CANADIAN ENGLISH

'Canadian English' ('CaE') is a variety of English used in Canada. More than 25 million Canadians (85 percent of the population) have some knowledge of English (2001 census^[1]). Canadian spelling contains elements of British and American English; Canadian vocabulary, although similar to American vocabulary, also features many British terms, several distinctive Canadianisms, French influence in many areas, and notable local variations.

History

The term "Canadian English" is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Geikie, a Scottish-born Canadian, reflected the Anglocentric attitude prevalent in Canada for the next hundred years when he referred to the language as "a corrupt dialect," in comparison to what he considered the proper English spoken by immigrants from Britain.^[2]
Canadian English is the product of four waves of immigration and settlement over a period of almost two centuries. The first large wave of permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the influx of British Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States. The second wave from Britain and Ireland was encouraged to settle in Canada after the War of 1812 by the governors of Canada, who were worried about anti-English sentiment among its citizens. Waves of immigration from around the globe peaking in 1910 and 1960 had a lesser influence, but they did make Canada a multicultural country, ready to accept linguistic change from around the world during the current period of globalization.^[3]
The languages of Canadian Aboriginal peoples started to influence European languages used in Canada even before widespread settlement took place,^[4] and the French of Lower Canada provided vocabulary to the English of Upper Canada.^[2]

Spelling

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American rules. Most notably, French-derived words that in American English end with ''-or'' and ''-er'', such as ''color'' or ''center'', usually retain British spellings (''colour'' and ''centre''), although American spellings are not uncommon. Also, while the U.S. uses the Anglo-French spelling ''defense'' (noun), Canada uses the British spelling ''defence''. (Note that ''defensive'' is universal.) In other cases, Canadians and Americans stand at odds with British spelling such as in the case of nouns like ''tire'' and ''curb'', which in British English are spelled ''tyre'' and ''kerb''; words such as ''realize'' and ''recognize'' are usually spelled with ''-ize'' rather than ''-ise''.
Canadian spelling rules can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the
British spelling of the word ''cheque'' probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of ''tire'' and American terminology for the parts of automobiles.
A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada. Many Canadian editors, though, use the ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 2nd ed. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2004), often along with the chapter on spelling in ''Editing Canadian English'', and, where necessary (depending on context) one or more other references. (See Further reading below.)

Phonology and Pronunciation

Although there is no single linguistic definition that includes Canada as a whole, a fairly homogeneous dialect exists in Western and Central Canada. William Labov identifies an inland region that concentrates all of the defining features of the dialect centred on the Prairies, with periphery areas with more variable patterns including the metropolitan areas of Vancouver and Toronto.^[6]
The following features distinguish Canadian English from a phonologically conservative Northern U.S. accent:

★ Canadian raising: Diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants. For example, IPA and become and , respectively, before [p], [t], [k], [s], [f]. It is found throughout Canada, including much of the Atlantic Provinces.^[6] It is the strongest in the Inland region, and is receding in younger speakers in Lower Mainland British Columbia, as well as certain parts of Ontario. As a result, the Canadian pronunciation of ''about'' may sound like "a boat" (sometimes exaggerated to "a boot") to American ears. Many Canadians do not possess this feature, and defining the dialect by this would exclude parts of Atlantic Canada and include some adjacent portions of the U.S.

★ Cot-caught merger: Speakers do not distinguish between the open-mid back rounded vowel and open back unrounded vowel .

★ Canadian Shift: It is the defining feature of all of Canada except the Atlantic Provinces.^[8] It is a chain shift triggered by the cot-caught merger. The vowels in the words ''cot'' and ''caught'' merge to . The /æ/ of ''bat'' is retracted to [a], the of ''bet'' shifts to [æ], the in ''bit'' then shifts to the in ''bet''.^[9] The Canadian shift is absent from the U.S., except for some speakers scattered throughout the far West, although the California vowel shift contains similar features.

★ Traditionally diphthongal vowels such as (as in ''boat'') and (as in ''bait'') have qualities much closer to monophthongs in some speakers especially in the Inland region.

★ /o/ and are pronounced back.

