# Canadian English pronunciation



## dihydrogen monoxide

How old is the sound change in Canadian English of pronouncing the /o/ vowel in sorry as /ᴐ:/, although it's supposed to represent the sound as how British English pronounces awful, but I think it's not exactly the same, I don't know how these two vowels would be written in IPA and how old is the pronunciation of diphtongs /ou/ in Canadian English as in cases house, mouse. To me it sounds a bit like Southern British English way of pronouncing.


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## Red Arrow

In both American English and British English, *or* is pronounced as /ɔr/ and *ar* is pronounced as /ɑr/.

These *or* words were originally pronounced /ɒr/. This sequence was replaced by /ɔr/ in American English, except before /oʊ/: borrow, sorrow (+ sorry), tomorrow. In Canadian English, the vowel shift happened without any exceptions.

As a result, Canadians can still hear the difference between sorry and the name Sa(a)ri. Americans can only hear the difference if they distinguish /ɑr/ and /ɒr/.

There is not one IPA symbol for the Canadian raising of ou, because it depends on where you are in Canada.

I will let an actual linguist decide when those phonological changes started.


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## Olaszinhok

As far as British English pronunciation (mainly RP and southern English) is concerned, I reckon that the following video about Rhoticity may be of interest to you.


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## pollohispanizado

Canada was a British territory from 1763 to 1867 and was a British protectorate until WWI. Our dialects, especially the oldest ones in the East (Southern Ontario, the Maritimes), were influenced by high Irish and Scottish immigration (NB. we have a province called Nova Scotia--New Scotland) and are closer to the British dialects than those of the States. (Newfoundland only became a province in 1949. Before that it was British territory, and they drove on the "wrong" side of the road )

As with every other language, English-speaking Canadians don't all pronounce everything the same way. That /ou/ diphtong is one that shows the most variation (I can immediately hear that someone is from the suburbs of Toronto just from them saying "out"). The dialectal differences aren't as pronounced as in some countries, but we are still more than 30 million people spread out over almost 10 million km2.


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## dihydrogen monoxide

But British English pronunciation of sorry and Canadian English are not the same. I'm asking when did this occur in Canadian English?


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## pollohispanizado

dihydrogen monoxide said:


> But British English pronunciation of sorry and Canadian English are not the same. I'm asking when did this occur in Canadian English?


Neither British English nor Canadian English are monoliths. As I mentioned, Canadian English in general was influenced by Irish and Scotish English (Received Pronunciation has nothing to do with how we speak). Many current accents in the Maritime provinces sound more like Irish than anything else.


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## Pedro y La Torre

The only time I have ever wrongly identified someone as a native speaker of Irish English was when I came across a guy from Newfoundland in a restaurant in Montreal. I was absolutely convinced that he was Irish but, as it happens, he was from St. John's so I agree with your view that Irish-like accents can be found in the Maritimes/Atlantic Canada. Still, one can't forget the strong American influence on Canadian English both via Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution and New England planters that migrated to Acadia in the 1750s.


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## pollohispanizado

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Still, one can't forget the strong American influence on Canadian English both via Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution and New England planters that migrated to Acadia in the 1750s.


I highly doubt that in 1750 English spoken in New England was very different from that spoken by the British that would have continued to arrive there on merchant ships, so I'm not sure what influence they woud have had or what woud have set their speech apart from the colonists slightly more to the North. Of course, in 1750 Canada wasn't even British yet.

Either way, much like all European colonies outside of Europa, it wasn't the rich, upper class folks that left their homelands to start a new life over here, but instead Scottish and Irish peasants whose lands had recently been conquered by England, and since Canada was still their possession, they were sent here to populate the immense and empty lands, especially once the 13 colonies to the South claimed their independence from the crown and became a threat to the British.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Canada (what the British later called the Province of Quebec in 1774) wasn't but parts of what is now Canada were controlled by Britain at that time and were planted by settlers from New England in a bid to ward off the French. The point is that there was a strong American influence on English Canada from the start (and American accents were already established by the 1750s, much as Australian accents only took a few decades to make themselves felt). There was a continous flow from the United States to British North America such that English-speakers outside North America often have a lot of difficulty telling Americans and Canadians apart in speech. Of course, in isolated places like Newfoundland, regional accents like Irish and West Country English lived on a lot longer (and still do to some extent).


