reckless intuitions of an epistemic hygienist (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gustavolacerda) wrote,@ 2008-09-01 21:27:00 |
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Canadian English
washroom(CA) = bathroom (US). When I hear "washroom", I instinctively think of "laundry room", and have so far failed to unlearn that.
The pronunciation of "ou/ow" is sometimes counterintuitive, e.g. "Howe" is [haw], "Lougheed" is [lowhid], "Kelowna" is [kəlowna].
I met someone from Prince George, BC, and couldn't understand half of what he said. "Oh, he's Irish! Um, no he isn't. What the heck did he say??". Apparently, Atlantic accents sound even more Celtic.
The Canadian raising feels natural to me, as does the "eh?" (meaning "don't you think?"). "eh" (meaning "by the way") feels less natural (lesson).
Wikipedia tells me that the raising allows one to distinguish "writer" from "rider" (my gut says it's [rʌIɾər]/[ræIɾər] and [raIɾər] respectively), a distinction most US dialects do not have. I suspect that US ears can unconsciously get the intended meaning conveyed by a Canadian speaker but not US speakers (since US speech makes no distinction, i.e. leaves it ambiguous). Whether this ability to understand is due to exposure to Canadian speech or to some a priori linguistic plausibility is an interesting question.
washroom(CA) = bathroom (US). When I hear "washroom", I instinctively think of "laundry room", and have so far failed to unlearn that.
The pronunciation of "ou/ow" is sometimes counterintuitive, e.g. "Howe" is [haw], "Lougheed" is [lowhid], "Kelowna" is [kəlowna].
I met someone from Prince George, BC, and couldn't understand half of what he said. "Oh, he's Irish! Um, no he isn't. What the heck did he say??". Apparently, Atlantic accents sound even more Celtic.
The Canadian raising feels natural to me, as does the "eh?" (meaning "don't you think?"). "eh" (meaning "by the way") feels less natural (lesson).
Wikipedia tells me that the raising allows one to distinguish "writer" from "rider" (my gut says it's [rʌIɾər]/[ræIɾər] and [raIɾər] respectively), a distinction most US dialects do not have. I suspect that US ears can unconsciously get the intended meaning conveyed by a Canadian speaker but not US speakers (since US speech makes no distinction, i.e. leaves it ambiguous). Whether this ability to understand is due to exposure to Canadian speech or to some a priori linguistic plausibility is an interesting question.
