Today my husband and I checked out some of the free festivities in downtown Vancouver. There were a lot of people on the street and we tried to get into several pavilions , but the line ups were too long. We’re having a pretty good time hosting the world, and listening to the conversations on the street. Today as we were walking, we overheard a conversation where a tourist stated” I don’t know what they are talking about. I haven ‘t heard a Canadian Accent yet.”

I’m not sure what part of the US this person came from, but judging from the fact that he said /sari/ instead of /sori/, I knew he was American. This tourist is quite accurate in that the West Coast Canadian Accent is very similar to the accent that an individual from the West Coast of the US or from the Mid-West would have. The primary differences are :

cot-caught merger-To Canadians cot and caught would be pronounced the same

the /or/ and the /ar/ difference –so we would say sorry rather than sari, tomorrow rather than tomarrow

/ae/ vowel rather than the low /a/( as in jaw)vowel for loan words- so we would say paesta rather than pahsta /pasta/ and maezda rather than mahzda /mazda^/

As you move East toward Ontario and the Atlantic provinces there are more variations in Canadian vowel raising. My husband, who is from the Ottawa Valley has a stronger /ar/ than West Coast speakers ; this is largely due to the immigration of the Irish, Polish, and German settlers in that area.

There are some regional variations across Canada, but it is not as varied as the United States.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 4…….