wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (01/09/86)
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!walesellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) (01/13/86)
>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". > >Something similar happens to long "i" as well. > Can anyone shed light as to the distribution of this regionalism? >-- Rich Wales In Virginia, between Williamsburg and Petersburg "out" is frequently pronounced as you describe, almost like "oat", especially by those claiming descent from the 19th century president Tyler (a very common name in those parts, apparently he produced many offspring). The effect of this Virginia regionalism was not unpleasant; in fact it could be quite elegant, almost aristocratic, in a southern fashion. As in Canadian, "i" of "kite" was not so noticeably peculiar. Another topic: why is it "Canadian"? After all, that would imply that the name of the country is "Canadia"! "Canadan" is much more logical. Too late now, I suppose.. -michael
ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) (01/13/86)
In article <8275@ucla-cs.ARPA> wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales) writes
a long discourse on 'American" and 'Canadian' accents, and claims to
have a special interest. He talks about 'American' pronunciation of
vowel sounds etc.
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?
Ray Dunn. ..philabs!micomvax!othervax!raywales@ucla-cs.UUCP (01/16/86)
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!walesjsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman) (01/20/86)
In article <8382@ucla-cs.ARPA> wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (Rich Wales) writes: >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. That's funny: every mid-westerner I've heard opine on this subject has been convinced that the mass media use a midwestern accent as standard. Not to mention that both Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather are from Texas. Whatever it is they use on the air doesn't sound like it came from California. Which West Coast accent did you mean, by the way? I can hear distinct differences in the ways people from San Francisco and L.A. talk. (It's not so much different phonemes as differing pitch patterns.) And I've heard people from California make fun of the way people from Oregon talk. -- John Quarterman, UUCP: {gatech,harvard,ihnp4,pyramid,seismo}!ut-sally!im4u!jsq ARPA Internet and CSNET: jsq@im4u.UTEXAS.EDU, jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU
aglew@ccvaxa.UUCP (01/25/86)
Canadian out-oat: I don't think we talk that way in Montreal. It does remind me, though, of farm labourers in Leicestershire, and is one of the classic components in "putting on" a Scottish accent.