American vs Canadian Accent
The differences between American and Canadian accents occur due to the influences of other languages on the English language. North America is one continent mostly made up by Canada in the North and US to its south. Mexico is the only other country having some significance in size further down south. Canada and US have a very long border from East to West of the continent and English is the language spoken in both countries. Those living close to the border speak the same English, and virtually no difference in the accent. However, as one moves from the border upwards, especially in the Quebec Province of Canada, the difference in accent gets enhanced because of the French influence and French being the official language in the province. Intonations from another language and some other differences make Americans make fun of Canadian English. Let us take a closer look at these differences between Canadian and American accents.
What is Canadian Accent?
The Canadian accent is the way, especially Americans refer to the way, the Canadians pronounce English. First, let us see the au sound. The words containing au sound are pronounced differently by Canadian speakers. If you are from US and listening to a commentary on a hockey match by a Canadian, you would feel that he said aboot when in reality, he said about. The same accent comes to play when he speaks house as you get to hear something like hoose and not house. As far as the Canadian accent is concerned, they appear to an American ear as more clipped that most Americans sound. It looks like a Scottish influence over the Canadians.
Also, then there is the use of the sound ‘eh.’ Canadians make this sound in between pauses just like Aussies when they sound ‘ay.’ If you hear a Canadian for any length of time, you are bound to hear him making this sound ‘eh’ many a number of times. Canadians pronounce the last letter of the alphabet Z as Zed the way British do.
What is American Accent?
American accent is the way Americans pronounce words in the English language. If you take the au sound, Americans pronounce it as it is without a change.
Some people believed that an American never makes the ‘eh’ sound. If anything, Americans say ‘you know’ in between pauses, to emphasize a point of view. However, some Americans rarely do use eh in their speech. However, they never use eh as much as a Canadian would use it.
The last letter of the alphabet, Z, is pronounced Zee in US.
Some Americans do not think of Canadians highly and believe Canadian culture and their personality to be inferior to those of Americans. However, this is just not the case with both countries being inseparable on lots of counts, including culture.
Many a time, Americans tend to drop ‘t’s from their words, and they seem rather lazy to speak out the full word. In contrast, Canadians speak English very clearly and crisply. If you hear American say water, you will hear worder instead of water many times. When saying batteries, you would hear something like badderies instead of batteries that is very confusing for people from other countries. The most simple word HATE becomes HA-Y-D when you hear it from an American. Thus, there are times when American English sounds weird, and there are times when Canadian English sounds weird. However, most of the times, there is no major difference between the American and the Canadian English.
What is the difference between American and Canadian Accent?
• AU Sound:
• AU becomes OO in Canadian English.
• Americans pronounce the au sound as it is.
• Use of Eh:
• Canadians make use of eh just like Americans make use of You Know.
• However, some Americans also use eh very much in their speech.
• Letter Z:
• Canadians pronounce the letter z as zed.
• However, Zed becomes Zee in US.
• Ah Sound:
• Canadians tend to stick with the rounded pronunciation just like British English in words such as God, not, lot, etc.
• Americans tend to pronounce the letter in many words as ah, such as in words like God, not, lot, etc.
Images Courtesy:
- Canada day parade by Marty555 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- American people via Pixabay (Public Domain)
