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Canadian English (CaE) is a variety of English used in Canada. It is spoken as a first or second language by over 25 million—or 85 percent of—Canadians (2001 census ). Canadian English spelling can be described as a mixture of American, British, Quebec French, and unique Canadianisms. Canadian vocabulary is similar to American English, yet with key differences and local variations.

In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, called The Oxford Canadian Dictionary; a second edition was published in 2004. It listed uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the most popular choice in common use.

History

Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the middle Atlantic states. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by a government worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by Rev. A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglo-centric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect", in comparison to the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.

Of course, the languages of Canadian Aboriginal peoples started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place, and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.

Spelling

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, usually retain British spellings (colour and centre), although American spellings are not uncommon. On the other hand, the U.S. uses the Anglo-French spelling for defense, while Canada uses the British spelling defence. In other cases, Canadians and Americans stand at odds with British spelling such as in the case of nouns like tire and curb, which in British English are spelled tyre and kerb (for the border of a sidewalk , for other uses Britain uses curb).

Like American English, Canadian English prefers -ize endings whenever British usage allows both -ise and -ize spellings (e.g. realize, recognize).

A business-history explanation for some Canadian spelling rules is possible. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's car industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of a car. In fact, a major Canadian retail hardware and home goods chain is known as Canadian Tire.

British spellings which include digraphs (or their two-letter equivalents) are beginning to disappear from Canadian spellings. Words such as encyclopædia, fœtus, and pædiatrician are frequently spelled encyclopedia, fetus, and pediatrician, although many Canadian dictionaries offer both spellings as an option and medical journals still include ligatures. Manoeuvre (instead of the U.S. maneuver) and archaeology (instead of archeology) are still the more common spelling in Canada, though.

A plausible contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references (see the section "Further reading").

Pronunciation

Overall, the pronunciation of English in most of Canada is very similar to the pronunciation of English found in the Western United States; this is especially true in Central and Western Canada. The island of Newfoundland has its own distinctive dialect of English known as Newfoundland English while many in the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have an accent sounding more similar to Scottish and, in some places, Irish pronunciation than General American. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians.

Canada shares similarities with British English in pronouncing words like fragile, fertile, and mobile. While American English pronounce them as , , and , Canadians pronounce them as the British do, sounding like /fɹædʒajl̩/, /moʊbajl̩/ The American pronunciation of fertile is also becoming very popular in Canada, even though the British pronunciation remains dominant.

In American English, words like semi, anti, and multi are often pronounced as /sɛmaj/, /æntaj/, and /mʌltaj/, whereas the British pronounce them like /sɛmi/, /ænti/, and so on. Canadians tend to prefer the British pronunciation of these words, though American pronunciation has made headway. Often, a Canadian will use the former in general use, but the latter in order to add emphasis.

In Canada, the word premier, as meant to be the leader of a provincial or territorial government, is pronounced , , or in most places. Premiere, denoting a first performance, is pronounced the same in Canada as the rest of the world.

Another pronunciation that is typically Canadian is to pronounce asphalt as ash-falt /ˈæʃ.fælt/. That is not the American or British pronunciation.

Regional variation in pronunciation

Western/Central

A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below

The phoneme /ʍ/ is present only in older speakers who have not undergone the wine-whine merger.

The vowel phonemes are shown in the table below:

The diphthongs are shown in the next table:

The West/Central dialect is one of the largest and the most homogenous dialect area in North America. It forms a dialect continuum with the accent in the Western United States, and borders the dialect regions of North, Inland North, and North Central. While it is the most homogenous in that the regional differences inside the dialect area are very small, it has very few features that are completely unique. It is also fairly similar to General American English.

While the West/Central dialect is mutually intelligible with many dialects of English spoken in England, especially Received Pronunciation, in general it preserves more archaic features, that existed before the dialects split.

• Unlike RP, the West/Central dialect is rhotic. This means it maintains the pronunciation of r before consonants. Rhoticity has been largely influenced by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. The sound corresponding to the letter "R" is a retroflex or alveolar approximant rather than a trill or a tap. The 'er' sound of (stressed) fur or (unstressed) butter, which is represented in IPA as stressed or unstressed is realized in Canadian English as a monophthongal r-colored vowel.
• It has also not shifted to (the so-called "broad A") before , , , , , alone or preceded by .

