Yup, vowel-raising. And, yup, it varies across Canada.
In case it comes up, note that the typical pronunciation of “progress” as PROE-gress in Canada vs. PRAH-gress in the US is not, I think, an example of this (though it may be influenced by it). It’s just a case where a particular word is straight-up pronounced differently – the “o” is seen as representing a different sound in one’s sound inventory, and is* not* due to different pronunciations of the same sound (which is the phenomenon that has been discussed so far in this thread).
I don’t have the best ear for accents, though I think sometimes I can hear a Toronto accent.
We English-speaking Montrealers don’t sound like the “NYC Accent,” though yes, when I went to NYC I did encounter many people whose accents sounded just like mine.
An option I included in my post. It’s the first few words in my post, even. Why not try reading what people write before jumping on them?
The fact remains that we have no way of knowing the if EmilyG uses vowel tensing or not just from her saying she doesn’t say those words in that way. People are lousy at recognizing how they say things. I know quite a few Canadians who do not recognize their vowel tensing. And I even pointed out that I didn’t recognize how I say things sometimes, so there was no implication that Canadians were especially stupid about this.
I don’t know what in the world I said that offended you, as my post was filled entirely with facts. If they offend you, you are offended at the world and not me. The facts remain that Canadian vowel tensing is common, goes unrecognized by many who use it, and is commonly heard as saying “aboot” or “about” to those with a general American accent.
The only rational conclusion is that you cannot trust someone just because they think they do not speak with a particular accent feature. I’m sorry reality doesn’t match up with your expectations, but it’s a basic truth of phonetics.
The standard symbols would be no more accurate. We’re talking here about how words are perceived, not how they are actually said. There are quite a few pronunciations that will sound like “a boat” to American ears, few of them actually being [əˈboʊt]. Yet the standard way of writing it would still be /əˈboʊt/, as that’s what is perceived.
Canadian vowel tensing just isn’t that regular, and varies considerably across the various accents that use it. Even if we had a linguist who could pin down the exact pronunciation of a particular person, the answer would still be the same. It’s still Canadian vowel tensing. I linked the Wikipedia article in my previous post, if you want to know more.
IPA and other standardized phonetic symbols are great tools, but they aren’t always necessary, and often get in the way, especially when you are relying on transcriptions performed by laypeople. They imply a precision that just may not be present, or that the transcriber may not be able to hear.
(And IPA isn’t even all that precise. There are many minute variations that it does not cover. You can easily read a perfect IPA transcription of a language and still have the completely wrong accent.)
Well put. I was gong to respond with a similar post, but you said it better than I could.
In ABTM, there was a thread (closed by moderator Colibri, I guess for good reasons) about whether untranslated “business-speak” should be tolerated on this board. Someone pointed out that jargon from, say, mathematicians or plumbers or lacrosse players is tolerated just fine, so why not?
It occurred to me that “business speak” feels uncomfortable for many of us because, while we don’t (most of us) identify easily with mathematicians, plumbers, or lacrosse players – so we let them talk their jargon, and we’re not bothered – most of us have had jobs, so when someone uses contemporary biz jargon we’re not familiar with, we kind of feel like it doesn’t belong – it feels “unnecessary.”
A similar thing is going on with language. We all speak a language (many of us, more than one), so we all think we’re better than we are at understanding how languages work, and what our own speech patterns are.
Not exactly the same thing, but there are parallels, I think.
(PS – I think you meant to write “aboot or aboat”)