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Defining American English
Is this a correct definition of American English?
American English is a collection of English dialects spoken over the USA and in a few other places. Standard American English and Appalachian English are just two examples of American English.
Sounds okay except "a few other places" will leave us wondering which other places and what's "Standard American English"?
I think that it is better to not speak in terms of "American English" but rather in terms of just North American English (NAE for short), as there is a quite continuous dialect continuum throughout English-speaking North America (the Caribbean notwithstanding), with only a few points of clear discontinuity (such as between the dialects of Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, which differ markedly despite the close proximity of the cities). Consequently, any notion of any kind of separation between "American English" and "Canadian English" is rather artificial.
One should note that while there is Atlantic Canadian English, which does markedly differ from even the English in Maine, it does not substantiate any real separation between specifically American and Canadian Englishes as it differs just as much from the English in Ontario as it does from the English in the northeastern US.
''One should note that while there is Atlantic Canadian English, which does markedly differ from even the English in Maine, it does not substantiate any real separation between specifically American and Canadian Englishes as it differs just as much from the English in Ontario as it does from the English in the northeastern US. ''
low back merger is a) the norm in Canadian English (all Canadian newscasters have it) b) a variation in American English (US national newscasters usually avoid it) For that thing alone, I prefer watching CBC news http://cbc.ca/video My favourite is ''Nova Scotia News at 6'' with Norma Lee McLoad
American English sounds more nasal than Canadian English. Why is that?
>>low back merger is
a) the norm in Canadian English (all Canadian newscasters have it) b) a variation in American English (US national newscasters usually avoid it)<< The cot-caught merger is pretty widespread in English in the US, in particular in the western US. It just happens to not be a feature of conservative General American. When you speak of this though, the important thing is not really the presence or lack of the cot-caught merger, but rather that most cot-caught-merged NAE dialects in the US merge to [A] whereas most NAE dialects in Canada merge to [Q]/[O] - but even then there are NAE dialects in the US which do merge to [Q]/[O], such as Lazar's dialect.
>> most cot-caught-merged NAE dialects in the US merge to [A] whereas most NAE dialects in Canada merge to [Q]/[O] <<
I really do think they are all allophones of the same sound, and I don't really think that I merge them to [A] in particular. It seems to me more how my mouth is positioned based on the preceding sounds in the sentence which determines which allophone I use. And I don't even have very much of the Canadian vowel shift, compared to some speakers in my area.
''whereas most NAE dialects in Canada merge to [Q]/[O] ''
I don't know. Watching CBC News, I've noticed that in some words (like TALK) [A] is preferred ([tAk] )while in other words (like DOLLAR) [Q] is preferred ['dQl@r]... In Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, Prince Ed. Island) [A] is more used than [Q].... [Q] is more used in Ottawa region... Also, males prefer [A] while females prefer [Q] but many people use both...
Sorry, I forgot to qualify my statement about merging to [Q]/[O] as not applying to Atlantic Canada (which further goes against the idea of having specifically American and specifically Canadian Englishes)...
<<American English sounds more nasal than Canadian English. Why is that?>>
I don't think it does. Most Canadians sound pretty similar to most Americans.
Why don't Canadian accents sound monotonous and harsh on ears but American accents do? They can't be pretty similar, can they?
When I am at it lemme ask one more question. Why are Americans a benchmark for judging other people's accents? Other accents can sound similar to them but not neccessarily to other non-Americans. I found Canadian accents more better in sounding than American accents and I would choose to imitate one.
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