Do Canadians Have An Accent?
 

Do Canadians have (a very detectable) accent? I'm not thinking about the obvious "aboot" or "poutine", but just normal speech. I lived in Vancouver most of the time and when I travel to northwest U.S. (WA and OR) many people ask if I'm from Canada, can't think of other identifying cues.

Just curious what you guys think?

A couple of my coworkers and I talked about this once as we occasionally work with customers and vendors in the States and overseas. One of the things that we identified us saying was "Eh" (think McKenzie brothers).

Slightly off topic but... I was in the UK working on a project and was trying to explain something over the phone to someone in Scotland and they ask, "I'm sorry, can you repeat what you just said. I'm having trouble understanding you through your accent." Of course I had to giggle at that because I was having trouble understanding him and wanted to say, "Damn it. I don't have an accent. You have the accent." :D

Fer sure...many Canadians have French accents.:);)

Everyone who speaks english has an accent which reflects your origins, background and socio-economic status.

I've observed the American accent is typified by things including more nasal intonations and an emphasis on the "a" so that "aunt" and "ant" sound the same other than a long emphasis on the a in the former.

Except listening to people of a lower socio-economic background in B.C. (who sometimes sound vaguely Scottish), I can say I don;t hear too much "eh" in formal conversation much less "aboot".

As an American who now lives in Vancouver, I can say that yes, I do believe that many Canadians have very strong accents. You can't discount the "aboot" factor, because I do hear it quite a bit. But there is an inflection in the way many Canadians speak that you don't hear south of the border. There is also the differences in pronunciation that Cockroach alludes to, mostly in the "a," "e," and "o" sounds in words like "pasta," "process," and "Ikea" for example.

It's kind of a hybrid of a "Fargo" accent mixed with British pronunciations...

Of course, I'm not savvy enough to know the regional Canadian differences yet (though some of my co-workers from Nova Scotia have vaguely British accents).

Talk to someone who hails from Newfoundland or Cape Breton and believe me it will be very apparent Canadians have accents.:D

Well, as YVR Cockroach says, we *all* have accents -- and of course speech patterns, which can be as revealing as actual pronunciation. Completely unscientifically, I think the traditional stereotypical Canadian "aboot" and "eh" is perhaps not as common in the western provinces as in the east, but I can often still tell if someone I'm talking to in WA is actually from BC -- particularly if they say the word "sorry" or "process".

No-one knew I was from Canada until I kept saying 'washroom' :o

And what triggered that?

Maybe I don't hear "about" as "aboot" as I tend to pronounce "route" as "root" rather than "rout". I take it Americans pronounce "process" as "praw-cess" rather than "pro-cess"? I've never caught on "sorry" so what's the difference? I love how Americans pronounce "nuclear", or at least how the now more-popular pronunciation has caught on as it isn't either of the Merriam-Webster dictionary's two pronunciations.

I think "eh" is quite common out west but it depends on who you are talking to and where. I'd venture to guess those who are higher in socio-economic class and strata don't use it too much unless they're talking down in social situations. You may not hear it much in Vancouver but I'd venture to say you'll hear it used quite a bit in pubs in the Fraser valley.

Talking about accents, I was watching a CBC documentary a few years ago that talked about this very thing. The general difference in Canadian speech is inflection. That is, Canadian inflection and general speech patterns are far more "musical". Of course, we're probably comparing to West Coast USA here. The program also talked about changing pronunciations and lexicon coming out of NE States.

After watching, I've become a lot more aware of my speech patterns when presenting to Americans.

His bladder probably. :D Which reminds of the time I asked for the washroom at a swank hotel just off Hyde Park and the snooty concierge didn't get what I meant, so I had to remmeber to say the loo, the water closet, the restroom and he finally caught on.

After a few weeks around UK & Scotland, I wound up at the Hard Rock Cafe in EDI to add to my shirt colection and while downing a few pints, or seven, couldn't help notice the familiarity in the accents so asked the bartender and he was from Sherwood Park, which is essentially a suburb of Edmonton. He pointed out around 1/3 of the wait staff who were also Canadians and then it made sense.

There is also the Vancouver habit of inserting "right?" into a sentence of fact - as in "Tim Horton's sells good coffee, right?, so I'm going to get some on Saturday morning."

Maybe this is the more cultured alternate to "eh."?

Using "right" for emphasis seems to come and go with the ages and I'm pretty sure not only in Canada but elsewhere. I haven't really noticed it being interjected in the middle of a sentence of fact. It's sort of like young (Californian?) women using "like.. you know" for the same. I remember an older oiker of an Australian use "ay" (sounding like truncated "eye" with uptone) for the same.

FWIW, I've heard that older (50+) natives of Vancouver apparently used to pronounce the city name as "van(g)couver" though I've really yet to hear it (probably due to the lack of "natives".)

I've noticed the whole 'end a sentence with a question' thing in the UK, both England and Scotland. 'you're tall, aren't you?', 'it's true, innit?' - when the comment would have been complete without the ultimate interrogatory.

Perhaps the Aussies and Canadians picked it up from their more recent connections with the UK? The Americans don't tend to do this nearly as much, I've noticed.