Canadian English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_English Canadian English From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Canadian English (CanE, en-CA[1]) is the variety of English used in Canada. More than 26 million Canadians (85% of the population) have some knowledge of English (2006 census).[2] Approximately 17 million speak English as their native language. Outside Quebec, 76% of Canadians speak English natively. Canadian English contains elements of British English in its vocabulary, as well as several distinctive Canadianisms. In many areas, speech is influenced by French, and there are notable local variations. However, Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States.[3] The phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon for most of Canada are similar to that of the Western and Midland regions of the United States,[3] while the phonological system of western Canadian English is identical to that of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the phonetics are similar.[4] As such, Canadian English and American English are sometimes grouped together as North American English. Canadian English spelling is a blend of British and American conventions. Contents 1 History 2 Spelling and dictionaries 3 Phonemic incidence 4 Regional variation 4.1 Western and Central Dialect 4.1.1 Canadian raising 4.1.2 The low-back merger and the Canadian Shift 4.1.3 Other features 4.1.4 British Columbia 4.1.5 Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta) 4.1.6 Ontario 4.1.6.1 Ottawa Valley 4.1.6.2 Toronto 4.1.7 Quebec 4.2 Maritimes 4.3 Newfoundland 5 Grammar 6 Vocabulary 6.1 Education 6.2 Units of measurement 6.3 Transportation 6.4 Politics 6.5 Law 6.6 Places 6.7 Daily life 6.7.1 Apparel 6.7.2 Food and beverage 6.8 Informal speech 6.8.1 Canadian colloquialisms 6.9 Miscellaneous Canadianisms History The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottishborn Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect," in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.[5] Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the MidAtlantic States – as such, Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern American English,[6] and is nothing more than a variety of it.[7] The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.[8] The languages of Aboriginal peoples in Canada started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place,[9] and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.[5] Spelling and dictionaries Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, Frenchderived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings (colour, honour and centre), although American spellings are not uncommon. Also, while the United States uses the AngloFrench spelling defense (noun), Canada uses the British spelling defence. (Note that defensive is universal.) In other cases, Canadians and 1 2009 Americans differ from British spelling, such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb. Words such as realize and recognize are usually spelled with -ize rather than -ise. The etymological convention that verbs derived from Greek roots are spelled with ize and those from Latin with ise is preserved in that practice.[10] Nouns take -ice while verbs take -ise, compare practice and practise. Canadian spelling also retains the British practice of usually doubling a final single -l when adding suffixes to words even when the final syllable (before the suffix) is not stressed. Compare Canadian (and British) travelled, counselling, and controllable (always doubled) to American traveled, counseling, and controllable (only doubled when stressed). But both Canadian and British have balloted and profiting.[11] Canadian spelling rules can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of automobiles (e.g., truck instead of lorry, gasoline instead of petrol). [11] A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English, and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references. (See Further reading below.) The first Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by Gage Ltd (also Gauge. Toronto. The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in CanE lexicography. Many secondary schools in Canada use these dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the Senior Dictionary was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary and exists in what may be called its 5th edition from 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. Concise versions and paperback version are available. In 1997, the ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language was another product, but has not been updated since. In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled The Oxford Canadian Dictionary. A second edition, retitled The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, was published in 2004. Just as the older dictionaries it includes uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use. Paperback and concise versions (2005, 2006), with minor updates, are available. The scholarly Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was first published in 1967 by Gage Ltd. It was a partner project of the Senior Dictionary (and appeared only a few weeks apart from each other). The DCHP can be considered the "Canadian OED", as it documents the historical development of CanE words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, bluff and grow op, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. It is a specialist, scholarly dictionary, but is not without interest to the general public. After more than 40 years, a second edition has been commenced at UBC in Vancouver in 2006. Throughout most of the 20th century, Canadian newspapers generally adopted American spellings e.g. color as opposed to the Britishbased colour. The use of such spellings was the long-standing practice of the The Canadian Press perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to World War II.[12] The practice of dropping the letter u in such words was also considered a labour-saving technique during the early days of printing in which movable type was set manually.[12] Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, therefore it was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided.[13] But reader complaints regarding the American spellings continued, given the widespread usage of the British variants in Canada which were particularly taught in the school systems. Eventually, Canadian newspapers adopted the British spelling variants such as -our endings, notably with the The Globe and Mail changing its spelling policy in October 1990.[14] Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion on 2 September 1998.[15] The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy on 15 September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.[13][16] In summary, there is then neither a national standard nor even provincial level standards for the education of, or consistent usage of, the written form of Canada's first language, English. Phonemic incidence The pronunciation of certain words has both American and British influence. The name of the letter Z is normally the AngloEuropean (and French) zed; the American zee is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.[17] In the words adult and composite, the emphasis is usually on the first syllable, as in Britain. Canadians side with the British on the pronunciation of lieutenant /lɛfˈtɛnənt/, shone /ʃɒn/, lever /ˈlivər/, and several other words; been is pronounced by many speakers as /bin/ rather than /bɪn/; as in Southern England, either and neither are more commonly /ˈaɪðər/ and /ˈnaɪðər/, respectively. Schedule can sometimes be /ˈʃɛdʒul/; process, progress, and project are sometimes pronounced /ˈproʊsɛs/, /ˈproʊɡrɛs/, and /ˈproʊdʒɛkt/; leisure is often /ˈlɛʒər/, harassment is often /ˈhɛrəsmənt/. Again and against are often pronounced /əˈgeɪn(st)/ rather than /əˈgɛn(st)/.