest they be perceived as inferior. This is not to suggest the transformation was always viewed as a necessary coerced response. Rather, many Newfoundlanders embraced the notion of the inferiority of the dialect in favour of "proper English" as they moved toward an economic system closer to those of the Canadian Mainland. It is tempting to speculate that these persons attached the dialect to a way of life that appeared to be economically untenable and fading fast. In other words, the dialect has fallen victim to notions of "progress". In general, each generation speaks a dialect of English closer to standard Canadian English though it is significant to note that this trend is far more pronounced in the urban centres. The employment of strict Canadian English can actually hinder the speaker's ability to effectively socially mesh in rural areas as it signifies that the speaker is closely attached with the social structures of the non-rural world. The speaker runs the risk of being treated as a non-community member for an extended period. Pride in Newfoundland language and culture has also encouraged a conscious retention of some obvious Newfoundlandisms, however, and speakers can often be observed switching between Canadian English for formal settings and language closer to Newfoundland English for personal communication.

Indeed, the transformation of Newfoundland English offers a case study of the politics of language. On the one hand, Newfoundlanders have learned that to be taken seriously in institutional settings connected to off island structures standard Canadian English is necessary. This also occurred in the pre-confederation period though the adopted dialect was closer to British English reflecting the political circumstances of the day. On the other hand, use of Newfoundland English is used to establish common political identity with other Newfoundlanders in a fashion unavailable to non-Newfoundlanders who have yet to be accepted into the local cultural community. This manner of using language can be readily observed in other socially marginalized populations including persons of African descent in the United States, persons of aboriginal descent from rural areas and persons originating from lower strata in the social class structure in a general sense. Each group must learn to speak the language of the dominant group yet may also derive social benefits from retaining the original dialect when interacting with fellow group members. This perspective lends credence to the complex and contentious argument that Newfoundlanders resemble what conventional wisdom posits as a discrete and unique "ethnic group" quite separate from the ethnicity of the larger population.