Canadian English
Chris Lohse
Relationship of English dialects
Canadian History in a jiffy
28,000 BC The first residents of what is now Canada arrive over the Bering Straight.
1000 AD Norsemen arrive from Europe and set up temporary settlements on the northern tip of Newfoundland
1497 John Cabot lands on the coast (probably Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island) and claims the territory for King Henry VII of England.
1534 Jacques Cartier lands in what is now the province of Quebec and claims it for France. The new colony, eventually called New France, included forts and settlements in what is now the Maritimes and Quebec, which were the beginning of cities such as Quebec City (founded 1608) and Montreal.
1763 New France is renamed "Quebec" and formally delivered to Britain by the Treaty of Paris. The Treaty of Paris ends French rule in Canada. 1812 Beginning of the War of 1812 between Canada (Britain) – in an attempt to repossess the U.S. & the US – in an attempt to conquer Canada. The Treaty of Ghent ends the war in 1814 (status
quo ante).
1867 The Dominion of Canada is created under the British North America Act (BNA Act) passed by the British Parliament. The Dominion included Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Within the next six years Manitoba, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island were admitted into the Dominion.
1904 Alberta and Saskatchewan enter Confederation, leaving only Newfoundland on its own. 1949 Newfoundland enters Confederation as the last province to join.
Tit‐Bits
1965 The National Flag of Canada, known as the Maple Leaf, makes its first appearance. February 15 is National Flag of Canada Day.
1967 Canada turns 100 years old and celebrates with the 1967 World’s Fair (known as Expo 67) festivities in Montreal.
1969 The Official Languages Act is adopted by the Government of Canada making English and French "official" languages, having preferred status in law over all other languages. 1980 "O Canada" is proclaimed Canada's national anthem, 100 years after it was first sung on June 24, 1880.
Four waves
The first large wave of permanent English‐speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from New England and the Mid‐Atlantic‐States.
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.
“Canadian English can be said to occupy an approximate position between American and British English. This can be explained historically, seeing as how Canada was under the influence of Britain for very much longer. Furthermore the
Canadians do not like to be mistaken for
Americans and so they tend to avoid the more obvious traits of English in the United States. Despite its great size there is not much deviation within Canadian English.”
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.uni‐due.de/SVE/Canada‐map.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.uni‐
due.de/SVE/VARS_CanadianEnglish.htm&usg=__XHYW0UWl4UDQYiMjBTfcNp8lYIA=&h=423&w=661&sz=11&hl=d
e&start=2&tbnid=05Ol1Rrka4AGIM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcanadian%2Benglish%2Bmap%
26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dde
Canadian vs. American pronunciation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQzOo6t_l0
Scottish Sounds
The Maritime Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island) and Newfoundland sound particularly Scottish. The dialect of the West in the U.S. may then have taken just the cot‐caught merger and the fronting of the vowel of “too” from Canadian English, since no other U. S. dialect has the latter.
Donald Sutherland
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieh7BQ
WCkI
Special Status Newfoundland
Eastern Canadian has felt a lot of Scottish influence; in Nova Scotia we still find a Gaelic‐
speaking minority. A special role is played by Newfoundland, which has little to do with the rest of Canada. How come?
The most prominent of the dialect regions is the island of Newfoundland known locally as ‘The Rock’. This island has a history of seasonal migration from Ireland and the West Country of Britain: Workers came over in the summer to partake in the fish industry and returned in the winter and so there was ‐ up until the 19th century ‐ a continuous input of dialect features from the two areas just mentioned and many aspects of Newfoundland English can be accounted for given the Irish and West Country backgrounds of its original settlers.
Our Newfies
There are a lot of special words that are widely used, so in the 10th Canadian province, tourists will need the Newfie‐English dictionary (Bentfield, 1991: 96). “http://reese.linguist.de/English/america.htm”
Newfie‐Vocab
____________________________________ BANKER
A vessel engaged in cod‐fishing on the Newfoundland offshore grounds, especially the Grand Banks.
______________________________________
Irish toothache
pregnancy
_______________________________________
Cat
A game similar to hurley, played with sticks on the ice. You try to keep the ball out of a hole cut in the ice or frozen ground.
Sources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_English
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.quichua.net/AmEng/index_files/AmericanEnglishDialects.gif
&imgrefurl=http://www.quichua.net/AmEng/&usg=__9hwOv‐
OkJ6cBnNRsXQTA_hy1Qc8=&h=2298&w=2715&sz=580&hl=de&start=2&tbnid=Cz2r7WkU8JU4UM:&tbnh=127&t
bnw=150&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcanadian%2Bdialect%2Bmap%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dde
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/languages2001/mt
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/languages2001/bilingual
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/peopleandsociety/lang/aboriginallanguages/bycommunity
http://www.uni‐due.de/SVE/Canada‐map.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Canadian_history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
http://reese.linguist.de/English/america.htm http://www.1800dentist.com/dentist‐love‐
blog/images/6a00d414452d953c7f0110167bd886860d‐500pi.jpg
http://hotpotmike.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/canadianflag.gif
http://ecenglish.com/learnenglish//userfiles/image/Canada‐day.jpg
http://www.joe‐ks.com/archives_nov2003/Newfie_English.htm
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Geopolitical_map_of_Canada.png
http://www.seattlepi.com/dayart/20050520/dialect‐map‐0520.gif
http://phrontistery.info/temp/usdialect.png
“Funny“ websites
•
•
http://www.joe‐ks.com/archives_nov2003/Newfie_English.htm
http://www.joe‐ks.com/archives_nov2004/Redneck_Dictionary.htm
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
http://www.quichua.net/AmEng/#LargeMap1Right
http://www.quichua.net/AmEng/index_files/AmericanEnglishDialects.gifhttp://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Bilingual_education#Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilingualism_in_Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_English
http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic‐images/blog/Eric_B/diausa.gif
http://www.joe‐ks.com/archives_nov2004/Redneck_Dictionary.htm
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~dcwalker/PronCF.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_chart_for_English_dialects#Chart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ieh7BQWCkI
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Canadian/canphon3.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQzOo6t_l0
http://www.youtubehttp://www.personal.psu.edu/ejp10/blogs/thinking/assets_c/2009/05/
SimplifiedDialectsKey‐thumb‐400x546‐54296.png.com/watch?v=rJXedRX‐0Ro
http://critteristic.com/wp‐content/uploads/2009/04/cutest‐cat‐face.jpg
http://img.tfd.com/wn/78/68BFF‐bank‐manager.gif
http://www.history‐timelines.org.uk/places‐timelines/09‐canadian‐history‐timeline.htm
http://www.schoolsincanada.com/Canadian‐History‐Timeline.cfm
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bluenoser
http://images.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http://www.uni‐due.de/SVE/Canada‐
map.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.uni‐
due.de/SVE/VARS_CanadianEnglish.htm&usg=__XHYW0UWl4UDQYiMjBTfcNp8lYIA=&h=423
&w=661&sz=11&hl=de&start=2&tbnid=05Ol1Rrka4AGIM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=138&prev=/imag
es%3Fq%3Dcanadian%2Benglish%2Bmap%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Dde