Canadian

>>I've read that Canadian English is a little more conservative than American English. Some writers have claimed that it is because there is neither the Black influence nor the Wild West cowboy influence in Canadian English that there is in American English . There is probably some truth to this although one must be careful because it is easy to exaggerate these things too. <<

I think you overestimate the influence of AAVE on other English dialects in the US, and what the hell do you mean by "Wild West cowboy influence" anyways?

>>Of course, it is a fact that Canada didn't undergo a lot of the political and social upheavels in the 1960's that the U.S. did, even with increased francophone and separatist sentiment in Quebec, and their society has remained more static and middle class than America's as a consequence.<<

Obviously you are ignoring the effect of the "Quiet Revolution" on society in Quebec, which transformed it from an effectively reactionary Catholic Church-dominated one (which had missed out on the effects the French Revolution had on France itself) to a highly liberal (= social democratic) one which is probably more left-wing than both France and the rest of Canada today. And you

>>I am originally from the province of Ontario, but I currently live in Alberta. Now, to me, there's really no difference between accents in those two provinces. Of course, you also need to take into consideration that Canada is a VERY multicultural nation. There are as many ethnic accents to shake a stick at as there are just plain Canadian ones. The only really distinguishable accent here is that of a person from Newfoundland & Labrodor ("Newfies" as we like to playfully call them). It's a very unique and interesting accent. It is a mix of Scottish and Irish.

Americans have many different accents themselves. There's the New York/ Jersey/Boston sort of "Tony Soprano" accent, then the deep Southern drawls of states like Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, etc. I guess, as a combination of what I've heard other people say and what I've observed in my lifetime, Americans in general seem to have a less refined sounding dialect than Canadians. I'm not stereotyping though. I know that there are lots of well-spoken Americans out there.<<

All things considered, there is almost more dialect variation in the US as a while than Canada overall, excepting Newfoundland, where there are many local dialect features which are missing from the rest of North American English as a whole. Furthermore, many dialect variations within NAE English within the US do not seem to be clearly documented, especially when one looks beyond the northeast of the US, which is extremely heavily documented (practically overdocumented compared to the rest of the NAE dialect continuum).

That said, I wonder what you mean by "less refined" with respect to NAE dialects in the US, especially since they do not necessarily differ that much from those in Canada, overall, once you compare them to the rest of English as a whole.

I don't think Canadians and Americans sound terribly different. There might be a few regional quirks here and there, but I've rarely been able to tell a Cnadian just by the accent.

And I just can't type worth a crap tonight.... CANADIAN.

Uriel,

Re: "...but I've rarely been able to tell a Cnadian just by the accent."

The Canadian accent gets stronger in Canada the further you get from the U.S. border; that's when you really hear hohss and mohth for "house" and "mouth", sore-ee for "sorry" and mei-pl sur-up for "maple syrup" as well as the use of the famous "Eh?." However I admit that the accent differences between Canadian English and General American are slight compared to the differences between General American and the Southern U.S.A. or even Boston and New York City.

>hohss and mohth for "house" and "mouth", sore-ee for "sorry"<

Interesting that some far-from-the-border Canadians say "hohss and mohth", very close to RP, yet use "sore-ee" for "sorry", which is very far from RP, and from general BE, AuE, NZE etc: I always thought the "or" sound in such words as "sorry" and "forest" typical of GAmE, and heard nowhere outside NA.

Those pronunciations for house and mouth are more like the Scottish. i.e. hoess and moeth

The main thing is that the vowels which one would get in "house" and "mouth" are more like [@U] than what one might think from "hohss and mohth".

[@U] is typical of a Scottish (and Canadian) pronunciation. In RP it's normally [aU].

One note: a very common pronunciation of "sorry" right here in southeastern Wisconsin is as ["so:r\i:] (how I pronounce it), even though one will also hear it being pronounced as ["sO:r\i:] (note that for most words, most people here have [or\] rather than [Or\] where GAE has [Or\]) or less commonly ["sa:r\i:] (where then it will be homophonic with "sari") here as well. Consequently, if pronouncing "sorry" like "sore-ee" extends this far south into the Upper Midwest, you cannot exactly call it a specifically Canadian feature.

I'd have thought Scottish pronunciation would be more like "hooss" and "mooth".

>>I'd have thought Scottish pronunciation would be more like "hooss" and "mooth".<<

Just so you know, using things like "hooss" and "mooth" are extremely unclear, and are of practically no use from a linguistic standpoint. For transcribing pronunciations, one should use either IPA or X-SAMPA, which you can get information on at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA

That said, I assume you mean the pronunciations [hus] and [muT] for "house" and "mouth", which is what one would expect for English dialects with a significant Scots substratum (even though I could be wrong about this one).

Well, i love the canadians! I just love everything aboot them!!!! And i am american, i warship canada, i claim to be canadian, i seek every little tiny peice of info about canada that i can get! If you canadians out there are reading this remember my name because i love my C-A-N-A-D-A!!!! I am so proud when canada is on the news too! I plan to have a canadian husband as well as canadian children!

Julie Mocaby, Boise Idaho

Whoa. Somebody needs to lay off the caffeine....

I think Canada should stop clubbing baby seals to death.