Canadian raising is a phonetic phenomenon that occurs in varieties of the English language, especially Canadian English, in which diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants (e.g., [p], [t], [k], [s], [f]). For example, IPA /aɪ/ (the vowel of "eye") and /aʊ/ (the vowel of "loud") become [ʌɪ] and [ʌʊ], respectively, the /a/ component of the diphthong going from a low vowel to a back vowel ([ʌ]). As [əʊ] is an allophone of /oʊ/ (as in "road") in many other dialects, the Canadian pronunciation of "about the house" may sound like "a boat the hoas" to non-Canadians. Some stand-up and situation comedians exaggerate this to "aboot the hoos" for comic effect. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Canadian English (CaE) is a variety of English used in Canada. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... In phonetics, phonation is the use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ... In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ... Stand-up comedy is a style of comedy where the performer speaks directly to the audience, with the absence of the theatrical fourth wall. ... This article is about a genre of comedy. ... The word comedy has a classical meaning (comical theatre) and a popular one (the use of humor with an intent to provoke laughter in general). ...

It is important that these exaggerated pronunciations, such as "a boat the hoas", are usually only apparent to people without Canadian raising. They represent an attempt to imperfectly approximate the sounds they hear with sounds available in their own dialects. Because this approximation is imperfect, individuals who do speak with Canadian raising will frequently be baffled by reports that they are saying "a boot".

Geographic distribution of Canadian raising

Despite its name, the phenomenon is not restricted to Canada: it is quite common in New England, Minnesota, Upper Michigan, and other upper Midwestern states, and has been reported in the traditional accent of Martha's Vineyard, as well as in Southern Atlantic varieties of English and in the Fens in England. True Canadian raising affects both the /aʊ/ and /aɪ/ diphthongs, but a related phenomenon, of much wider distribution throughout the United States, affects only the /aɪ/ diphthong. So, whereas the General American pronunciations of "rider" and "writer" are identical [ɹaɪɾɚ], those whose dialects include either the full or restricted Canadian raising will pronounce them as [ɹaɪɾɚ] and [ɹʌɪɾɚ], respectively. (In British English, these words would be pronounced [ɹaɪdə] and [ɹaɪtə], respectively.) This raising of /aɪ/ can be found in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and Philadelphia, and probably in many other parts of the country as well, as it appears to be spreading. Note also that this phenomenon preserves the recoverability of the phoneme /t/ in "writer" despite the North American English process of flapping, which merges /t/ and /d/ into [ɾ] before unstressed vowels. This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... Capital Saint Paul Largest city Minneapolis Area  Ranked 12th  - Total 87,014 sq mi (225,365 km²)  - Width 250 miles (400 km)  - Length 400 miles (645 km)  - % water 8. ... The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the northern of the two major land masses that comprise the U.S. state of Michigan. ... Map of Marthas Vineyard. ... The Fens may also refer to the Back Bay Fens, park in Boston, Massachusetts. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... The Pacific Northwest from space The Pacific Northwest, abbreviated PNW, or PacNW is a region in the northwest of North America. ... This article is about the region in the United States of America. ... For other uses, see Philadelphia (disambiguation) and Philly. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... This page discusses a phonological phenomenon. ...

Varieties of Canadian raising

Note that, for many speakers, Canadian raising applies not only before voiceless consonants, but more generally in a non-final syllable of a morpheme. This is sensitive to morpheme boundaries in a word. For such speakers, "rider" and "spider" do not rhyme, since the former has a morpheme boundary before the "-er", and hence the voiced /d/ inhibits raising, whereas the latter has no such boundary, and hence raising can apply freely in a non-morpheme-final syllable. Similarly, "pilot" and "pile it" may be non-homophonous, since the former has a raised diphthong (due to its being in a non-morpheme-final syllable) while the latter has a normal, non-raised diphthong -- although in such circumstances (before resonant consonants, it seems), the raising may be optional for some speakers. There are many other dialect-specific complexities: For example, even the speakers just described, for whom "rider" and "spider" do not rhyme, may differ on whether raising applies in "hydrogen", although unquestionably it does apply to "nitrogen". In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ...

Possible origins

The phenomenon of Canadian raising may be related historically to a similar phenomenon that exists in Scots and Scottish English. The Scots Vowel Length Rule lengthens a wide variety of vowel sounds in several environments, and shortens them in others; "long" environments include when the vowel precedes a number of voiced consonant sounds. This rule also conditions /aɪ/ in the long environments and /əɪ/ in the short environments. Significantly, though, the Scots Vowel Length Rule applies only before voiced fricatives and /r/, whereas Canadian raising is not limited in this fashion; thus, it may represent a sort of merging of the Scots Vowel Length Rule with the general English rule lengthening vowels before voiced consonants of any sort. Scots refers to the Anglic varieties spoken in parts of Scotland. ... Scottish English is usually taken to mean the standard form of the English language used in Scotland, often termed Scottish Standard English. ... The Scots Vowel-Length Rule, also known as Aitkens Law after Professor A.J. Aitken who formulated it, describes how vowel length in Scots and Scottish English is conditioned by environment. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...

The most common understanding of the Great Vowel Shift is that the Middle English vowels [iː, uː] passed through a stage [əɪ, əʊ] on the way to their modern pronunciations [aɪ, aʊ]. Thus it is difficult to say whether Canadian raising reflects an innovation or the preservation of an older vowel quality in a restricted environment. The Great Vowel Shift was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place in the south of England between 1200 and 1600. ... Middle English is the name given by historical linguistics to the diverse forms of the English language spoken between the Norman invasion of 1066 and the mid-to-late 15th century, when the Chancery Standard, a form of London-based English, began to become widespread, a process aided by the...

Bibliography

• Chambers, J. K. "Canadian raising". Canadian Journal of Linguistics 18.2 (1973): 113–35.
• Dailey-O'Cain, J. "Canadian raising in a midwestern U.S. city". Language Variation and Change 9,1 (1997): 107-120.
• Labov, W. "The social motivation of a sound change". Word 19 (1963): 273–309.
• Wells, J. C. Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

J. K. (Jack) Chambers is a Canadian linguist, a professor at the University of Toronto who studies, among other things, Canadian English. ... Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from an article revision dated 2006-02-04, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... John Christopher Wells, MA (Cantab), Ph. ...

See also

• North American Regional Phonology

In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. ...

External links

• Canadian Raising and Other Oddities with audio files