Both RP, and the West/Central dialect have gone through the following changes:

• The horse-hoarse merger of the vowels and before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning etc. homophones.
• The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /ʍ/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. This is preserved in some older speakers, as well as being an archaicism.

The following changes are innovations, and do not occur in RP. It shares these changes with General American.

• The and ]], making father and bother rhyme.
• The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, and because.
• Vowel merger before intervocalic /r/.
• The merger of and after palatals in some words, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir in some speech registers for some speakers.
• Some speakers have Dropping of after alveolar consonants so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute are pronounced /nuː/, /duːk/, /tuːzdeɪ/, /suːt/, /ɹɪzuːm/, /luːt/.
• Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as or , making winter and winner homophones for some speakers. This does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.
• Laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like , and for pair, peer and pure.
• The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap before reduced vowels. The words ladder and latter are mostly or entirely homophonous, possibly distinguished only by the length of preceding vowel. For some speakers, the merger is incomplete and 't' before a reduced vowel is sometimes not tapped following or when it represents underlying 't'; thus greater and grader, and unbitten and unbidden are distinguished.
• The vowels in words such as Mary, marry, merry are merged to the open-mid front unrounded vowel , except in Quebec.

The following changes are shared with the Western dialect in the US:

• Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as as in boat and , as in bait, have acquired qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers. However, the continuing presence of slight offglides (if less salient than those of, say, British Received Pronunciation) and convention in IPA transcription for English account for continuing use of and .
• Most speakers do not distinguish between the open-mid back rounded vowel and open back unrounded vowel , characteristic of the cot-caught merger. A notable exception occurs with some speakers over the age of 60, especially in rural areas in the Prairies, although the merger is the most widespread overall.
• and sometimes as before g.: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and "layg".
• Origin, Florida, horrible, quarrel, warren, are all generally pronounced as , instead of .
• The Close central rounded vowel or Close back unrounded vowel for , is found after coronals. Elsewhere, is back and rounded.
• /ɪŋ/ in words of more than two syllables tends to be pronounced as /in/ or /ɪn/, but many speakers use /ɪŋ/ as well.
• Milk is pronounced /mɛlk/ by some speakers, /mɪlk/ by others, although pillow is almost always /pɪlo/.

The following changes are shared with the Western dialect in the US, but to a lesser extent:

• A recently identified feature (1995) found among many Canadians is a chain shift known as the Canadian Shift. It is triggered by the cot-caught merger. As one vowel encroaches upon the space of another, the adjacent vowel in turn experiences a movement in order to maximize phonemic differentiation. For people with this shift, cot and caught merge in rounded position. The /æ/ of bat then moves down to , while the /ɛ/ of bet becomes , which is short-a in other accents. This shift is still a relatively new phenomenon, so not all Canadians have it. Of the ones that do, not all have the last stage. Canadians without the Shift typically pronounce cot and caught with the original pronunciation that existed after the merger: an un-rounded , like most speakers in the Western United States.

The following changes are shared with the Pacific Northwest English dialect, as well as other dialects:

• æ-tensing /æ/ is tense before /g/ which causes "bag" and "beg" to sound very similar, and in some speakers, especially in Ontario, before /n/ as well.
• Tomorrow is generally pronounced as , instead of .
• The following feature is most prominent in the Prairies and Ontario: "Canadian raising": diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants (e.g., , , , , ). For example, IPA /aɪ/ (the vowel of "eye") and /aʊ/ (the vowel of "loud") become and , respectively, the /a/ component of the diphthong going from a low vowel to schwa (). Note also that this phenomenon preserves the recoverability of the phoneme /t/ in "writer" despite the North American English process of flapping, which merges /t/ and /d/ into before unstressed vowels, so "writer" and "rider" can be distinguished from each other even though the t and d in those words are pronounced the same. The most noticeable feature is the raising of /aʊ/ to because is an allophone of /oʊ/ (as in "road") in many other dialects, so the Canadian pronunciation of "about the house" may sound like *"a boat the hoas" to speakers of dialects without the raising, and in many cases is misheard or exaggerated to "aboot the hoose". Some stand-up and situation comedians, as well as television shows actually do exaggerate the pronunciation to *"aboot the hoos" for comic effect, for example in the American television series South Park.

