Does Canada have accents?

[Toro]

[Westerners generally sound like native Canadians with a far less pronounced accent.
Now I know you have dead ears, I've listened to native canadians talk since I was a
little girl, they sound nothing like i do, or any other 'non first nations person', they
have a definite sound all of there own, and it doesn't compare, and that is not a
criticism to first nations people, just fact, although if a first nation person went to
regular 'off reservation' schools, they talk the same as I.

I thought the exact same thing. A third of the city I grew up in is native. There were many natives in my schools. I knew lots of them. And I always thought their accent was very distinct.

Then I left the country and began to hear accents of Canadians - accents I couldn't hear before. And I heard that many Westerners have an accent that is similar to native Canadians. It is much, much more toned down, but it is definitely the same.

 

[karrie]

I thought the exact same thing. A third of the city I grew up in is native. There were many natives in my schools. I knew lots of them. And I always thought their accent was very distinct.

Then I left the country and began to hear accents of Canadians - accents I couldn't hear before. And I heard that many Westerners have an accent that is similar to native Canadians. It is much, much more toned down, but it is definitely the same.

I'd totally agree Toro. Much of our accents is stuff we don't pick up on.

 

[talloola]

I thought the exact same thing. A third of the city I grew up in is native. There were many natives in my schools. I knew lots of them. And I always thought their accent was very distinct.

Then I left the country and began to hear accents of Canadians - accents I couldn't hear before. And I heard that many Westerners have an accent that is similar to native Canadians. It is much, much more toned down, but it is definitely the same.

I would only agree with you in regard to all of the first nations people who were schooled
and raised 'off' their reservations, sure they talk like I do, why wouldn't they, but the native people who went to school and grew up
within a reservation have a particular different way of talking, and it is not the same as I talk, and if it was I would not notice the difference, that's just common sense.

 

[karrie]

I would only agree with you in regard to all of the first nations people who were schooled
and raised 'off' their reservations, sure they talk like I do, why wouldn't they, but the native people who went to school and grew up
within a reservation have a particular different way of talking, and it is not the same as I talk, and if it was I would not notice the difference, that's just common sense.

I have relatives who live off the reservation, and visiting with them and their relatives who live on the reservation, it's not a matter of them having different accents, but rather, different degrees of the accent. And I know I have a lesser degree than my native relatives, but I can still hear it.

 

[Toro]

I have relatives who live off the reservation, and visiting with them and their relatives who live on the reservation, it's not a matter of them having different accents, but rather, different degrees of the accent. And I know I have a lesser degree than my native relatives, but I can still hear it.

Right. That's my point. Western Canadians have the same accent as native Canadians only to a (much) lesser degree.

 

[talloola]

I have relatives who live off the reservation, and visiting with them and their relatives who live on the reservation, it's not a matter of them having different accents, but rather, different degrees of the accent. And I know I have a lesser degree than my native relatives, but I can still hear it.

Yeah, some of the natives have a very different accent, it's noticeable just like I would
notice any other english, with an accent different than I have, and I'm sure you are right,
there must be several different degrees of the same accent.
My own way of talking has many words and phrases which link me more to my upbringing
by english and irish parents. The point I was trying to make is this, I learned to talk from
english and irish parents, I went to school in a school that didn't have any native kids that
I can remember, but lots of kids from immigrant homes from different countries. When we didn't hear how native people talked, and didn't know any native people, till
later on, then there is no possible way that we talked like they did. Maybe there is
several different ways that non native people in Western Canada talk, that's the only
solution I can think of, and haven't thought of it before, and some of them probably sound like some of the native people,
but none of them sound like the native people with the 'very noticeable' accents.

 

[faithlessforeve]

I have noticed that in Ontario/Toronto area, people have more of a merged accent with those in the Northern States.... basically if you watch CNN, or CTV or ABC, or CBC's main news sections, their all the same it seems. Although I am told the "Eh's" and "O's / U's" are more apparent in middle Canada.

Atlantic Canada has a slew of different accents. Since New Brunswick is bilingual, the english speaking have a bit of a french accent and vice versa. Nova Scotia depends all on where you go. Up in Cape Breton you will have accents with some Gaelic roots and a dash of Newfoundlandez'. Southern NS is still for the most part majority Fishing community, so their accents are run together, they speak faster then normal and has a bit of a hybred between Irish/Scottish/British and average Canadian accent.... I couldn't make out what my grandfather was saying until the last few years of his life as sad as that sounds, lol.


