The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
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The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
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Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#2[deleted]
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#3I'm going to miss 'oot' and the rest. RIP
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#4> The English version of “baguette” stops rhyming with “vague-ette,”
Coming from central Canada, "bag" always rhymes with "vague". I get funny looks sometimes when "lag" comes up in conversation here in the Pacific NW.
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#5The accents in north america are split east-west, not north-south. I'm from Vancouver but whenever I am in the eastern US they think I'm from california because I don't sound have the ontario/maritime accent they recognize as "canadian". "aboot" doesn’t exist in the west. Never has.
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#6I'm going to miss 'oot' and the rest. RIP
"Soar-y" for sorry has always been my favorite. I've always associated that pronunciation with obnoxious child-actors since so many of the shows I grew up on were peopled almost entirely with Canadian actors/voice actors.
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#7The accents in north america are split east-west, not north-south. I'm from Vancouver but whenever I am in the eastern US they think I'm from california because I don't sound have the ontario/maritime accent they recognize as "canadian". "aboot" doesn’t exist in the west. Never has.
I'm in LA and every time someone finds out I'm Canadian, they say, "But you don't have an accent" or "You don't sound Canadian", and on the rare occasion, people refer to my Vancouver accent as "fake Canadian accent".
I just half-smile or say "I don't know", instead of explaining how provincial their "typical Canadian accent" sounds to Vancouverites.
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#8Interesting juxtaposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Cities_Vowel_Shift
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#9The accents in north america are split east-west, not north-south. I'm from Vancouver but whenever I am in the eastern US they think I'm from california because I don't sound have the ontario/maritime accent they recognize as "canadian". "aboot" doesn’t exist in the west. Never has.
For some reason, there is a popular misconception (even among some linguists!) that "Canada" is some kind of unified linguistic zone, or that somehow it is "close enough" (maybe people are just lazy). Whereas English diversity in the US has been studied to very fine level of detail, Canada remains mostly a blob on most maps[0].
Of course, anyone who lives, say, in urban Ontario will immediately notice the differences in accent of someone from B.C. or Alberta, though that seems to just "sound Canadian" to other listeners.
[0] See e.g. http://aschmann.net/AmEng/
Re: The Great Canadian Vowel Shift
#10It's a real life Pontypool ;-)