In contrast to General American:

• The broad /ɑ/ of foreign loan words in words like drama or Iraq are usually pronounced like the short a of bat: /dɹæmə/, /ɪɹæk/.
• Been is usually pronounced /bin/ rather than /bɪn/.
• Words such as borrow, sorry, and sorrow are generally pronounced as , instead of .
• Americans sometimes claim to be able to recognize the Western/Central Canadian dialect instantly by their use of the word eh. However, only a certain usage of eh (detailed in the article) is peculiar to Canada. It is common in southern Ontario, the Maritimes and the Prairie provinces. "eh" is used quite frequently in the North Central dialect, so a Canadian accent is often detected in people from North Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin.

British Columbia

The dialect is very similar to the English spoken in the Prairies and Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. BC is home to a very diverse population. In parts of the Fraser Valley the intonation and cadence of Dutch and Mennonite German have influenced local English. British accents and a wide range of European and Asian second-language flavoured English have always been common, to the point of the British flavour being identifiably a hallmark of early 20th Century British Columbia, as has been English as spoken by First Nations peoples, which is distinct as an accent but also remains largely undocumented. Unlike in the prairies, Canadian raising (one of the most noticeable features of Canadian English), found in words such as "about" and "writer" is receding in BC, and many speakers do not raise /aɪ/ before voiceless consonants. Younger speakers in the Greater Vancouver area do not even raise /aʊ/, causing "about" to sound like "abowt". The "o" in words such as in the words "holy," "goal," "load," "know," etc. is pronounced as a back and rounded , but not as rounded as in the Prairies where there is a strong Scandinavian, Slavic and German influence. The interrogative "eh" is not used as frequently as in the Prairies.

Hear BC English

Prairies

A strong Canadian raising exists in the prairie regions together with certain older usages such as chesterfield and front room also associated with the Maritimes. Aboriginal Canadians are a larger and more conspicuous population in prairie cities than elsewhere in the country and certain elements of aboriginal speech in English are widely to be heard. Similarly, the linguistic legacy, mostly intonation but also speech patterns and syntax, of the Scandinavian, Slavic and German settlers — who are far more numerous and historically important in the Prairies than in Ontario or the Maritimes — can be heard in the general milieu. Again, the large Métis population in Saskatchewan also carries with it certain linguistic traits inherited from French, aboriginal and Celtic forebears.

Hear Prairies English

Ontario

Canadian raising is often quite strong in Ontario.

In southwestern Ontario (especially in rural areas), some speakers have some aspects of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift , e.g. not sounds like naht (/nɔt/ → /nat/). The accent is slightly modified to signify sarcasm or emphasis: not becomes a heavily stressed nat, for example, and hockey may sound like hackey (with an ).

In Central Ontario (that is, the region around Toronto) in particular, the voiced th and d are often not distinguished, the two pronunciations frequently appearing together ("Do you want this one or dis one?", for example). Sometimes (particularly in North York, an area of Toronto; see below), the th is dropped altogether, resulting in "Do you want this one er'iss one?" The word southern is often pronounced as 'sow-thern' as opposed to 'suth-ern'. Most accents, of course, are quite subtle, and most immaterial to detailed speech. In the regional area north of York and south of Parry Sound, notably among those who were born in these bedroom communities (Barrie, Vaughan, Orillia, Bradford, Newmarket) as opposed to those who moved there to commute, the cutting down of syllables is often heard, e.g. "prolly" instead of "probably" (as in a response).

Also heard is the variation in the pronunciation of the word can't, in Ontario, it is said almost as canned. In Southwestern Ontario, /æ/ is raised and diphthongized to or before nasal consonants (a shift reminiscent of, but more restricted than, non-phonemic æ-tensing in the Inland North, a feature of the Northern cities vowel shift), for example, Andy is pronounced or .

