Canadian raising

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 [əɪ] and [əʊ], respectively, the /a/ component of the diphthong going from a low vowel to schwa ([ə]). As in many other dialects [əʊ] is an allophone of /oʊ/ (as in "road"), 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.

Despite its name, the phenomenon is not restricted to Canada: it has been reported in the traditional accent of Martha's Vineyard, for example. The example above deals with the /aʊ/ diphthong, but, as noted, the /aɪ/ diphthong can be affected as well. So, whereas the General American pronunciations of "rider" and "writer" are identical [ɹaɪɾɚ], those whose dialects include Canadian raising will pronounce them as [ɹaɪɾɚ] and [ɹəɪɾɚ], respectively. This raising of /aɪ/ can be found in the United States as well, for example in the Pacific Northwest, New England, and Philadelphia. Note also that Canadian raising preserves the recoverability of the phoneme /t/ in "writer," even though in Canadian English, as in most other versions of North American English, the /t/ and /d/ undergo flapping to [ɾ] before unstressed vowels.

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.

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.

Bibliography

• Chambers, J. K. "Canadian raising". Canadian Journal of Linguistics 18.2 (1973): 113–35.
• 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.

External links

• Canadian Raising and Other Oddities with audio files