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American Accents of Toronto

If you listen carefully to people who were born and raised in downtown Toronto, -- meaning south of Bloor, east of the Humber River and west of River Street -- you will hear all manner of subtle things in their pronunciation. Toronto has a second T. The Westend is the west side. I grew up downtown as did a lot of my friends. As teenagers, we noticed that people from the burbs -- even as close as Hogs Hollow or Etobicoke -- sounded very different from us.

I have a friend from Stouffville and whenever he says " out, " it sounds like " oat. " And he pronounces " there " as " thur. " After a year of living downtown, he finally picked up the vowel shiift and now calls Bluer Street, Blore Street like a townie.

In other news, according to the Linguists at U of T, it appears Canadian Raising -- which is at the heart of the archetypal Bob and Doug MacKenzie Canadian Accent -- is fading fast in Toronto. They describe it as " headed for extinction. "

Ironically, as it dies in Toronto, it is spreading like wildfire -- so say Linguists on both sides of the border -- into the United States. And to further the irony, because of the population difference between Canada and the United States, there are now more American's who speak with the Canadian Raising feature than there are Canadians who speak with it. Now how odd is that.
 
BuildTO said:
With all due respect, that's an ethnocentric attitude - the idea that someone else's behaviour is an offshoot or variation of your own. Canadian English has its own history. It is not a form of American English any more than American English is a form of Canadian English.
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The history of Canadian English -- at least in Ontario -- is very much the history of American English.

Prior to the American Revolution, Upper Canada -- Ontario -- was sparsely settled. Migration of Europeans to Ontario lagged behind that of the eastern colonies for several reasons, notably among them the harshness of the winter and its distance from ocean ports.

Following the American Revolution, however, settlement of Ontario increased in pace, both with the continuing arrival of Europeans, but more significantly with the migration of Loyalists (or "Tories") who fled the United States.

Chambers (1993, 1997) claims it is the speech of the first wave of Loyalists, who arrived in southern Ontario from Pennsylvania and Virginia in the 1780's, that forms the basis of early Canadian English.
 
MisterF said:
From the Wiki article:


Nobody I've ever met has ever said "oot" or "aboot". Unless of course they're talking about footwear. It's one of those things where people unfamilar with an accent use the closest sound they're familiar with to describe it. So to an American, scout and trout become scoot and troot or sometimes scoat and troat.

Kind of like "ronery".
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This is tricky.
Canadians, INCLUDING Torontonians, say out, doubt, about differently from Americans.

Admittedly, it is not an exaggerated "oot" as in "boot", but there is a clear and discernable difference in the way words like out, about, doubt are pronounced.

I can hear it, and so can most others when one know what to listen for. It's hard to describe online, but basically a Canadian pronunciation is like "out", whereas the American pronunciation comes off sounding more like "ought".

Learn to listen for it, and you will see what Americans are talking about! ;)
 
Pronouncing " Out " so that it sounds like " Oat " is a function of Canadian Raising.


According to the Linguists at U of T, it appears Canadian Raising -- which is at the heart of the archetypal Bob and Doug MacKenzie Canadian Accent -- is fading fast in Toronto. Ironically, as it dies in Toronto, it is spreading like wildfire -- so say Linguists on both sides of the border -- into the United States. The area's it is spreading are the areas where Northern Cities Raising is not a function of pronunciation. Which basically means the Southern United States, the Western States, California etc.

And to further the irony, because of the population difference between Canada and the United States, there are now more American's who speak with the Canadian Raising feature than there are Canadians who speak with it. Now how odd is that.
 
Canadian
People from outside North America probably think you`re from the States, but over here we wouldn`t make such a mistake.

The Canadian pronunciation of the vowel sound in words like "out", "shout" and "bout" is indeed quite distinctive. Another one is the first vowel sound in words like "sorry", which is pronounced like "sore-eee" in Canada, but like "saw-reee" in the adjacent parts of the US.

Also, here is the Wikipedia article on Canadian Raising. Another liguistic feature of Canadian English is the Canadian Shift, which is an entirely separate set of sound changes.
 
northstar said:
This is tricky.
Canadians, INCLUDING Torontonians, say out, doubt, about differently from Americans.