★ /u/ is fronted after coronals.

★ /æ/ is tense before velar stops.

★ Words such as ''borrow'', ''sorry'' or ''tomorrow'' are realized as , rather than .
The island of Newfoundland has a distinctive dialect of English known as Newfoundland English; many in the Maritime provinces – Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island – have an accent that sounds more like Scottish English and, in some places, Irish English than General American. There is also some French influence in pronunciation for some English-speaking Canadians who live near, and especially work with, French-Canadians.
The phonology of Maritimer English has some unique features:

★ Pre-consonantal sounds are sometimes removed.

★ The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap between vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop , is less common in the Maritimes. Therefore, ''battery'' is pronounced as instead of .
Northern Canada is, according to Labov, a dialect region in formation.^[10]

Phonemic incidence

★ Canadians side with the British on the pronunciation of ''lieutenant'' , ''shone'' , ''lever'' , and several other words; ''been'' is pronounced by many speakers as /bin/ rather than ; as in Southern England, ''either'' is more commonly than .

★ ''Again'' and ''against'' are often pronounced rather than .

★ Words such as ''fragile'', ''fertile'', and ''mobile'' are pronounced as , , and . The American pronunciation of ''fertile'' as is also becoming somewhat common in Canada, even though remains dominant.

★ Words like ''semi'', ''anti'', and ''multi'' tend to be pronounced as , , and rather than , , and . Often, a Canadian will use the former in general use, but the latter in order to add emphasis.

★ ''Schedule'' can be either or ; ''process'' can be either or .

★ The of foreign loanwords (such as ''pasta'') is pronounced as /æ/.

★ The word ''premier'' "leader of a provincial or territorial government" is commonly pronounced , with and being rare variants.

★ The herb and given masculine name ''basil'' is usually pronounced rather than .

★ Many Canadians pronounce ''asphalt'' as "ash-falt" .^[11] This pronunciation is also common in Australian English, but not quite so in General American English or British English.

Vocabulary

Comparison of Canadian, British, and American lexicons

Where Canadian English shares vocabulary with other English dialects, it tends to share most with American English; many terms in standard Canadian English are, however, shared with Britain, but not with the majority of American speakers. In some cases the British and the American term coexist, to various extents; a classic example is ''holiday'', often used interchangeably with ''vacation''. In addition, the vocabulary of Canadian English also features words that are seldom (if ever) found elsewhere.
As a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, Canada shares many items of institutional terminology with the countries of the former British Empire – e.g., ''constable'', for a police officer of the lowest rank, and ''chartered accountant''.

Education

The term ''college'', which refers to post-secondary education in general in the U.S., refers in Canada to either a post-secondary technical or vocational institution, or to one of the colleges that exist as federated schools within some Canadian universities. Most often, a ''college'' is a community college, not a university. It may also refer to a CEGEP in Quebec. In Canada, ''college student'' might denote someone obtaining a diploma in business management while ''university student'' is the term for someone earning a bachelor's degree. For that reason, ''going to college'' does not have the same meaning as ''going to university'', unless the speaker clarifies the specific level of post-secondary education that is meant.
Canadian universities publish ''calendars'' or ''schedules'', not ''catalogs'' as in the U.S.
Students ''write'' or sometimes ''take'' exams, they do not ''sit'' them. Those who supervise students during an exam are generally called ''invigilators'' as in Britain, or sometimes ''proctors'' as in the U.S.; usage may depend on the region or even the individual institution.
Successive years of school are often, if not usually, referred to as ''grade one'', ''grade two'', and so on. In Quebec English, however, the speaker will often say ''primary one'', ''primary two'', (a direct translation from the French), and so on. (Compare American ''first grade, second grade'', sporadically found in Canada, and British ''Year 1, Year 2''.)^[12]
In the U.S., the four years of high school are termed the freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years (terms also used for college years); in Canada, these are simply grade 9 through 12.^[13] As for higher education, only the term ''freshman'' (usually reduced to ''frosh'') has some currency in Canada.^[13] The specific high-school grades and university years are therefore stated and individualized; for example, ''the grade 12s failed to graduate''; ''John is in his second year at McMaster''.
Canadian students use the term ''marks'' (more common in England) or ''grades'' to refer to their results; usage is very mixed.^[13]

