Comments on: HOWTO sound Canadian

By: Bing Bing Bong Bong

Bing Bing Bong Bong — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:42:00 +0000

US and Canadian both sound the same, except our Canadian Maritime and US Southerner. Their accents are horrible.

By: teknocholer

teknocholer — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:20:00 +0000

I think Etobicoke is a one-off. Nanticoke, Ontario, for example, is pronounced with the final “k” sound.

Etobicoke is handy, though, as a comeback to Brits who mock our attempts to pronounce places like Cholmondeley or Gloucestershire. (“All right, smartass…”)

By: Craig S. Stuckless

Craig S. Stuckless — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 17:42:00 +0000

This whole American-MEDIA perception of Canadian speech is a just-plain-silly.

TRUE, we do have slight inflections from Coast to Coast to Coast here in Canada. But it’s not as bad as it’s made out to be…..

The “a-boot” for “a-bout” thing came around because somebody not acclimatised to the accent of the region heard a Newfoundlander say the word with the Irish-inflection-Newfoundland-accent.

Then Whammo the perception spread far and wide…pah-lease

By: Ben Burger

Ben Burger — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:26:00 +0000

nobody nobody nobody pronounces it a-boot, it is just a myth

By: Kludgegrrl

Kludgegrrl — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 14:27:00 +0000

Yes, my bad :)

I should have clarified, “silent k” at the *end* of a word (the loss of the k sound before an n is clearly a different linguistic phenomenon).

I actually wonder if it was once pronounced but somehow the local prediliction to end place names with an O (toronto, scarborough) obliterated it. Probably not… Any linguists out there?

By: Imre Kerr

Imre Kerr — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:46:00 +0000

Wondering what “farther back in the mouth” meant, I sat here for a while saying the word “tin” in different ways. I stopped when Rebecca got upset though.

By: BobRH

BobRH — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:53:00 +0000

I grew up in Windsor Ontario – our parody version of an “american” (i.e.Michigan) accent was to “go get a battle of pap”

.. and a second to the observation by F_C_King… when we visited my wife’s cousins in England, it wasn’t long before they were ragging on our “sure” (sher) for yes…

By: Christine S. Dores

Christine S. Dores — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:54:00 +0000

It’s a Missisaugan word (first nations language) the pronunciation is the centuries old bastardization of wadoopikaang…

By: Christine S. Dores

Christine S. Dores — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:51:00 +0000

yes we do

By: Christine S. Dores

Christine S. Dores — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:50:00 +0000

mais, peut tu identifier un Montrealais qui parle francais avec un accent anglophone and eengleesh wit a french accent. Ca sonne bien different qu’un anglophone parlant anglais de quelques par…

By: Christine S. Dores

Christine S. Dores — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:46:00 +0000

He’s from Burnaby BC… good old MJFox x

By: Adam Young

Adam Young — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:43:00 +0000

EXACTLY. I say this all the time.

By: Christine S. Dores

Christine S. Dores — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:42:00 +0000

I tell folks that it’s pronounced Trono by natives and that is therefore the correct pronunciation. Take Birmingham, AL versus Birmingham, England. You would be wrong once if you pronounced it the same way both times…

By: teknocholer

teknocholer — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:37:00 +0000

More like etTOEbiko. But yes, “Etobicoke” is a bit of a special case. Here in Etobicoke, we would pronounce your name Loodjgirl. Oh, and just to be Mr. Obnoxious, you used a silent K in your first sentence :)

By: Kludgegrrl

Kludgegrrl — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:50:00 +0000

What I want to know is how Canadians managed to create the “silent K” — as in Etobicoke (pronounced eetobikow). It’s the only silent K I’ve ever come across in the English language.

By: ChicagoD

ChicagoD — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:49:00 +0000

But that’s true in other places as well. Depending on someone’s age and education I can tell you what part of Chicago they are from. However, once we get some schooling the accents are generally flattened out, with a few regionalisms (I still say “pop” my wife says “soda”).

By: ChicagoD

ChicagoD — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:49:00 +0000

And “Timbits.”

By: Chris Wright

Chris Wright — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:10:00 +0000

“front short vowels”? Vowel length isn’t phonemic in English! In order to understand that, you need to understand the Great Vowel Shift and which vowels *used* to be phonemic. I can’t be bothered.

