LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 01.MAY.2000 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 01.MAY.2000 (02) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Edwin Michael Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 01.MAY.2000 (01) [E]

At 01:34 PM 05/01/00 -0700, Mike Adams wrote:

>American Revoluition is not the Civil War. Atleast to people of the US.
>I do know some people of Central/South American collectively called us
>Norteamericans so ... Civil War, of 1620 or the American one in 1861.

I did not say Civil War, but civil war, which the American Revolution
certainly was by any standard, since perhaps one third of the population
opposed the break with the Crown (with perhaps one third supporting the
break).  Many people have the (false) impression that the whole population
supported the Revolutionaries and that the entire war was fought against
"foreign" troops.

And Tom wrote:
As a rank Outsider....Scot based in Australia..... I must disgree on this
>statement. Canadian accents are, to me, subtly different from those of the

>USA but valid enough for the speakers to be recognised as Canadians.

Yes, but have you ever lived in New Jersey?  I have a sister-in-law who
grew up in Detroit who works at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore who
cannot tell if a person is from south Jersey or from Canada and must ask
them once she hears the characteristic "eh".

>  I have been able to make this distinction for many years during stays in

> several countries world wide and I have many Canadian friends. To me
> there's a tiny trace of Scots in the accent although Victorians do have
> quite a pronounced English hint.

Tell me:  can you tell the difference between East London and
Australian?  I have some friends from East London who were called "damned
Australians" by a fishmonger once when they were back for a visit.

>Re the pronounciation "Aboot" i must say I never heard any Canadian say
>this during my visit, only time I've heard it was in the movie "South
Park'.

And John Feather wrote:
>Ed Alexander says (just slightly dogmatically):
> >Canadians do not say "aboot" ("abuut").  I suspect what "Americans" hear

>
>I have to say that I don't follow this (for instance, which of the
possible
>pronunciations of "abowt" is meant?) but I have to disagree because I have

>previously said that I - born and bred in Britain - hear Canadians say
>something like "aboot", possibly shading into "aboat". A Canadian friend
of
>mine agrees that he uses this pronunciation and regards it as typically
>Canadian.

Probably the best way to spell the way it's pronounced without using
symbols is "a-boat".  By "abowt" I mean with a pronunciation of the
diphthong "au" the way it would be pronounced in HG.  The Mid
Atlantic/Canadian pronunciation approaches more the French pronunciation of

"au".

>It may be that not all Canadians use this pronunciation, so that Ed may be

>right in a limited sense, but as far as I know nobody but Canadians use
it.

A bit dogmatic, to be sure.  I find when I travel to different parts of
North America, if I want to hear the regional dialect, I will have to visit

a small grocery store or a garage or the such.  I rarely hear the
indigenous dialect in the hotels or restaurants or on the local TV.  I
imagine this is now more true in Britain as well with the great mobility of

certain classes since WWII.  Whenever we're in Vermont, my wife (a native
Canadian) has no problem understanding people until I took her WAY up in
the mountains and, pretending to be lost, asked a local farmer for
directions.  She quickly lost the thread of things when the man answered
me.

Thus a casual observer will not be likely to notice local differences or
subtleties in a location until they've hobnobbed with some of the less
transient classes in the area.  Canada is somewhat unique in that the Mid
Atlantic is underlying dialect from coast to coast among speakers of
English, with the quite notable exceptions of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia
(settled largely by Highland speakers of Gaelic) and Newfoundland (which
until 1947 was a British Colony).  Of course, there are many minor regional

differences that are hard to detect, but most people would have a very hard

time distinguishing a speaker from the docks of Vancouver from a speaker
who works the ships in the Welland Canal.

I lived in Philadelphia for three years, and worked in a store there for a
year.  I found that when I moved to Canada that there were a great many
similarities in speech with the area I just left.  For example, both groups

say "grage" for "garage" and "Trana" for "Toronto".  There are, of course,
some differences.  For example, people in Philadelphia tend to say "Ainh"
(sort of a very gutteral and nasal "eh") where a Canadian would say "Eh"
and where most other Americans would say "Huh".

I am not alone in this belief as it is commonly accepted by most theorists
and makes sense historically.  Of course, most Canadians are also unaware
of the American origin of their "accent" and have the same misconceptions
"aboat" it.

Since there are several very broad accent areas in the U.S., it is somewhat

irrelevant to compare "American" and "Canadian" accents.  If someone out
there has more specific knowledge of Mid Atlantic accents, however, perhaps

they might be more qualified to respond to my "dogmatic" claims.
Ed Alexander
JAG REALTY INC.
80 Jones Street Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8R 1Y1
Pager: 905-545-0177  Fax: 905-525-6671 Email: edsells at idirect.com
Jag Realty Inc.: http://www.deerhurst.com/jag/
Ontario Ultra Series:  http://ous.kw.net/
Burlington Runners Club: http://www.deerhurst.com/brc/

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