Take that movie Snatch where Brad Pitt had that horribly difficult accent to figure out.

New Brunswick bilingual? That is such a myth. It just pretends to be....you know, for show.

 

[Colpy]

New Brunswick bilingual? That is such a myth. It just pretends to be....you know, for show.

Another Saint John Guy! Welcome.

But you haven't spent much time ion the North Shore......I used to do a weekly 2-day tour there......most people speak both English and French......but the French are not Quebecois, and didn't seem to mind at all that I spoke not a work.

The most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on, in her 20s, worked in a Caissie Populaire in a small town there. She was in management, so had some education, was friendly, and didn't speak a single word of English.

This was in 1998.

 

[L Gilbert]

My uncle lived in the Kettle Valley of BC all his life and only ever strayed from it a few times, mostly to go get cattle at the auctions in Kamloops. We drove to Mexico one time and stopped in Corning, California. Met a few folks and was even treated to a meal by the town sherrif. My uncle and the sherrif et al had essentially the same accents. Yet, native Okanagan people next door to the Kettle Valley speak differently than those in the Kettle.
Canada has myriads of accents per capita.

 

[talloola]

My uncle lived in the Kettle Valley of BC all his life and only ever strayed from it a few times, mostly to go get cattle at the auctions in Kamloops. We drove to Mexico one time and stopped in Corning, California. Met a few folks and was even treated to a meal by the town sherrif. My uncle and the sherrif et al had essentially the same accents. Yet, native Okanagan people next door to the Kettle Valley speak differently than those in the Kettle.
Canada has myriads of accents per capita.

Yeah, that's what I have learned from 'this' thread, that I hadn't thought much about
before. There must be many many different ways that Canadians talk, other than
those we take for granted.
I wonder how many different 'ways' there are, just in B.C. alone.

 

[DurkaDurka]

My accent isn't due so much to my geographical location but to my cleft palette/hairlip. I sound kinda like Rita McNeil with a huskier tone.

 

[faithlessforeve]

Another Saint John Guy! Welcome.

But you haven't spent much time ion the North Shore......I used to do a weekly 2-day tour there......most people speak both English and French......but the French are not Quebecois, and didn't seem to mind at all that I spoke not a work.

The most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on, in her 20s, worked in a Caissie Populaire in a small town there. She was in management, so had some education, was friendly, and didn't speak a single word of English.

This was in 1998.

Hello Colpy! Yep, I am from Saint John. Yes, I have been to the North Shore alot. Yes, there are some great people up that way. Yes, some people up there are not bilingual, as there are in the southern province. Just look at the stats from the French Immersion Program in the province. The government is thinking about scrapping it because it just isn't working....More and more people are leaving the province because they are being forced to speak a language they do not want.......I feel bad for the unilingual French, as they do not have much of a choice to go anywhere if they cannot speak English........Look at places like St. George and St. Andrews....what is the dominate language in these areas?

 

[Dexter Sinister]

I sound kinda like Rita McNeil with a huskier tone.

Oooh, baby...

Canada's full of regional accents. They're often not as obvious as some American regional accents, but they're certainly there. The Newfoundland lilt is pretty obvious, for instance, and has roots in medieval Irish, and I can spot a southern Ontario accent in about three words, I just have to hear a few flat, nasalized vowels. As a long-time Habs fan I also often watch hockey games on the French language channels, which always include interviews with French-speaking players at intermissions. My French isn't very good, I certainly wouldn't claim to be fluent in it, but I can spot regional French Canadian accents too. There's a very distinct French accent from the border region between north eastern Ontario and north western Quebec, an obviously very different one from the longer-settled areas along the St. Lawrence River, and yet a third from the Eastern Townships. It also shows up in the way bilingual players speak English too. And French speakers on the prairies where I live are different again.

Accents I think are produced by isolation. In the modern world of mass communications such isolation doesn't happen much anymore, in the long term all us English speakers will probably end up sounding pretty much the same, the so-called "mid-Atlantic" accent. Such accents as remain are just residues of previous isolation. I listen to BBC and CBC a lot, and my impression is that the announcers are converging toward a common pronunciation. The diversity of accents in England far exceeds anything in Canada or the United States (ever heard a Lancashire farmer talk? Barely sounds like English), but people with the more extreme accents don't get jobs as radio and tv announcers.

 

[jellyfarm]

yeah, canadians have an accent...I hear it when I talk to my canadian friend and he rambles that most of the time the conversations go over my head...instead of talking, he's taahking! haha!