Canadians - I don't know about UKers and US Americans but - have at least two pronunciations of most words: their 'normal' pronunciation, if you will, or their enunciated pronunciation and their normal can be the same as enunciated or it can be a mix.. For the city of Ottawa, I would say Ot-uh-wah the voiced t or 'd', and perhaps the tongue to the back for the 'wah'. If I slow it down and, especially, picturing the spelling the word in my head , I'd say 'Ot-tuh-wa'.
In the same way, I would enunciate Toronto as 'Tuh-ron-toe', or 'Tur-on-toe' I don't actually know which way I say it. This is how most teachers from JK to grade 12 would pronounce this word. But, I suppose, almost every kid pronounced it the 'fast' way - the young generation's pronunciation, almost. The type of kids who would enunciate carefully each word and not give into colloquialisms would obviously pronounce the city's name like I just described.
However, it's not only the young generation. The phenomenon of pronouncing the last syllable of the word Toronto like it is known to be pronounced is the same as the phenomenon of pronouncing the word international as 'in-ner-na-shuh-nul' as opposed to 'in-ter-na-shu-nul'. I've looked up the term as being classified as the 'merging' of the n and t sounds. And, I've definitely noticed that the guy who plays the Scottish or Irish guy sorry I don't even remember anymore in Stargate Atlantis says about the closest to the way Canadians say it I'm referring to the doctor.
I dunno, jb, but another thing that I've noticed in two BC friends, and got confirmed from research, is that a lot of people from there have almost forgotten how to 'raise the vowels' the Canadian raising way. Their outs and abouts sounded exactly like US Americans'. The article said that the Canadians raising accent in the population in BC is slowly disappearing, and most of it has already disappeared I'm guessing due to American influence!
Haha, I dunno about the filim stuff, but I def know what you mean by vee-hickle. Like, I've seen in movies actors pronouncing vehicle by elongating the word syllable, and then, of course, sounding out the h sound. But, whether I sound out the h sound, it usually is not something prominent for us. It usually comes out as vee-ickle, but once in a while with the h sound. I have no idea what you mean by the r in veer.
Ukemon, my dad used to say fil-im, as well.. I can't picture the two distinctions you're trying to make for Detroit, yet, so I'll leave that be for now.. Because I've never heard anyone not say 'pro' for produce, like fruits and vegetables, although they would not say 'pro' for everything else, like for the verb for produce, or any of the projects, process, progress, etc. I only took one class in linguistics at uni or college! To be honest, I was amazed how many similarities there were between British and Canadian English; I always assumed that Canadians and US Americans always spoke pretty much the same being an ignorant Brit!
It was something that my friends and I picked up fairly soon after arriving. The true Essex accent is more farmer-like, as it used to be purely agricultural land, but there was a huge swathe of people coming from the east end of London and it completely changed the accent. It just sounds so awkward like you have to try and over-separate the two syllables.
Makes things a lot easier! I always find that frustrating, having studied foreign languages such as Spanish, which is so much more phonetic than English, i. Learning English as a foreigner must be an absolute nightmare! What I find interesting is that when I visit family in Somerset and Devon I hear many similar pronunciations to what I hear in souther Ontario. The West Country dialect is typically rhotic similar to southern Ontario. Digressing to the VEE-hickle tangent.
But I know why. I have friends from the non-rhotic parts of England Exeter and this has cropped up occasionally in our discussions of the language. John C Mar Or at least I'm told I do. We do it when we're not thinking about it. Just how we speak. Like most American's say y'all and shit like that.
Blll Aug I think the big problem in this thread is that Canadians are a bit touchy about having a silly accent. They don't want to be thought of as a bunch of mounties running around saying "ya hoser" to everyone. So, just to let you Canadians know, wherever you live according to the compass rose--you do have a silly accent, and that's okay. Be proud if it and all of the many cultural accomplishments of your people.