Units of measurement

Use of metric units is more widespread in Canada than in the U.S. as a result of the national adoption of the Metric System during the late 1970s by the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Official measurements are given in metric, including highway speeds and distances, fuel volume and consumption, and weather measurements (with temperatures in degrees Celsius). However, it is not uncommon for Canadians to use British imperial units such as pounds, feet, and inches to measure their bodies. Usage of feet and inches is still prevalent in the construction industry. The predominant retail food measurement system is imperial except for small-weight products such as tea, coffee and deli products sold by the 100 g unit perhaps to make prices appear less expensive. Older generations are more likely to use miles for distances. The term ''klicks'' is sometimes used interchangeably with kilometres because both the demotic and metric (with the first syllable stressed) pronunciations are widespread. Both metric and Imperial measures for cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons are used in cooking.

Transportation

★ Although Canadian lexicon features both ''railway'' and ''railroad'', ''railway'' is the usual term, at least in naming (witness Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway); most rail terminology in Canada, however, follows American usage (e.g., ''ties'' and ''cars'' rather than ''sleepers'' and ''wagons'', although railway employees themselves say ''sleeper'').

★ A two-way ticket can be either a ''round-trip'' (American term) or a ''return'' (British term), but the term British term "single", referring to a one-way trip, is never used.

★ The terms ''highway'' (e.g. Trans-Canada Highway), ''expressway'' (Central Canada, as in the Gardiner Expressway) and ''freeway'' (Sherwood Park Freeway, Edmonton) are often used to describe various high speed roads with varying levels of access control. Generally, but not exclusively, ''highway'' refers to a provincially funded road. Often such roads will be numbered. Similar to the US, the terms ''expressway'' and ''freeway'' are often used interchangably to refer to divided highways with access only at grade-separated interchanges (e.g. a 400-Series Highway in Ontario). However, ''expressway'' may also refer to a road that has control of access but has at-grade junctions, railway crossings (e.g. the Harbour Expressway in Thunder Bay.) Sometimes the term ''Parkway'' is also used (e.g. the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph, Ontario.) Quebec speakers may call freeways and expressways ''autoroutes''. In Alberta, the generic ''Trail'' is often used to describe a freeway, expressway or major urban street (e.g. Deerfoot Trail, Macleod Trail or Crowchild Trail in Calgary, Yellowhead Trail in Edmonton). The British term ''motorway'' is not used. The American terms ''turnpike'' and ''tollway'' for a toll road are not common. The term ''throughway'' or ''thruway'' was used for first tolled limited-access highways (e.g. the Deas Island ''Throughway'', now Highway 99, from Vancouver, BC, to Blaine, Washington, USA or the Saint John ''Throughway'' (Highway 1) in Saint John, NB), but this term is not common anymore.

Politics

★ To ''table'' a document in Canada is to present it (as in Britain), whereas in the U.S. it means to withdraw it from consideration.

★ Several political terms are more in use in Canada than elsewhere, including ''riding'' (as a general term for a parliamentary constituency or electoral district).

★ The term ''Tory,'' used in Britain with a similar meaning, denotes a supporter of the federal Conservative Party of Canada, the historic Progressive Conservative Party of Canada or a provincial Progressive Conservative party. The term Red Tory is also occasionally used. The U.S. use of ''Tory'' to mean the Loyalists in the time of the American Revolution is unknown in Canada, where they are called United Empire Loyalists.

★ Members of the Liberal Party of Canada or a provincial Liberal party are sometimes referred to as ''Grits.''

★ Members of the New Democratic Party are sometimes referred to as ''(Knee) Dippers''.

★ Members of the Bloc Québécois are sometimes referred to as ''Bloquistes.'' At the purely provincial level, members of Quebec's Parti Québécois are sometime referred to as ''Péquistes'', and members of the Quebec provincial Action démocratique du Québec as ''Adéquistes''.

