Nobody thinks THEY have an accent, and people certainly can have a strange inability to hear their own vowels sounds, but “Aboot” for “about” just is not a thing. You won’t ever hear Canadians in rural communities say that, and they have the strongest accents you’ll find in Canada.
Funny story; I was visiting a customer in Fort Worth, TX back in April. When the owner’s wife met me and learned I was from Canada, this exchange happened:
Her: “So… say the word spelled a-b-o-u-t.”
Me: “About.”
Her: (Visibly crestfallen) “Oh.”
Me: “Yeah… we don’t say aboot, but I’ll apologize for it if you want me to make it Canadian.”
[QUOTE=wolfpup]
The Canadian opinion is that “about” is pronounced neither as “aboot” nor as “a bowed” but pronounced more or less the way it’s actually spelled.
[/QUOTE]
“A bowed” ending with a T sound seems like a reasonable approximation of the spelling. If I was saying “a bout,” as in a fight, that’s how I’d say that. Ask a Canadian to say “grout,” or “rout” as is a terrible defeat, and you’ll hear similar sounds. Not quite as slowly or as low as in some American accents, but closer. When it’s “about,” the diphthong becomes more clipped and raised. Neither is inconsistent with the spelling.
When I phone a call center and get one in Canada, I can usually tell they’re in Canada after30 seconds or so. But I probably would not have noticed, if I hadn’t lived in Canada for a couple decades and gotten used to the differences. Of the various North American regionalisms, I know which ones are Canadian. I guess I never stopped sounding like an American.
This “Canadian” thing is far more complex than an “aboot” here or there. I’m in Western Canada and a person from Ontario is far more likely to use an “aboot” sound that we are. Someone from Newfoundland for example, sounds to us quite Scottish.
IMHO, the “eh” thing is more prevelent here in Western Canada, and I think that’s a speech pattern adopted from Cree Indians more than anything else.
Oh yes, and I own an old car that I love. A 1974 Camaro “Zed” 28.
I swear, with god as my witness, that when I moved from Saskatchewan to Ontario I once talked to a woman with a normal-sounding Ontario accent who clearly said “aboot” (or something extremely close to that). It was extremely startling!
I can generally hear the difference between an American or Canadian saying “about” or “house”, but it’s never been as shocking at that one time.
Some years ago while in Toronto I caught a Second City performance where a bunch of characters got caught up in a Separatist plot. The Separatist was from Quebec, the dupe was from Saskatoon and the dame was from Ontario. They showered the audience with a variety of aboot, aboat, sari, sorey, eh, ehhh and Tim Horton references.
Obviously played up for comedy, but it was clear to me that a) all Canadians have accents and b) they all have different accents.
There’s a Little Caesar’s commercial on Canadian TV that grates: not only does it sell a “Canadian pizza” for “Eh-ninety-five” (i.e. $8.95), but it follows that with something like “How aboooot that?”
You don’t get customers by emphasizing the things that those customers do not say, deny saying, and which incorrect pronunciations are made fun of by foreigners. Sorry, Little Caesar’s, but you won’t be getting my business during this insulting ad campaign. And because of that ad campaign, you probably won’t get it from me from now on anyway.
Anyway, I do agree with RickJay when he says:
Good points, Rick. I’m reminded of the Simpsons episode that involves a big boxing match–“The Bout to Knock the Other Guy Out.” The American TV announcer on the Simpsons episode pronounces “bout” and “out” just as we Canadians do.
Every accent gets made fun of. Southern accents are the go-to for “dumb accent.” Cockney accents, Irish accents, Australians accents (g’day mate! Bonzer!) and the like are all made fun of. That’s how it is.
American here, but I live close enough to the border that I’ve always picked up CBC. I’m going to guess that many Americans’ perception of a Canadian accent is heavily influenced by hockey players/announcers/fans (since that makes up a good chunk of my CBC viewing) and that’s different than what you’d hear in Toronto’s financial district. It would be the equivalent of getting the American accent from watching football, which would likely come out a bit more southern and rural, or getting an English accent mainly from watching soccer, which would be a bit more working-class.
Just go from one side of the Detroit River to the other and you will see cultural differences, one of which is speech patterns. The border checks on either end of the Ambassador Bridge alone make that clear. It’s a bit more subtle in two cities as closely connected as Detroit and Windsor, and there’s a lot of variation on each side of the border, but the differences are definitely there.
I have a really hard time understanding the accent they have in Quebec; it’s almost like a whole other language.
To answer the OP’s question, however: In my opinion there is a “general” Canadian accent, in the sense that a great many Canadians seem to have it. But I can’t think of much besides that “aboot” or “aboat” thing that distinguishes it, so in the absence of other data you have to listen to someone speak for a little while before that particular marker comes up.
Watching a Canadian TV show the other night, I noticed that, at least for that particular announcer, the “aboot” or “aboat” pronunciation extended to most other words that have the "ow’ sound in American.
The Maritimes are a different story. I’m a born and bred New Englander and that accent you speak of is very common around my way…not because people are from NS or NB or Newfoundland, but because they’re from Ireland. There are subtle differences between the two, mostly in vocabulary.
I have a neighbor who grew up in Labrador. She’s lived here for over 20 years and still retains the accent.
I grew up in SE Michigan in a region where Canadian quarters were accepted currency. (It blew my mind when I moved cross country that not all states accept Canadian currency… I don’t know if Michigan still does this because I haven’t seen a Canadian quarter in my coin stash in a long time.)
My point is, where I live might as well be called Canada Lite. I currently live 30 minutes from the border, give or take, and recently struck up a friendship with a woman born and raised in Windsor, and her husband, born and raised in Michigan.
The Canadian accent is really obvious to me and always has been. I was out of Michigan for seven years (working in NYC and Philly and living in Joisey, talk about accents) so I forgot what Canadians sound like. It’s the pronunciation of the ‘‘o’’ that’s a dead giveaway.
No need to be self-conscious about it. I got some grief on the East Coast for my Midwestern accent which is funny because Midwestern is sort of the media standard so I never thought of myself as having an accent until I was geographically displaced. There is no real stigma attached to the Canadian accent from an American perspective. You might get teased but it’s not malicious, it’s just like we’d tease a sibling. Southern accents get the shit end of the stick, it’s been established that people with southern accents are seen as less intelligent regardless of their mastery of the English language. That’s straight up not fair.
i find regional dialects and speech variations fascinating, but it reminds me of this time in college i was participating in a research study on regional dialects and there was a question about what you call this sort of bug.
There were several options, including pill bug, potato bug, roly poly, etc. but this study ruined its own validity because if you looked at the image file it was called rolypoly.jpg. That is indeed what we would call it in Michigan, though I call them potato bugs sometimes.
What does a Candian call a roly poly bug? Do you even have them?
I think people in Michigan may get the idea that Ontario is culturally similar to the state because you guys border SW Ontario which tends to be more…umm… canucky. Toronto and it’s greater area is very, very, very different from Michigan. literally a different world. Massive, massive levels of immigration have made that part of Ontario unlike any part north America.
I’m not a Canadian, let alone a Newfoundlander, but I’m married to a woman from Newfoundland, and spend a fair amount of time there with my in-laws and their extended family.