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## pollohispanizado

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Canada (what the British later called the Province of Quebec in 1774)


There was Upper Canada (modern Ontario) and Lower Canada (modern Quebec)



Pedro y La Torre said:


> There was a continous flow from the United States to British North America such that English-speakers outside North America often have a lot of difficulty telling Americans and Canadians apart in speech


To be fair, North Americans can't usually tell Scots and Northern Englanders apart. It's all about exposure. I can definitely tell a Canadian from a person from the US; and among Canadians, I can usually tell what region somebody is from.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Well, there's the infamous "aboot", "eh" and so on in Eastern Canadian English that everyone can hear but can you spot marked differences between natives from, say, B.C. and Washington State? If you can, fair enough, but it's far more subtle than a Scotsman (rhotic) and a Geordie (non-rhotic).


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## pollohispanizado

Pedro y La Torre said:


> Well, there's the infamous "aboot", "eh" and so on in Eastern Canadian English that everyone can hear but can you spot marked differences between natives from, say, B.C. and Washington State? If you can, fair enough, but it's far more subtle than a Scotsman and a Geordie.


As I said above, the "out" syllable is very variable -- abowt, about, abewt, aboat -- and is a solid regional marker. I admit that the further West we talk about, the harder it is to pin down a specific region due to the shorter presence of English; and, at this point, there has been so much immigration to BC and Alberta from all over the country (there are more Newfies in Northern Alberta than in Newfoundland, it seems) that it would be hard to find real accents from there unless you went to really rural towns far from the urban centres.

As far as the US influence, my impression has always been that older people (especially when I was a kid, i noticed) had some distinctly British speech patterns and some vestiges of pronounciations, but now the US cultural hegemony is clear.


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## Ihsiin

This may not be entirely relevant, but in 2017 I was in a bar in London and I heard some people nearby speak with American accents. I whispered to my companion that she should ask them if they voted for Trump, and uninhibited she did so. “No,” one of them said, “we didn’t, because we’re Canadian.” We we’re very red-faced, when someone from the other side of the bar said: “Well I’m from the US and I thought you were from Michigan.” Then they all began to argue amongst themselves.


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## pollohispanizado

There is overlap between some Michigan accents and some Southwestern Ontarian accents due to their being contiguous.


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## Sprache

As an American, the sure-fire way that I can pick someone out as Canadian is the LOT vowel, which virtually all Canadians seem to pronounce as /ɒ/, or maybe even /ɔ/? It's very distinctive to me. I don't know if it's restricted to certain regions, but it definitely seems to be widespread. Any time I have heard that pronunciation, I've been correct in assuming that the speaker is Canadian.

The raising of /aʊ/ is obviously another salient feature.


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## pollohispanizado

Sprache said:


> an American, the sure-fire way that I can pick someone out as Canadian is the LOT vowel, which virtually all Canadians seem to pronounce as /ɒ/, or maybe even /ɔ/? It's very distinctive to me. I don't know if it's restricted to certain regions


Most people in the US will hear speakers from around Toronto (about 20% of the population lives within a couple hours of there, and it is the centre of mass media). On the East coast and near the border with Michigan, this vowel is more open; more to the West (like where I live, between the Minnesota and Manitoba borders), the more closed it is (generally speaking). Just for perspective, Southern Ontario is between New York State and Michigan, both of which have very distinct regional accents, and as one might expect, it is a continuum, with some shared traits and some innovations.


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## Terio

pollohispanizado said:


> There was Upper Canada (modern Ontario) and Lower Canada (modern Quebec)


After the conquest of New France by the British, the new colony was called Province of Quebec (1763-1791).

Many new settlers did not come from the British Isles, but were "loyalist" from the new borne USA.

The colony was divided in two in 1791 : Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

They merged in 1841 to form the Province of Canada.

In 1867, the Province of Canada was divided in two provinces (Ontario and Quebec) and merged with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The four provinces formed the Dominion of Canada.

In 1870, the Northwest Territory were incorporated to te dominion (and extended to the Arctic islands in 1880). The province of Manitoba was created in a tiny portion of the territories.

British Columbia joined the federation en 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873.

In 1898, the Yukon Territory was separated from the Northwest Territories, and the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905.

The Dominion became independant in 1931.

Newfoundand joined the federation only in 1949.

The territory of Nunavut was created in 1999.



pollohispanizado said:


> To be fair, North Americans can't usually tell Scots and Northern Englanders apart. It's all about exposure. I can definitely tell a Canadian from a person from the US; and among Canadians, I can usually tell what region somebody is from.


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