Law

Lawyers in all parts of Canada, except Quebec, which has its own civil law system, are called "''barristers and solicitors''" because any lawyer licensed in any of the common law provinces and territories is permitted to engage in two specific types of legal practice which are separated in other common-law jurisdictions such as England, Wales, and Ireland (i.e. Canada has a fused legal profession). Yet the words ''lawyer'' or ''counsel'' (not ''counsellor'') predominates in everyday contexts.
As in England, the equivalent of an American ''district attorney'' is called a ''crown attorney'' (in Ontario), ''crown counsel'' (in British Columbia), ''crown prosecutor'' or ''the crown'', on account of Canada's status as a constitutional monarchy in which the Monarch (or rather, The Crown) is the locus of state power, as opposed to the American republican system in which the people is the seat of sovereignty.
The words ''advocate'' and ''notary'' – two distinct professions in civil law Quebec – are used to refer to that province's equivalent of barrister and solicitor, respectively. In Canada's common law provinces and territories, the word ''notary'' means strictly a notary public.
Within the Canadian legal community itself, the word ''solicitor'' is often used to refer to any Canadian lawyer in general (much like the way the word ''attorney'' is used in the United States to refer to any American lawyer in general). Despite the conceptual distinction between ''barrister'' and ''solicitor'', Canadian court documents would contain a phrase such as "''John Smith, ''solicitor'' for the Plaintiff''" even though "John Smith" may well himself be the barrister who argues the case in court. In a letter introducing him/herself to an opposing lawyer, a Canadian lawyer normally writes something like "''I am the ''solicitor'' for Mr. Tom Jones."
The word ''litigator'' is also used by lawyers to refer to a fellow lawyer who specializes in lawsuits even though the more traditional word ''barrister'' is still employed to denote the same specialization.
The word ''attorney'' is ordinarily used in Canada to mean:

★ a person who has been granted power of attorney;

★ a lawyer who prosecutes criminal cases on behalf of the government, i.e. crown attorney;

★ an American lawyer with whom a Canadian lawyer is interacting regarding a cross-border transaction or legal case; or

★ an American lawyer who works in Canada and advises Canadian clients on issues of American law.
As in England, a serious crime is called an indictable offence, while a less-serious crime is called a summary offence. The older words felony and misdemeanour, which are still used in the United States, are not used in Canada's current ''Criminal Code'' (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46) or by today's Canadian legal system. As noted throughout the ''Criminal Code'', a person accused of a crime is called ''the accused'' and not ''the defendant'', a term used instead in civil lawsuits.

Household items

Terms common in Canada, Britain, and Ireland but less frequent or nonexistent in the U.S. are:

★ ''Tin'' (as in ''tin of tuna''), for ''can'', especially among older speakers. Among younger speakers, ''can'' is more common, with ''tin'' referring to a can which is wider than it is tall.

★ ''Cutlery'', for ''silverware'' or ''flatware''.

★ ''Serviette'', for a table ''napkin'', though this is fast being changed to the latter.

★ ''Tap'', conspicuously more common than ''faucet'' in everyday usage.

★ ''Elastic'' for ''rubber band''.

Food and beverage

★ Most Canadians as well as Americans in the Northwest, North Central, and Inland North prefer ''pop'' over ''soda'' to refer to a carbonated beverage (but neither term is dominant in British English; see further at Soft drink naming conventions).

★ What Americans call ''Canadian bacon'' is named ''back bacon'' or, if it is coated in cornmeal or ground peas, peameal bacon in Canada.

★ What most Americans call a ''candy bar'' is usually known as a ''chocolate bar'' (as in the UK).

★ Even though the word "French Fries" is used by Canadians some older speakers use the word ''chips''.