The Ottawa Valley has its own distinct accent, known as the Ottawa Valley Twang.

Hear Ontario English

Quebec

English is a minority language in Quebec, but has many speakers in Montréal, the Eastern Townships and in the Gatineau-Ottawa region. Among Montréal-native anglophones, there is a distinction between /æ/ and /a/, unique in Canada, so that Mary and merry are not homophones. Among Eastern Townships-native anglophones, syrup is often pronounced as sir-rup.

Hear Quebec English

Maritimes

Maritimer English quirks include the removal of pre-consonantal sounds, and a faster speech tempo. It is heavily influenced by both British and Irish English.

An example of typical Maritime English might be the pronunciation of the letter t. The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap before reduced vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop , is less common in the Maritimes. So, battery is pronounced as "bat-try" instead of with a flapped t.

While the stereotypical Canadian interrogative "Eh?" is used more often in the Maritimes than in most dialects in the U.S., it is actually relatively uncommon compared to the Prairies and Ontario. Alternatively, one might hear the interrogative "Right?" which is in turn used as an adverb (e.g.: "It was right foggy today!") as well. "Some" is used as an adverb as well, by some people (e.g.: "This cake is some good!"). Such expressions tend to be widely used in the rural maritimes, but are less common in urban areas.

British terms are very much still a part of Maritime English, although slowly fading away in favour of American or Western terms. "Chesterfield" and "front room" are examples of this.

Cape Breton Island has a distinct dialect due to settlement by speakers of Acadian French and Scottish Gaelic.

Newfoundland

The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian dialect. See Newfoundland English.

Vocabulary

Canadian, British, and American lexicons compared

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English; spoken Canadian English and American English are mutually intelligible with each other and much more readily understood and less fraught with differences than British English is to either of them. Many terms in standard Canadian English are however shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers; in some cases the British and the American term coexist, while in others Canadians use words that are not or not commonly found elsewhere.

Education

Canadian students add grade before their grade level, instead of after it as is the usual, but not sole, American practice. For example, a student in "10th grade" in the U.S. would be in "Grade 10" in Canada. (Quebec anglophones may instead say "sec 5" for Grade 11.) Canadian students also do not receive grades in school, but marks. They also can lose marks on an exam rather than points. ("I lost 5 marks on this question.") The persons watching students take an exam are generally called invigilators as in Britain, not proctors as in the U.S. Canadian universities publish calendars, not catalogues as in the U.S. (Sears has a catalogue.) It should also be noted that in Canada, the specific high school grade (e.g. Grade 9 or Grade 12) or university year is stated and not the American terms freshman or sophomore.

The term college, which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as individual institutions within some Canadian universities. Most often, a "college" is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CÉGEP in Quebec. In Canada a "college student" might denote someone obtaining a diploma in plumbing while "university student" is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, saying you are "going to college" does not have the same meaning as "going to university", unless someone is being specific about which level of post-secondary education they are referring to.

Units of measurement

Adoption of metric units is more advanced in Canada than in the U.S. due to governmental efforts during the Trudeau era; Canadians still often use pounds, feet, and inches to measure themselves; cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons in the kitchen and miles for distances; but outdoor temperatures, fuel volume, and highway speeds are almost always given in metric figures. The prices of gasoline — the American term is preferred over petrol — require some awkward translation between Canadian and American figures. Even before the metrication efforts of the 1970s, the translation of "dollars per gallon" required not only replacing Canadian vs. American currencies but also a conversion between Imperial (4.5 L) vs. U.S. (3.8 L) gallons.

Transportation

• Although Canadian lexicon features both railway and railroad, railway is the usual term (witness Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway); most rail terminology in Canada however follows American usage (e.g., ties and cars rather than sleepers and wagons, although railway employees themselves say sleeper.)
• Canada and the U.S. share the same automotive terminology.

Politics

• The term Tory, used in Britain with a similar meaning, denotes a supporter of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic Progressive Conservative Party of Canada or a provincial Progressive Conservative party; the U.S. use of Tory to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is unknown in Canada, where they are called United Empire Loyalists.
• To table a document in Canada is to present it (as in Britain), whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.
• Several political terms are uniquely Canadian, including riding (a parliamentary constituency or electoral district).

