Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ucla-cs.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ukma!psuvm.bitnet!psuvax1!burdvax!sdcrdcf!ucla-cs!wales From: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Canadian accents Message-ID: <8275@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Wed, 8-Jan-86 22:48:21 EST Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.8275 Posted: Wed Jan 8 22:48:21 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jan-86 07:09:03 EST References: <2487@amdahl.UUCP> Reply-To: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales) Distribution: net Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 134 CAVEAT: I am an American from the San Francisco area. I have listened to many Canadians and -- having linguistics/phonetics as a hobby -- have analyzed their speech in some detail. I am pretty sure that what I say below is correct; however, I would welcome any correc- tions or amplifications where appropriate. In article <2487@amdahl.UUCP>, Gordon A. Moffett comments on the speech of Bob and Doug MacKenzie, and asks whether their accent is in fact typ- ically Canadian. Yes, it definitely is. Tune in to a hockey game and listen to them interview one of the players (most of whom are Canadian, of course); chances are they will talk just like Bob and Doug do. I also have had several Canadian friends who have this same (or nearly the same) accent. On the other hand, not all Canadians talk in exactly this manner. Tune in to the ABC Evening News, for example, and listen to Peter Jennings (who is from Toronto and seems, for the most part, to have retained his native accent). In particular, you will note that Jennings frequently pronounces the "ou" sound in a manner that is definitely not standard American -- yet it isn't exactly "Bob and Doug" either. Lest someone object that Peter Jennings' speech is not typical, I have heard other people (including CBC announcers) speak in a similar way. The "ou" sound is not the only phoneme (basic sound unit) that is pro- nounced differently in Canadian vs. American speech -- though it is admittedly the most prominent difference, at least to the average Amer- ican ear. Several other sounds -- most of them vowels -- have slightly different pronunciations north of the border; in particular, long "a" and long "o" tend to be less diphthongized (drawled) and more like sin- gle, pure sounds in Canadian speech. Contrast the "Bob&Doug" pronunci- ation of "hoser" with your own pronunciation of the same word; chances are that you say something like "oh-oo" for the vowel in this word. Also, many (or most) Canadians pronounce the short "a" (as in "hat") about halfway between the American sounds in "hat" and "father". Canadians and Americans diverge in the pronunciation of "ou", by the way, *only* when this sound is immediately followed by an *unvoiced* consonant. When "ou" is followed by a *voiced* consonant -- or by no consonant at all -- both groups pronounce it in the same way (i.e., as a diphthong starting with a vowel somewhere between "a" as in "father" and "a" as in "cat" -- the exact sound varies from place to place and from speaker to speaker). When a Canadian pronounces "ou" followed by an unvoiced consonant, the diphthong starts with a different vowel sound. Various speakers may use the "o" of "hoser", the "u" of "but", or even a stressed version of the normally unstressed "schwa" or neutral vowel. When the first part of the "ou" diphthong is the "o" sound, the result sounds very much like the American long "o" -- the "Bob&Doug" pronunciation of "out", out of context, is almost indistinguishable from the American "oat". The "Bob&Doug" pronunciation of "oat", on the other hand, would use a more- or-less "pure" vowel and would thus sound different from "out". This "pure-vowel" quality of long "o" seems to be slightly less strong in Toronto speech, but I believe it is still there. Something similar happens to long "i" as well. Before an unvoiced con- sonant, the initial sound of Canadian long "i" becomes something like the "u" in "but". Before a voiced consonant -- as well as when not fol- lowed by a consonant at all -- speakers on both sides of the border use the sound of "a" in "father" in this diphthong. This distinction does not seem to be nearly as noticeable to Americans as the "ou" variations. To put the shoe on the other foot for a moment: I had a roommate from Alberta some time ago. After he had been in the U.S. for some time (before he became my roommate) -- and had evidently started to pick up the American pronunciation of "ou" and long "i" -- he told me that, upon returning home, his friends teased him because of his "Yankee drawl". I have *never*, by the way, heard a Canadian pronounce "out" so as to rhyme with "boot". I think the lesson here is that we often experience trouble analyzing unfamiliar sounds, and a person who is confronted with a strange sound will generally "map" that sound (subconsciously) into something "close" to that sound in his own pronunciation. This is why so many people speak foreign languages with hideous accents without realizing that their pronunciation differs grossly (and even unaccept- ably) from that of the native speaker they are trying to imitate. Not all Canadians pronounce "ou" (before voiceless consonants) in the same way. Indeed, I have noted several instances in which a single speaker has used several different pronunciations of the same word in the course of a given conversation. Can anyone else out there comment on the following observations? (1) I frequently hear Canadians sometimes use the American pronuncia- tion of "ou" before voiceless consonants (while at other times using a distinctively Canadian pronunciation of this phoneme). There does not seem to be any pattern; a single speaker will -- seemingly at random -- pronounce the same word one way one time, and then say the same word (in the same context) differently at another time. I assume that this sporadic "Yankee drawl" is being caused by exposure to the American mass media, but I would like to know if anyone else has a different theory. (2) The pronunciation of "ou" that starts with "u" (as in "but"), or with a stressed "schwa" or neutral vowel sound, seems to be concen- trated in Ontario. Canadians from other parts of the country -- and even some from Ontario -- seem to use the "Bob&Doug" pronuncia- tion ("ou" sound starts with "o" as in "hoser") almost exclusively. (3) The supposedly "Canadian" pronunciation of "ou" may not be prevalent throughout the entire country. In particular, I have not heard it in speakers from Newfoundland (possibly because Newfoundland wasn't actually part of Canada until 1949). Also, I knew two girls from Lethbridge, Alberta, who invariably pronounced this sound in the American manner -- even though they were both native-born Canadians and exhibited many other, more subtle aspects of Canadian pronunci- ation. This latter phenomenon may be due to the fact that southern Alberta was settled by Mormon (i.e., American) pioneers around the turn of the century. (4) Some Canadians pronounce the "a" in "car" very similarly to the way they pronounce "a" in "hat" (i.e., about halfway between the "a"s in American "hat" and "father"). Unlike the New England accent in the U.S., though, the final "r" is still strongly pronounced -- creating an effect not unlike the stereotype "pirate accent" in old movies. For those of you who get the Nickelodeon cable network, you can hear this pronunciation in over half the cast of the show "You Can't Do That On Television" (which comes from Ottawa). I have also heard it in the speech of a friend of mine from Calgary, Alberta -- who says he grew up in Alberta and that his parents also came from western Canada. Can anyone shed light as to the distribution of this regionalism? -- Rich Wales // UCLA Computer Science Department // +1 213-825-5683 3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, California 90024 // USA ARPA: wales@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU -or- wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA UUCP: ...!(ucbvax,ihnp4)!ucla-cs!wales