Colloquialisms

A ''rubber'' in the U.S. and Canada is slang for a condom; however, in Canada it is sometimes another term for ''eraser'' (as it is in the United Kingdom) and, in the plural, for overshoes or galoshes. The terms ''booter'' and ''soaker'' refer to getting water in one's shoe. The former is generally more common in the prairies, the latter in the rest of Canada.
The word ''bum'' can refer either to the buttocks (as in Britain), or, derogatorily, to a homeless person (as in the U.S.). However, the "buttocks" sense does not have the indecent character it retains in British and Australian use, as it is commonly used as a polite or childish euphemism for ruder words such as ''arse'' (commonly used in Atlantic Canada and among older people in Ontario and to the west) or ''ass''.
Similarly the word ''pissed'' can refer either to being drunk (as in Britain), or being mad or angry (as in the U.S.), though anger is often said as ''pissed off''.

Grammar

★ The name of the letter Z is normally the Anglo-European (and French) ''zed''; the American ''zee'' is not unknown in Canada, but it is often stigmatized.

★ When writing, Canadians will start a sentence with ''As well,'' in the sense of "in addition"; this construction is a Canadianism.^[16]

★ Canadian and British English share idioms like ''in hospital'' and ''to university'',^[17]^[18] while in American English the definite article is mandatory; ''to/in the hospital'' is also common in Canadian speech.

Miscellaneous

★ The code appended to mail addresses (the equivalent of the British ''postcode'' and the American ''ZIP code'') is called a ''postal code''.

★ The term ''First Nations'' is often used in Canada to refer to what are called American Indians or Native Americans in the United States. This term does ''not'' include the Métis and Inuit, however; the term aboriginal peoples is preferred when all three groups are included.

Words used mainly in Canadian English - (Canadian slang)

Canadian English has words or expressions not found, or not widely used, in other variants of English. Additionally, like other dialects of English that exist in proximity to francophones, French loanwords have entered Canadian English.

★ 'ABM', 'bank machine': synonymous with ATM (which is also used).^[19]

★ 'bachelor': bachelor apartment ("They have a bachelor for rent").^[20]

★ 'Canuck': a Canadian

★ 'chesterfield': originally British and internationally used (as in classic furnishing terminology) to refer to a sofa whose arms are the same height as the back, it is a common term for ''any'' couch or sofa in Canada (and, to some extent, Northern California).^[21]^[22] The more international terms ''sofa'' and ''couch'' are also used; among younger generations in the western and central regions, ''chesterfield'' is largely in decline.^[23]

★ 'double-double': a cup of coffee with two creams and two sugars. And by the same token, triple-triple.^[24]

★ 'eavestroughs': rain gutters. Also used, especially in the past, in the Northern and Western U.S.; the first recorded usage is in Herman Melville's ''Moby-Dick'': "The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs [''sic''], Flask."^[25]

★ 'eh': a spoken interjection to ascertain the comprehension, continued interest, agreement, etc., of the person or persons addressed ("That was a good game last night, eh?"). May also be used instead of "huh?" or "what?" meaning "please repeat or say again." Frequently mis-represented by Americans as ''A'', or ''hey''.

★ 'fire hall': fire station, firehouse.^[26]

★ 'height of land': a drainage divide. Originally American.^[27]

★ 'hoser': An uncouth, beer drinking man. Used extensively in Bob and Doug Mackenzie skits. ^[28]

★ 'humidex': measurement used by meteorologists to reflect the combined effect of heat and humidity.

★ 'hydro': a common synonym for electrical service. Many Canadian provincial electric companies generate power from hydroelectricity, and incorporate the term "Hydro" in their names: Toronto Hydro, Hydro Ottawa, etc. Usage: "Manitoba Hydro... It's not just a Power Company anymore."; "How long did you work for Hydro?" "When's Hydro gonna get the lines back up."; "The hydro bill is due on the fifteenth."; "I didn't pay my hydro bill so they shut off my lights." Hence 'hydrofield', a line of electricity transmission towers, usually in groups cutting across a city, and 'hydro lines/poles', electrical transmission lines/poles.^[29]

★ 'keener': Someone that is keen or enthusiastic to do a task.

★ 'loonie': Canadian one dollar coin. Derived from the use of the loon on the reverse.

★ 'parkade': a parking garage, especially in the West.^[30]

★ 'pencil crayon':^[31] coloured pencil origin: bilingual package label Pencil (English) Crayon (French word for pencil).

