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Haha, aboot if I recall correctly is an American pronunciation used by people from the New England region but it's very rare to hear it from a person in Canada. Our accents are not much different than American accent in the northern states. If you go to the Maritime provinces in Canada you will hear different accents than the other provinces.
Canadian accents do exist, to greater or lesser degree. In my observation, the region closest to its American neighbours are the prairie provinces, especially Alberta, where large American immigration from the upper plains states 1890-1930 left its trace.
The stereotypical Bob and Doug McKenzie "oot and aboot in a boot, eh" accent is really Ottowa Valley, and a compound mostly of the English-Colonial accent of the original Loyalist settlers mixed with the pronunciation of the Scots who arrived in great number up until the mid-20th cent. But you'll still hear the echo of the Scottish vowels in southern Ontario as well.
Toronto, of course, is now a linguistic world of its own, with so many influences from the torrents of immigrants since 1970 that it really bears no relation to rural Ontario, or any other part of Canada for that matter. There's a a hint of nasal Yiddish in a lot of native Toronto accents, either because of American influence or the significant number of Jewish immigrants in the central neighbourhoods in the early 20th c., which I suspect is one of the subconscious signals that make Americans feel "comfortable" in TO. It will be interesting to see what a "standard" Toronto accent will sound like in 50 years - whatever it will sound like, it's safe to say it'll be heavily influenced by the South Asian English accent.
Not all blacks in the US speak Ebonics, thank you very much.
Of course not - but very few can't "sound black" at all. Several of my university-educated professional friends easily pass the "phone test" most of the time, but slip into the classic black southern American speech patterns when they're around older family members. There also seems to be a gender difference; upper-middle class black women seem to more easily drop the black southern speech markers more readily than equivalent men.
Ebonics exists because there are unique African American cultures indigenous to the USA, and that should be cherished. Canada has a few old stock African American descended communities, but for the most part our blacks are immigrants, and that means a very different relationship to the mainstream than an old group like African Americans with these centuries of f***ed up history between them and the whites. It's more like the relationship between Canadian WASP cultures and aboriginals + French Canadians. So I have to say it's not quite the same thing, although it certainly seems like African American culture has a big influence on Blacks worldwide, including in Canada. Even the Beta Israel, the black Ethiopian Jewish minority in Israel, adopts African American affectations in trying to define a cultural place as a racial minority in a Western country. Common for the Maori in New Zealand to do the same thing.
it certainly seems like African American culture has a big influence on Blacks worldwide, including in Canada. Even the Beta Israel, the black Ethiopian Jewish minority in Israel, adopts African American affectations in trying to define a cultural place as a racial minority in a Western country. Common for the Maori in New Zealand to do the same thing.
I think this is about right. In my experience, the only Afro-Canadians to have refused to bend to AA cultural influence are a very few upper-class young men I've happened to meet, and in those cases their family background in former British African colonies already oriented them in a very Anglophile, UCC-then-Cambridge direction.
You probably watch too much "South Park" because they pronounce aboot just to make fun of us.
I live in Ontario and I never say aboot nor I ever heard anyone say it. If you heard other Canadians say it then they must have accents.
Same here in BC...The only time I have ever heard it is when someone has lost a piece of foot ware and asks....Have you seen a boot anywhere?
Same here in BC...The only time I have ever heard it is when someone has lost a piece of foot ware and asks....Have you seen a boot anywhere?
You just don't recognize the "Canadian Raising". I live in BC but originally came from Montreal where we also have have a Canadian raising but where it's less pronounced. British Columbians absolutely pronounce about differently than Americans do. It's just you say it more like aboat. Aboot I sometimes here from some Nova Scotians, but Aboat is fairly common in Western Canada and Ontario, especially Northern Ontario (although Ontario's accents are a bit different from Western Canada's, too off topic to get into that now).
I don't really know many black canadians. I have met a few over the years, and all were Caribbean. So I think of them as caribbeans mostly. And well black people with Canadian accents. But you are all part of the diaspora. We don't all have the same experiences.
Of course not - but very few can't "sound black" at all. Several of my university-educated professional friends easily pass the "phone test" most of the time, but slip into the classic black southern American speech patterns when they're around older family members. There also seems to be a gender difference; upper-middle class black women seem to more easily drop the black southern speech markers more readily than equivalent men.
Depends on where you grew up. I sound just like the people from the area of CA I grew up in. And many other black women sound like I do in the region. I don't have a "black accent" or the "southern" drawl of my parents. Even though I grew up partially in the south. There are a handful of words that I may say with a slight southern accent. I can't even say ya'll right.
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