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!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!ittatc!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!ucla-cs!wales From: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: Canadian accents Message-ID: <8382@ucla-cs.ARPA> Date: Wed, 15-Jan-86 19:30:58 EST Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.8382 Posted: Wed Jan 15 19:30:58 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 17-Jan-86 07:03:29 EST References: <8275@ucla-cs.ARPA> <751@othervax.UUCP> Reply-To: wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales) Distribution: net Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department Lines: 69 In article <751@othervax.UUCP>, Ray Dunn wrote: Rich, how can you POSSIBLY talk about an 'American' or 'Canadian' accent? Which one are you referring to? New Jersey? Virginia? Kentucky? Boston? Toronto? Montreal? Re: an "American" accent. I inadvertently neglected to include a statement in my original posting to the effect that I was talking in terms of the accent used by most speakers on the West Coast of the U.S. My apologies to anyone who was confused or offended by this omission. I think it can fairly be said, by the way, that the West Coast accent (or a close approximation thereto) is used by most of the U.S. mass media as a de-facto standard. This is not intended as a chauvinistic statement, simply as an observation of an apparent trend. In any case, though, I agree that I clearly should have made this assumption explicit in my article. Re: a "Canadian" accent. I also realize that there is no single Canadian accent. Indeed, one of my reasons for posting my original article in the first place was to try to get more info regarding regional differences within Can- ada. I thought my article was clear enough as it stood -- but, just to be sure, I extend my apologies to anyone who thought I was saying that all Canadians speak exactly alike (I didn't, and they don't). There seems to be VERY little treatment in the linguistic literature I have found so far of the obvious regional differences within Canada re- garding the pronunciation of individual phonemes (e.g., there seem to be at least three slightly different "Canadian" pronunciations of the "ou" in "about", as I mentioned in my last article). This is in marked contrast to studies dealing with Canadian vocabulary (e.g., "eaves- trough" vs. "rain gutter") and phoneme selection (e.g., does "shone" rhyme with "gone" or "bone"). Again -- if anyone can supply me with info regarding differences in phoneme pronunciation in various parts of Canada, I would be grateful. To summarize my particular questions (see my previous article for more detail): (1) The initial sound in the "ou" diphthong before voiceless consonants seems to be variously pronounced like long "o"; like "u" as in "but"; or like a stressed version of the schwa (e.g., "u" as in "circus", but stressed). Also, the "general American" pronunciation ("ou" starts with some- thing like an "ah" sound, regardless of context) seems to be used by many Canadians -- either occasionally or (in some cases) exclu- sively. There seems to be some regional distribution at work here (in par- ticular, the "ou" pronunciation starting with short "u" or stressed schwa seems to be limited to Ontario), but I don't have enough info to pin it down. (2) Some Canadian speakers pronounce "a" before "r" (e.g, in "car") similarly to the short "a" in "cat". I have heard this pronuncia- tion in the speech of various people from Ottawa, as well as one speaker from Calgary (though this pronunciation does not seem to be characteristic of Alberta or western Canada in general). Again, can anyone shed light as to where this pronunciation is common? -- 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