★ 'pogie': term referring to unemployment insurance, which is now officially called ''Employment'' Insurance in Canada. Derived from the use of pogey as a term for a poorhouse.^[32]

★ 'runners':^[33] running shoes, sneakers, especially in Western Canada.^[34] Also used in Australian English^[35] and Irish English.

★ 'stagette': female bachlorette party (US) or hen party (UK)

★ 'toonie': Canadian two dollar coin. Modelled after ''loonie'' (q.v.). Also spelled ''tooney'', ''twooney'', ''twoonie'', ''twonie'', or ''twoney''.

★ 'tuque': a knitted winter hat, often with a pompon on the crown. Sometimes spelled ''toque''.

★ 'washroom':^[36] the general term for what is normally named ''public toilet'' or lavatory in Britain. In the U.S. (where it originated) mostly replaced by ''restroom'' in the 20th century. Generally used only as a technical or commercial term outside of Canada. The word ''bathroom'' is also used.

Regional vocabularies

Newfoundland

Main articles: Newfoundland English

The dialect spoken in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, an autonomous dominion until March 31, 1949, is often considered the most distinctive Canadian dialect. Some Newfoundland English differs in vowel pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and preservation of archaic adverbal-intensifiers. The dialect can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from region to region, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, and fishing villages in particular remained very isolated.

French influence on English spoken in Quebec

Main articles: Quebec English

★ A person with English mother tongue and still speaking English as the first language is called an ''Anglophone''. The corresponding term for a French speaker is ''Francophone'' and the corresponding term for a person who is neither Anglophone nor Francophone is ''Allophone''. ''Anglophone'' and ''Francophone'' are used in New Brunswick, an officially bilingual province.

★ Quebec Anglophones generally pronounce French street names in Montreal as French words. ''Pie IX'' Boulevard is pronounced as in French («pi-neuf»), not as "pie nine." On the other hand, some Anglophones do pronounce final ''D''s, as in ''Bernard'' and ''Bouchard''.

★ In the city of Montreal especially in some of the western suburbs like Cote-St-Luc, Hampstead or Westmount, there is a strong jewish influence in the english spoken in these areas. A large wave of jewish immigration from east europe and the former Soviet Union before and after World War II is also evident today. Their english has a strong yiddish influence, there are some similarities to english spoken in New York. Italians and greeks living in Montreal have also adopted english and therefore have their own dialect.

Chinook Jargon words in British Columbia, Alberta and The Yukon

Main articles: Chinook Jargon use by English Language speakers

British Columbia English has several words still in current use borrowed from the Chinook Jargon. Most famous and widely used of these terms are ''skookum'' and ''saltchuck''.

Ottawa Valley

Main articles: Ottawa Valley Twang

The area to the north and west of Ottawa is heavily influenced by original Scottish, Irish, and German settlers, with many French loanwords. This is frequently referred to as the ''Valley Accent''. This dialect is heavy with slang phrases and terminology.

Toronto

The English spoken in Toronto has some similarities with the English in the Northern U.S. Slang terms used in Toronto are synonymous with those used in other major North American cities. There is also a heavy influx of slang terminology originating from Toronto's many immigrant communities, of which the vast majority speak English only as a second or tertiary language. These terms originate mainly from various European, Asian, and African words. Among youths in ethnically diverse areas, a large number of words borrowed from Jamaican patois can be heard, owing to the large number of Jamaican immigrants in Toronto's urban neighbourhoods.

Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta)

In Saskatchewan, some terms are derived from immigrant groups or are just local inventions: shinny (elsewhere ball hockey or street hockey), slough, gotch (male underwear), bluff (small group of trees isolated by prairie), bunny hug (elsewhere hoodie). In farming communities with substantial Ukrainian, German, and Mennonite populations, accents and sentence structure influenced by these languages is common.

