LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.11.09 (04) [E]

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From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.11.09 (02) [E]

At 11:19 PM 11/08/02 -0800, Criostoir and George wrote:
>Thanks ever so much, George - a very comprehensive set of answers. I would
>like to respond to a few of your points.
>
>1. "Canadian has sounded distinct from British English for a couple of
>centuries. The failure to drop "r"s in our dialects (unlike BBC, some New
>England and southern US) reflects our relatively strong Scots influence."
>
>I would imagine, particularly in Ontario, the Maritimes and parts of
British
>Columbia, that Canadian speech would be heavily beholden (although perhaps
>not so much these days) to nine-county Ulster English, particularly to
>Ulster Scots, given that in the 19th Century, Ontario (alongside New
>Zealand) was a primary destination of emigrant Irish Protestants (I believe
>every Prime Minister of Canada up until Diefenbaker was an Orangeman). This
>may in fact be the "Scots influence" of which you speak.

The "Canadian" accent is descended from Mid Atlantic speech current at the
time of the American Revolution and was carried to the Maritime Provinces,
Quebec, and Ontario by refugees from that conflict.  This speech was
originally most related to accents of southwest England, hence strongly
rhotic, etc., which fact explains why (1) Canadian appears to be pronounced
so closely to how it is written and (2) why Canadian seems so "American"
since the so-called General American accent is probably most related to the
Mid Atlantic.  It would be interesting to find any examples of where later
immigrants to a dialect region substantially changed the underlying
regional accent.  Regarding the Orangeman argument, in Ontario, until the
last thirty years, this would be pretty much as  linguistically interesting
as noting that they were all Methodists or Rotarians, since you didn't
really have to be born in Ulster to be a member of the Orange Lodge.

>"The younger generations - especially on the west coast, are sounding more
>like teenagers in California..."
>
>I've noticed this from Ireland to Australia to England and back to Ireland
>again. It's solely down to the near-hegemony of California-based United
>States pop culture "cool". I still believe it's a phase most go through and
>eventually abandon. Do Canadians feel linguistically under threat from
>Americanisation? Do they attempt to emphasise "Canadianisms" in their
>speech? Again I come back to some pseudo-examples of difference that
between
>Canadian and American speech that I've heard: a) "pissed" to mean drunk
(US.
>"angry"); b) "petrol" (US. "gas"); c) "Kraft dinner" (US. "TV dinner"). Are
>these giving way at all (if they are true)?

Petrol?  Surely you jest.  Even in Quebec, it's "le gaz".  Kraft dinner
(sic) has nothing to do with TV dinner.  Kraft Dinner is a cheese and
noodle concoction that can be purchased in any grocery store in North
America.  And TV dinner takes me back to my childhood, since everywhere in
North America this has been almost totally replaced with "frozen dinner" or
such.

>Secondly, a more sociological question: do Canadians generally see the
>United States as a threat to their independence, as a neighbour that must
be
>placated, or as a respectful friend?

or,  D) All of the above.

>2. "The French influence on Canadian English is almost entirely on
>vocabulary - particularly officialese. In the province of Quebec, this
>means that English is laced with terrms which sound odd eleswhere in
>Canada. Instead of Inland Revenue or the IRS, for example, we have "Revenue
>Canada".

What are you talking about?  Until very recently (when they changed the
name to Canada Customs and Revenue Agency), it was Revenue Canada from
coast to coast.  This sort of terminology goes way back in Canada and
people are very accustomed to it.  It probably started with the railways,
when the only difference between Canadian National and Canadien National
was in the spelling.

>During the 60s it was discovered that an easy route to official
>bilingualism in naming public sector entities was to choose a Latin based
>noun common to English and French, and to stick "Canada" on the end of it
>to indicate federal government ownership. It has also resulted in such
>monstrosities as a government fitness promotion program called
>"Participaction." This sort of thing is a bit of a jokle, especially among
>Anglophone Quebeckers..."

Don't you think that "monstrosity" is a bit dramatic?  English speaking
peoples are quite typical creole speakers in their propensity to easily
borrow and/or mutate words from other languages and cultures.  Commercial
enterprises are incessantly assaulting the language in this way, as are
"teenagers" (I suppose this was considered a "monstrosity" by many when it
was coined, as well).

>I think it's quite an elegant solution, personally. Canada in my opinion
>should be proud of its total bilingualism.

We'd be proud if it were true.  It's still way, way easier for an
anglophone to get by in a completely francophone setting, than the reverse,
where derision and scorn are often the reward for speaking French.

>5. "The Loyalist migration was early enough to be formative in the English
>speaking regions where it was dominant. Since the Yankees were overwhelmed
>by the Irish Italian Portuguese immigrations etc. in the late 19th and
>early 20th century, Loyalist Canadians in Eastern Ontario and southern New
>Brunswick perhaps sound more like the inhabitants of upstate New York and
>western New England did in the 18th century than the urban residents of
>those regions do today."
>
>You'll have to forgive me, but I don't know what those accents sound like.
>Could you give a few examples of phonology? What was the Yankee accent of
>the time like?

Once again, this is not the case.  How else would you explain the accent of
Senator Edward Kennedy?  It's hardly Irish, to say nothing of Italian or
Portuguese, but clearly descended from the dominant accent of the original
European settlers which was Anglian, that is, with its unique vowel sounds
and non-rhotic characteristics.  The accent of the Canadian Maritimes comes
from the same group mentioned above, from the New Jersey and Pennsylvania
region of the time.  The inhabitants of western New England and upstate New
York did not and do not sound like this at all, which is pretty readily
apparent when one turns on local TV stations along the border of Canada and
these areas or if one goes into the remote mountain or rural areas where
the original speech is best preserved.

Ed Alexander

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From: erek gass <egass at caribline.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2002.11.09 (02) [E]

As I read all of the comments on how various sounds and speech patterns
derived and moved about, I don't recall anyone mentioning that some
"experts" believe that the "Irish Brogue" really isn't Irish, but the way
the English spoke in the 17th century and earlier, and the irish got it from
them when English began to replace Gaelic.  (I'm not taking any position on
this -- I don't claim to know and haven't researched it.  I do find it
amusing that if we were able to drop back in time to, say, the period of the
English Civil Wars, we might hear those fabulous Roundheads, to whom we owe
so much of history and political institution, sounding like what we think of
as an Irish speech pattern.

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