I swear, we need to teach grade shoolers the International Phonetic Alphabet.

By: Alan Goulding

Alan Goulding — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:37:00 +0000

“There are also other, less well-known Canadian differences, such as the Canadian integration pattern of foreign sounds represented by a. In words like pasta, lava, plaza, and drama the foreign a sound acquires the vowel in father in American English and British English, but the vowel of cat in Canadian English.”

Well as a speaker of British English, I don’t buy this at all. Americans say “paaaastaaaaa” with a long ‘a’, we say “pasta” with a short ‘a’ as just one example.

By: F_C_King

F_C_King — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:11:00 +0000

I was born in the east-end of Toronto, and I’ve lived here for 99% of my life. I never hear “Aboot” – it sounds more like “Abauwt” or “Abowt” to me. I also never hear “Trawna” for Toronto…it always sounds more like Tronno or Torono to me. YEMV.
Side notes: When I was in England on vacation, I suddenly became aware that all of the Canadians I was with say “Sure” a lot (sounds like “Sher”) instead of a casual “Yes”. At a hostel in Liverpool, an employee picked my girlfriend and I out as Torontonians within 30 seconds of showing up at the common breakfast table!

By: F_C_King

F_C_King — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 12:05:00 +0000

Don’t forget “Sorry”!

By: doug rogers

doug rogers — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:57:00 +0000

You know, I read through that and I couldn’t detect an accent…

By: Squeakstar

Squeakstar — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Do real-life Canadians have splitty heads like in South Park?

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 11:07:00 +0000

And of course, the easiest way to sound more Canadian, add words like “Please”, “Thank you,” and “Excuse me.” to your regular vocabulary.

;)

By: Craig Hartel

Craig Hartel — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:55:00 +0000

Michael J. Fox is from Burnaby, British Columbia, part of metro Vancouver.

By: digi_owl

digi_owl — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:17:00 +0000

Heh, could be a Freudian slip regarding how important the car is to their lifestyle…

By: Plum_P

Plum_P — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 05:41:00 +0000

pour nous, vous sonnez tous pareil!

By: PJG

PJG — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 04:42:00 +0000

Spiderking, accents in the US tend to be very regional and vary incredibly but the thing with Canadian accents is the differences tend to be more generational than regional. Besides the obvious differences in the Maritimes and Quebec, linguists have found accents from Ontario to BC aren’t all that different EXCEPT when you look at age groups. The classic Canadian accent is more distinct in older generations and less so in younger ones as those groups have had more exposure to popular culture and strangely, sound more Californian.

Penguinchris, Michael J Fox is from Burnaby BC and probably didn’t get the dialect training many Canadian actors, especially Vancouver actors, who work on the many US shows shot here. ;)

By: TombKing

TombKing — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 04:23:00 +0000

While my wife is Canadian, and does have an accent it is nothing like the above mostly in the ou sounds but most people don’t really notice and it took me awhile to notice it the first time, though her brother has a much stronger accent.
Me I am stuck with a midwest extra r in some words if I am not paying attention.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 04:15:00 +0000

I’m from Buffalo, NY and while the accent there is remarkably neutral for the US (many national news anchors came from Buffalo), we share the “short a” pronunciation with the Canadians across the river.

Without the other hallmarks of a Canadian accent, the Buffalo accent does not sound like a Canadian one in any way because as the article notes, that’s a rather subtle aspect of it. But if you listen carefully, you can hear that short a (in pasta, lava, etc.) in most people from Buffalo. Mine’s not particularly strong (I pronounce pasta with a long a for example) but in certain words (none of which come to mind at the moment) it’s quite noticeable if you’re paying attention.

Since moving to California I’ve slightly changed how I speak. I’m sure I must sound like someone from out of town, but since it’s subtle (and since there is such a wide range of speaking styles here) no one generally notices – though CA friends have pointed things out that I said weirdly a couple times.

My favorite thing about Canadian accents, though, is hearing them in movies with Canadian actors who are playing Americans. One of the best examples of this is in Back to the Future – Michael J. Fox is Canadian (Toronto if I recall correctly) and plays a California teenager in that film, yet has several lines of dialog where his Canadian accent comes through loud and clear. A very funny Canadian “sorry” is probably the best one. Most people don’t pick up on it.