Admittedly, it is not an exaggerated "oot" as in "boot", but there is a clear and discernable difference in the way words like out, about, doubt are pronounced.

I can hear it, and so can most others when one know what to listen for. It's hard to describe online, but basically a Canadian pronunciation is like "out", whereas the American pronunciation comes off sounding more like "ought".

Learn to listen for it, and you will see what Americans are talking about! ;)
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Oh I'm not saying that we say it like Americans, it's definitely different. The way most Americans say it is more drawly, for lack of a better word, and the way we say it isn't familiar to them. So the best approximation they have for the way we say it is "oot" or "oat", both of which are inaccurate in most cases.

Actually that Wikipedia article says it more clearly that I can:

It is important that these exaggerated pronunciations, such as "a boat the hoce", are usually only apparent to people without Canadian raising. They represent an attempt to imperfectly approximate the sounds they hear with sounds available in their own dialects. Because this approximation is imperfect, individuals who do speak with Canadian raising will frequently be baffled by reports that they are being perceived as saying "aboot".

Mystic Point said:
I have a friend from Stouffville and whenever he says " out, " it sounds like " oat. " And he pronounces " there " as " thur. "
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This is a rural thing, a lot of rural people say "oat" while people in cities say it differently. In most cities and towns of any size the urban accent dominates.
 
adma said:
Is there a kinship between "Canadian Raising" and uptalk/Valspeak?
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No. Canadian Raising involves vowel sounds. As in " out " becomes " oat. " For reasons not entirely clear, many young people living in the Southern United States now exhibit Canadian Raising and the trend is expanding with each year.

As Canadian Raising is gaining traction in the Southern Us, according to linguists, it's going extinct in Toronto -- although not in the area's outside Toronto. Younger Torontonians no longer distinguish between rider and writer and many no longer pronounce out as oat. Canadian Raising is also receding in most of British Columbia. Young speakers in the Lower Mainland no longer raise at all.

Down in South Western Ontario and around the Golden Horseshoe, many people now exhibit aspects of Northern Cities Raising. So hockey becomes hackey, hot becomes hat, dog becomes dag.

There is, however, an interesting connection between Canada and California. In many western states and in much of Canada, something called the Canadian Shift or the California Shift has emerged.

These shifts are identified by vowel mergers. The most famous being the " cot/caught " merger.

In most english speaking countries, " cot " and " caught " are distinct in pronunciation. As are merry, Mary and marry.

In California, many western states and much of english speaking Canada -- except for Atlantic Canada and Montreal -- , " cot " and " caught " are pronounced as though they are the same word.

The Canadian - California Shift is relatively new.

Perhaps more than any vowel shift or issue of raising, Valley Speak is probably the most popular form of speech to spread across North America in the last 30 years, especially among white suburban women and girls. There are many theories regarding its infiltration into mainstream speech patterns and pronunciation, however, in the end your guess is as good as any.
 
Mystic Point said:
Perhaps more than any vowel shift or issue of raising, Valley Speak is probably the most popular form of speech to spread across North America in the last 30 years, especially among white suburban women and girls. There are many theories regarding its infiltration into mainstream speech patterns and pronunciation, however, in the end your guess is as good as any.
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Let me rephrase that:

"Perhaps more than any vowel shift or issue of raising, Valley Speak is probably the most popular form of speech to spread across North America in the last 30 years, especially among white suburban women and girls? There are many theories regarding its infiltration into mainstream speech patterns and pronunciation, however, in the end your guess is as good as any?"
 
adma said:
Let me rephrase that:

"Perhaps more than any vowel shift or issue of raising, Valley Speak is probably the most popular form of speech to spread across North America in the last 30 years, especially among white suburban women and girls? There are many theories regarding its infiltration into mainstream speech patterns and pronunciation, however, in the end your guess is as good as any?"
Click to expand...

That's like, um, great?
 
So, Mystic linguist, if you're so cunning please tell me why an ex-Brit from Surrey like me uses the Anguish Languish in a way that's closer ( according to the results of this test ) to how Mot, an ex-Yank from New Jersey, uses it than it is to how Torontonians use it?
 
what happens when someone who comes from England or Europe -- someone who speaks English with some kind of Euro accent -- takes this test? I wonder what the results look like.

If anyone has a British accent around here, can you take the test and reveal the results?
 
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