Law

While in England, Wales, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. solicitor and barrister are two different people, the legal profession being divided and the terms having a practical meaning, in Canada the same lawyer occupies both roles. The terms Barrister and Solicitor and QC (Queen's Counsel, an honour given in some provinces for a certain level of experience or, be it said, service to the political party in office) are normally used as formal or official titles; lawyer, or counsel, predominates in everyday contexts, and sometimes the American term attorney is encountered. As in Britain, a district attorney is called a crown attorney or the crown. Prior to the fusion of law and equity solicitors and attorneys practised, respectively, in the courts of law and equity. When the courts were fused, one of the two terms became superfluous; Americans chose attorney; the British, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders chose solicitor (although one still hears attorney from time to time in Australia). In the Indian subcontinent, perplexingly, the term advocate is used — in Canada this would indicate a Quebec practitioner.

Household items

Terms common in Canada (and in Britain) but not in the U.S. are:

• tin (as in "tin of tuna") rather than can; however, as elsewhere, the latter is used more often.
• serviette for a table napkin. Considered a give-away of low-class antecedents in the UK and also generally in English Canada, but sometimes in Canada assumed to be indicative of a knowledge of French and therefore sometimes to be heard among upper middle class people.
• tap, conspicuously more common than faucet.
• The chiefly Canadian chesterfield and the more international couch and sofa are all used, with chesterfields referring to sofas whose arms are the same height as the back.

Food and beverage

• Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, and Inland North prefer pop over soda to refer to a carbonated beverage; see further at Soft drink#Naming convention.
• What Americans call Canadian bacon is named back bacon in Canada.
• What most Americans call candy bar is usually known as chocolate bar (as in the UK).

Colloquialisms

A rubber in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is seldom another term for eraser (as it is in England) and, in the plural, for overshoes. In the same vein is pissed, which in the U.S. means "angry" but in Canada can also mean "drunk" but rarely; the Canadian equivalent to the American usage most often requires the context pissed off, although the off is not mandatory. Similarly, pissed up means "(got) drunk" and the phrase "it was a real piss-up" means that everybody involved became really inebriated. The word bum can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain), or, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British and Australasian use, as it is commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as butt, arse (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west), or ass (more idiomatic among younger people west of the Ottawa River). Robert Munsch found it necessary to change "You are a bum" to "You are a toad" in the British edition of his children's story The Paper Bag Princess. The 1940s United Church Young People's Union song "There's not a bum in the Yonge Street Mission/... Put a nickel in the drum, save another dirty bum" provokes considerable shock among fellow Methodists in other Commonwealth countries. In both of these examples, these are usages to mean a homeless or shiftless person.

Grammar

• The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) zed; the American zee is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.
• When writing, Canadians will start a sentence with As well, in the sense of "in addition".
• Canadian usage omits the definite article with the word hospital after to or in, as in Britain. For instance, Canadians go to hospital or stay in hospital; Americans go to the hospital or stay in the hospital. (An example from CBC News: )

Miscellaneous

Other lexical items coming from Britain are lieutenant (pronounced /lɛf'tɛnənt/) and light standard (an obsolete British word for lamp-post, rarely used today).

Words mainly used in Canadian English

Regional vocabularies

French influence on English spoken in Quebec

• A person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an Anglophone. The corresponding term for a French speaker is Francophone and the corresponding term for a person who is neither Anglophone nor Francophone is Allophone.
• Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. Pie IX Boulevard is pronounced as in French, not as "pie nine". On the other hand, Anglophones do pronounce final d's as in Bernard and Bouchard; the word Montreal is pronounced as an English word and Rue Lambert-Closse is known as Clossy Street.

Chinook Jargon words in British Columbia and Yukon

British Columbia English has several words still in current use which are loanwords from the Chinook Jargon, which was widely spoken throughout the province by all ethnicities well into the middle of the 20th Century. Granted these originally came from the lower Columbia River (for the most part) but the Jargon came to B.C. before the mainland colony was declared and the development of the Jargon in the form it spread to here as is the direct result of British influence (the HBC's activity) in the region. These words tend to be shared with, but are not as common in, the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Idaho and western Montana.