Dictionaries

The first truly Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by Gage Ltd. Toronto. The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in CanE lexicography. Many secondary schools in Canada use these dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since, the Senior Dictionary was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary and exists in what may be called its 5th edition from 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. Concise versions and paperback version are available.
In 1997, the ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language was another product, but has not been updated since.
In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled ''The Oxford Canadian Dictionary''. A second edition, retitled ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', was published in 2004. Just as the older dictionaries it includes uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether ''colour'' or ''color'' was the most popular choice in common use. Paperback and concise versions (2005, 2006), with minor updates, are available.
The scholarly Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was first published in 1967 by Gage Ltd. It was a partner project of the Senior Dictionary (and appeared only a few weeks apart from each other). The DCHP can be considered the "Canadian OED", as it documents the historical development of Canadian English words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, bluff and grow op, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. It is a specialist, scholarly dictionary, but is not without interest to the general public. On the contrary: if one wishes to find out how a word came into being in Canada, the DCHP is one of your best sources. After more than 40 years, a second edition has been commenced at UBC in Vancouver in 2006 (see www.dchp.ca for details).

Notes

1. [1]
2. Chambers, p. xi.
3. Chambers, p. xi–xii.
4. AskOxford.com:Factors which shaped the varieties of English
5. Chambers, p. xi.
6. Labov, p. 222.
7. Labov, p. 222.
8. Labov, p. 68.
9. Labov, p. 218.
10. Labov, p. 214.
11. Barber, p. 77.
12. ''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 47.
13. ''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 48.
14. ''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 48.
15. ''American Speech'' 80.1 (2005), p. 48.
16. Trudgill and Hannah, ''International English'' (4th edition), p. 76.
17. [2]
18. [3]
19. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ''ABM''; Boberg 2005.
20. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ''bachelor''.
21. [4]
22. [5]
23. [6] J.K. Chambers, "The Canada-U.S. border as a vanishing isogloss: the evidence of chesterfield." Journal of English Linguistics 23 (1995): 156-66.
24. [7]
25. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ''eavestrough''; Oxford English Dictionary; American Heritage Dictionary.
26. [8]
27. Webster's New World College Dictionary, Wiley, 2004.
28. Oxford English Dictionary, third edition (in progress), ''hoser''.
29. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ''hydro''.
30. Boberg 2005.
31. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, , , , Oxford University Press, 1998,
32. Pogey: What Does it Mean? Bonny, 2006
33. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, ''runner''.
34. American Speech 80.1 (2005).
35. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary.
36. [9]

References

★ Barber, Katherine, editor (2004). ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', second edition. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-541816-6.

★ Boberg, Charles (2005). "The North American Regional Vocabulary Survey: Renewing the study of lexical variation in North American English." ''American Speech'' 80/1.[10]

★ Courtney, Rosemary, et al., senior editors (1998). ''The Gage Canadian Dictionary'', second edition. Toronto: Gage Learning Corp. ISBN 0-7715-7399-5.

★ Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 2nd ed., p. xi.

★ The Atlas of North American English, Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg, , , Mouton-de Gruyter, 2006, ISBN 3-11-016746-8

★ Peters, Pam (2004). ''The Cambridge Guide to English Usage''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.

★ American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast, Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward, editors, , , Blackwell Publishing, 2006, ISBN 1-4051-2108-4

External links

★ Canadian Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford University Press)

★ Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Words: Woe & Wonder

★ Dave VE7CNV's Truly Canadian Dictionary of Canadian Spelling - comparisons of Canadian English, American English, British English, French, and Spanish

★ Cornerstone's Canadian English Page

★ ProperTreatment: BritishVsAmerican

★ WordWeb Online

★ What Does That Mean: user-built lexicon of English idioms, slang, buzz words and catch phrases

★ Canadian Glossary, eh! (A list of Canadian words and pronunciations)

★ Lexical, grammatical, orthographic and phonetic Canadianisms

★ Editors' Association of Canada (EAC)

★ Varieties of English: Canadian English from the University of Arizona

★ Harmless drudgery – but Canadian - Joe Clark's weblog entry about a recent talk by ''Canadian Oxford Dictionary'' editrix Katherine Barber (note that this Joe Clark is ''not'' the former Prime Minister of Canada)

★ Bad Spellers by Stephen Henighan, an examination of the inconsistencies in Canadian authors' spellings

★ Dictionary of Newfoundland English

★ Canadian Spell-checking Dictionary

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