BrockawayBaby Aug Try this: "I've been out and about again, eh? If it sounds more like "I've bean a-oot and aba-oot agayne" you're probably Canadian. I spoke Canadian my first 20 years in this country without realizing it, Eh? Anagnorisis Sep I'm born and raised in Nova Scotia. Never lived anywheres else. IMO, we are more rooted in tradition here. You get made fun of if you say "zee" and my iPad autocorrected that to zed btw haha , and anyone that comes from away thinks we talk funny.
I've never paid much attention to it until I had a cousin from Winnipeg come visit, and he broke out laughing when my mom told him to "fill his boots" at supper. Sure we got the gun toting rednecks and granny-clothes wearing hippies here, but guaranteed they all talk like I do, unless they're from Cape Breton or Nfld. Then you're on your own to translate haha.
I noticed I tend to say "coach" instead of "cowch" when talking about a chesterfield which is what it usually gets called in the towns , not so much Halifax where I live now. Oat and aboat is pretty dead on here too. I guess we might have a bit of a stronger accent on the east coast though eh? Yes, the "OU" diphthong in some parts of Canada differs widely from the way it is pronounced in most parts of the USA, but I don't find it universal, having traveled from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.
I find it more pronounced in some areas, less in others, more in the Ontario-and west provinces, than elsewhere. I have noted another feature, which descends down into the Dakota's and Minnesota of the US area, a distinct inflection in sentences, particularly questions, or invitations for affirmation, which end in "eh?
Anybody else see that? I can tell when I, an American from around Boston , am talking to someone from the Dakota's, or from N. Minnesota or N. Wisconsin or even N. I'm fascinated by accents of the English language in the US and Canada, and love learning about a-boait how these various accents came about.
And, maybe I'm not the best ear, at my older age, to distinguish all those variances. Heck, I have a hard time telling some British accents from some Australian accents, just saying. Anyway, do others find the way some Canadians deal with the up and down inflections in their sentences something worth exploring?
It's definitely different from most Americans' way of asking questions, at least for those in the middle of Canada it is, much more British or even French, if you ask me. John Davis Apr I have a Canadian boyfriend, he moved to Australia n , he's from Startford, Ontario, he has a strong Canadian accent, he does say the "oot" and "aboot" thing he also says "T'ronno" I don't hear any "eh? Luigi Severus Fletcher-Bieber May MarkB Jun A good illustration is this viedo of McDoanld's Canada Noelito Campeon Jul Note that "pounder" receives the same treatment.
And it's a good illustration of how the shortening of vowels like that can really speed up the speech. Aside from that, an even more prominent feature of her accent is the rising tones at the end of clauses that make me sure she's part Valley Girl. John C Jul Listen to the way the guys at Watts Studio, for example speak. For the record I don't still understand or hear the aboot thing.
In-ter-national Toron-toe-nian Sep When I say "out and about" which is seldom because it was not a phrase that was particularly common among us Southern Albertan's now transplanted to Saskatchewan I hear a shortened ow sound as in the "ow" we use to signal pain or the reference to the bovine female.
In other words there is a slight diphthong but not anything like my brother-in-law in the states. My ah-oo does not compare with his a-oo. What Is a Diphthong? A diphthong is a combination of two vowel sounds. Try it: aaaaaaaauuuuuuu aaaauuuu aauu. If you speed it up, you get the diphthong in how. But notice how if you switch back and forth between the vowels in la and cut ah uh ah uh , the only thing that really changes is that your tongue moves a little bit higher. Because the difference between the two diphthongs is whether they start with the la vowel or the slightly higher tongue position of the cut vowel, this phenomenon is known as Canadian raising.
There are a whole bunch of other words where this distinct diphthong also happens, such as the famous about , as well as couch , mouth as noun south , mouse , lout and so on, but not in words like loud , browse , mouth as verb , gouge , or vow.
Listen to Gretchen McCulloch, a Canadian, pronounce these words. Is this just random, or do these words have something in common? If you place your hand on your throat while you switch between the sounds sssss and zzzzz seriously, try it! What about the rest of the sounds in the words with Canadian raising?
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