• Skookum — The most famous of these words, and probably the most popular still — and the most versatile — is skookum, which was used in the Jargon either as a verb auxiliary for to be able or an adjective for able, strong, big, genuine, reliable - which sums up its use in BC English, although there are a wide range of possible usages: a skookum house is a jail or prison (house in the Jargon could mean anything from a building to a room. "He's a skookum guy" means that the person is solid and reliable while "we need somebody who's skookum" means that a strong and large person is needed. A carpenter, after banging a stud into place, might check it or refer to it as "yeah, that's skookum". Asking for affirmation, someone might say "is that skookum" or "is that skookum with you?" Skookum can also be translated simply as "O.K." but it means something a bit more emphatic.
• Chuck, saltchuck — Other Jargon words in BC English include chuck, originally meaning water or any fluid but adapted into English to refer to bodies of water, particularly "the saltchuck" in reference to salt water. In combination with skookum the compound word skookumchuck, meaning a rapids (lit. "strong water"), is found in three placenames although not used with its true meaning in ordinary speech. Chuck and saltchuck, however, remain common, notably in local broadcast English in weather/marine reports).
• Muckamuck, high muckamuck. There's also "high muckamuck" and even its proper form "hyas muckamuck" (pronounced "high-ass", and in English carrying that connotation), and the variant "high mucketymuck"; "high mucketymuck/muckamuck" has spread far beyond the Pacific Northwest, and meaning a big boss, a high poohbah, and while literally meaning "big feed" or "important banquet", potentially meaning even a fullblown potlatch - another very BC word, by the way - in English it has a sense of "the guys at the head table" since "muckamuck" or "a feed" is in the same vein in non-city BC English as "grub" or "a meal/dinner".
• Quiggly, quiggly hole — refers to the remains of an old Indian pit-house, or underground house, from "kickwillie" or "kekuli", which in the Jargon means "down" or "underneath" or "beneath".
• Siwash — (SAI-wash) properly a First Nations man, but sometimes used for women as well. Nowadays considered extremely derogatory but still in use, typically with the connotation of "drunken no-good Indian". Historically it did not necessarily have this connotation and was the generic term for Natives to the point where some writers thought there was a "Siwash tribe" in the region. The origin of the word is from the French sauvage. When pronounced Sa-WASH, with the rhythm of the original French, it is used by modern speakers of the Chinook Jargon in Grand Ronde, Oregon with the context of meaning a Native American, or as an adjective connoting connection to same (the SAI-wash prononciation is considered offensive in Grand Ronde).
• Klootchman — in the Jargon meaning simply "a woman" or the female of something - klootchman kiuatan (mare), klootchman lecosho (sow), tenas klootchman or klootchman tenas (girl, female child). Still in use in English in some areas and with people of an older background to mean a First Nations woman, or to refer to the wives/women attached to a certain group in a joking way e.g. "we sent all the klootchman to the kitchen while we played cards". Unlike its male equivalent siwash, klootchman does not generally have a derisive tone nowadays (when used).
• Masi — In northern BC and the Yukon, and used in broadcast English in those areas, the Chinook Jargon adaption of the French merci remains common, i.e. mahsi or masi, with the accent on the first syllable (unlike in French).
• Tyee — leader, chief, boss. Also "Big Tyee" in the context of "boss" or well-known person. In Campbell River and in the sport-fishing business, a really big chinook salmon (Campbell River) is a Tyee. In the Jargon Tyee meant chief, and could also be an adjective denoting "big", as with "tyee salmon" or tyee lamel (boss mule). A hyas tyee means "important/big ruler/leader", i.e. — king, big boss, important ruler, and is also sometimes used in English in the same way as Big Tyee. e.g. "He was the undisputed hyas tyee of all the country between the Johnstone Strait and Comox" This was also the common title used for the famous chiefs of the early era, such as Maquinna, for whom it was applied by Captain Vancouver and others in the context of "king". The Hyas Klootchman Tyee — "Great Woman Ruler", roughly "Her Majesty", was the historical term for Queen Victoria. The word tyee was commonly used and still occurs in some local English usages meaning "boss" or someone in charge. Business and local political and community figures of a certain stature from some areas are sometimes referred to in the British Columbia papers and histories by the old chiefly name worn by Maquinna and Concomly and Nicola. A man called hyas tyee would have been a senator, a longtime MP or MLA, or a business magnate with a strong local powerbase, long-time connections, and wealth from and because of the area.
• Hiyu — less common nowadays, but still heard in some places to mean a party or gathering. From the Chinook for "many" or "several" or "lots of". The Big Hiyu was a week-long joint celebration of Dominion Day and the Glorious Fourth in the Fraser Canyon town of Lillooet, featuring horse races, gambling, a rodeo and other festivities. A tenas hiyu (small gathering) was on a much smaller scale.

