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Tag Archives: Canadian Accents
When ‘Price’ and ‘Prize’ Don’t Rhyme
In recent years, I’ve noticed a growing phenomenon among American English speakers. People with otherwise “standard” accents exhibit a “non-standard” pronunciation of words like price, right, and kite. To use right as an example, this results in pronunciations which sound … Continue reading
Quebec English
Quebec English is a broad term used for the dialects (both foreign and native) spoken in North America’s great Francophone province. There is a cultural divide between Quebec and English-speaking Canada, making it tricky to suss out what marks a … Continue reading
The Ebonics Factor: A Quick Addendum
In the previous post, I mentioned the divide between the accents of Detroit and neighboring Windsor, Ontario. There is a complicating factor, however, that I neglected to mention: African American Vernacular English (AAVE, or crudely, “Ebonics“).* AAVE, for those who don’t … Continue reading
Northern Cities Vowel Shift vs. Canadian Accents
As per our recent discussion of Canadian accents, I’d like to delve into a question I often hear: how different is Canadian English from American English? What’s remarkable about Canadian English is not that it’s different from American English, but … Continue reading
Canadian Raising: Nobody says “Aboot”
A point of clarification: Canadians do not say aboot. Canadian English features something called Canadian Raising, which basically means that the diphthong in “now” is raised before t, s or other voiceless consonants (i.e. before words like about and house). What … Continue reading
Speech Impediment vs. Dialect
In yesterday’s post, I talked a bit about Jonathan Ross’s famous pronunciation of “r,” and how I believe this is actually a dialect feature rather than a speech disorder or impediment. It’s worth taking a look at the overlap between … Continue reading