Help! What is a Canadian Accent?

[irvm]

Yep. There would be no confusion between Don and Dawn in Georgia. The sound and length would both be different. 'dah-n' and 'daw-n', the first requiring little mouth movement, the second, much more, including a pursing of the lips toward the end.

Caught: Kaw-t as in the sound a crow makes, with a t stop on the end. And like Dawn, longer.
On the other hand, when asked where you're gonna sleep when we go camping,
"I got a cot" is a good answer. The underlined words sound similar.

[MidniteBreeze]

Originally Posted by AsymptoticFaery

Not sure if this is Canadian or coincidence but I notice that where some Americans will give pronounce a short a sound, some Canadians will pronounce the same word with a long a sound.

For example, when most here say Super Mario Brothers, the a in Mario is short...not long in sound. But I've heard many Canadians say it, "MARE-ee-o" rather than the traditional "MAHR-ee-o"...

I've even heard DACK-Sund rather than DOCK-sund for Dachshund.

So there must be something distinctive about the way some Canadians pronounce words with a...preferring to use a long a sound where normally a short a is used.

Anyone else notice this?

Yes, I've noticed tha "a" sounds...I think that's a bigger givaway for me than "o" sounds even.

To the person who talked about the show "Ice Road Truckers"...my husband and I watched that show all summer. Awesome accents!

It's also a good illustration of Canadians' tendency to avoid confrontation. In the "candid" shots you have a guy pissed off at another guy, swearing every other word but then when the two actually meet in person, it's all very polite and cordial (for the most part, anyway.)

I really loved the scene with the cop who gave one of the truckers a ticket for speeding. One of the most polite "pullover" scenes I've ever seen on TV!
Cop: "How you doing tonight?"
Trucker: "Oh, very good officer, you?"
Cop: "Good, good. Goin' a little fast tonight, eh?"
Trucker: "Yeah, well, I guess...you know how it goes."
Cop: "Well, I'm very sorry, but I'm going to have to give you a ticket?"
Trucker: "Oh, OK."
Cop: (gives the guy his ticket)"You have a good night now."
Trucker: "Yeah, you too, eh?"

(Obviously paraphrased, but it really wasn't too far off from that!)

[Atticman]

Oh brother, I hear various people I know who were all raised right here in the same city at the same time pronounce certain words differently from each other (in both the so-called Canadian and American way), so blanket statements such as "Americans say it this way" and "Canadians say it that way" don't seem to hold much water in most cases.

[ColdCanadian]

Originally Posted by Atticman

Oh brother, I hear various people I know who were all raised right here in the same city at the same time pronounce certain words differently from each other (in both the so-called Canadian and American way), so blanket statements such as "Americans say it this way" and "Canadians say it that way" don't seem to hold much water in most cases.

Some truth in that, but for the most part, Americans don't use Canadian pronounciations because they don't typically have access to Canadian TV, while here 80-90% of our channels are American.

[kitty50]

Being Canadian I notice the American accent. But, to me, by the time you realize it the conversation is over. It is not a big deal. To me anyway.

[ColdCanadian]

Originally Posted by irvm

Yep. There would be no confusion between Don and Dawn in Georgia. The sound and length would both be different. 'dah-n' and 'daw-n', the first requiring little mouth movement, the second, much more, including a pursing of the lips toward the end.

Caught: Kaw-t as in the sound a crow makes, with a t stop on the end. And like Dawn, longer.
On the other hand, when asked where you're gonna sleep when we go camping,
"I got a cot" is a good answer. The underlined words sound similar.

So far your examples of when you say the longer "short o" sound is when you have a different spelling, ie. caught, dawn.

What about dog? How did that become longer?
Are there many other words with longer "o" sounds that are spelled simply with an "o" instead of an "aw" or an "au"?
Are there more southern words with the longer "o" or shorter "o"?

*Sorry if I sound annoying, it's just something that fascinated me on vacation.

[j33]

It isn't just southerners who differentiate between 'au' and 'o'. To me, born and raised in Chicago, 'caught' and 'cot', 'Dawn' and 'Don' are pronounced differently ... but I notice that a lot of my friends from out west (e.g. west of the Mississippi) do not differentiate between those two words.

[CosmicWizard]

Originally a yank, I lived in BC for 5 years in the middle 70's. I picked up many Canadianisms during that time, most of which I still maintain to this day, even though I've been back in the states for 30 years. It's a mark of honor and pride for me.

blessings....Franco

[Yoshi]

the only thing I notice is the 'eh?' at the end of every sentence =P I think it sounds quite good though hehe