Toronto

The English spoken in Toronto is closely related to the Northern US accent, but with the Canadian Shift instead of the Northern cities vowel shift. Slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities. There is also a heavy influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities, of which the vast majority speak English only as a second or minor language. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian, and African words. Many Torontonians use buddy (without a capital) as it is often used in Newfoundland English – as equivalent to that man (I like buddy's car.).

In Toronto's ethnic communities there are many words that are distinct, or come straight from Jamaica.

• mans (Toronto): Slang for 'men', popular with the youth of Toronto
• fete (Barbados): a really big party.
• jam (Toronto): a big party.
• waste (Toronto) : something is “waste,” something sucks, is stupid, is pointless
• brainer, (one gets…) brainz (Toronto): one who gives oral sex to men, synonym to “head”
• live (Toronto): cool, good, lively.
• snuff (Toronto) : punch.

References

• Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541816-6.
• Chambers, J.K. (1998). “Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making,” in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
• Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052162181X.

1. Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward, editors (2006). American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 140, 234–236. ISBN 978-1-4051-2108-8. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
2. Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. p. 68. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Further reading

• Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd ed., pp. 67-68.
• Canadian English: Editors' Association of Canada, Editing Canadian English: The Essential Canadian Guide, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).
• Canadian federal government style guide: Public Works and Government Services Canada, The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998).
• Canadian newspaper and magazine style guides:
  • J.A. McFarlane and Warren Clements, The Globe and Mail Style Book: A Guide to Language and Usage, 9th ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1998).
  • The Canadian Press, The Canadian Press Stylebook, 13th ed. and its quick-reference companion CP Caps and Spelling, 16th ed. (both Toronto: Canadian Press, 2004).
• Canadian usage: Margery Fee and Janice McAlpine, Guide to Canadian English Usage (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2001).

See also

• Vowel Shift
• North American English
• Newfoundland English
• Quebec English
• Pacific Northwest English
• Canadian Shift
• Canadian raising

External links

• Varieties of English: Canadian English from the University of Arizona
• Dave VE7CNV's Truly Canadian Dictionary of Canadian Spelling - comparisons of Canadian English, American English, British English, French, and Spanish
• Cornerstone's Canadian English Page
• Oxford University Press's Canadian English Dictionary
• Canadian Oxford Dictionaries
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Words: Woe & Wonder
• ProperTreatment: BritishVsAmerican
• Proper Treatment: Canadian vs American vs British
• WordWeb Online
• Canadian Glossary, eh! (A list of Canadian words and pronunciations)
• Lexical, grammatical, orthographic and phonetic Canadianisms
• Editors' Association of Canada (EAC)
• World English Organization
• Harmless drudgery – but Canadian - Joe Clark's weblog entry about a recent talk by Canadian Oxford Dictionary editrix Katherine Barber (note that this Joe Clark is not the former Prime Minister of Canada)
• Bad Spellers by Stephen Henighan, an examination of the inconsistencies in Canadian authors' spellings
• Dictionary of Newfoundland English
• Canadian Spell-checking Dictionary

• Canadian English
• English dialects
• North American English
• Languages of Canada
• English language
• Forms of English