West and Central Canada
Main article: West/Central Canadian English
The most common variety of Canadian English the one spoken in West/Central Canada. Overall, the pronunciation of English in most of Canada, and especially in Central and Western Canada, is very similar to the pronunciation of English found in the Western United States; Canadian raising and the Canadian vowel shift are the most distinctive features.
Canadian raising
Main article: Canadian raising
A number of Canadians have a distinct feature called "Canadian raising" (Chambers 1973). This feature means that the nucleus of the diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ are "raised" before voiceless consonants. In most varieties of American English pairs such as pouter/powder and rider/writer are pronounced exactly the same. In Canadian English, however, when a diphthong is followed by the voiceless consonants such as /p/ /t/ /k/ /f/ and some others, the starting point of the diphthong raises from an open central vowel to a mid one.
For example, ride is pronounced [raɪd] but with write, because the diphthong is followed by a /t/, the diphthong raises and the word is pronounced [rʌɪt]. Most other speakers of American English do not possess these allophonic sounds ([ʌʊ] and [ʌɪ]) but the pronunciation is still marked. The Canadian pronunciation of "about the house" may sound like "a boat the hoas" to speakers of dialects without the raising, and in many cases is misheard (or deliberately exaggerated) as "aboot the hoos". Some stand-up and situation comedians, as well as television shows (such as South Park) exaggerate the pronunciation to *"aboot the hoos" for comic effect. True Canadian raising affects both /aʊ/ and /aɪ/, but a related phenomenon, of much wider distribution throughout the United States, affects only /aɪ/. So, whereas the General American pronunciations of rider and writer are identical ([raɪɾɚ]), those American English speakers whose dialects include either the full or restricted Canadian raising will pronounce them as [ˈraɪɾɚ] and [ˈrʌɪɾɚ], respectively. Canadian raising is quite strong in the Prairies, the Maritimes, and most of Ontario as well. It is receding in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia and among younger speakers in southern Ontario. Many of these speakers do not raise /aɪ/ before voiceless consonants. Younger speakers in the Lower Mainland do not even raise /aʊ/.[citation needed]
Canadian Vowel Shift
Main article: Canadian Shift
The cot–caught merger creates a hole in the short vowel sub-system[11] and triggers a sound change known as the Canadian Shift, mainly found in Ontario, English-speaking Montreal and further west, and led by Ontarians and women; it involves the front lax vowels /æ/, /ɛ/, /ɪ/. It is also found scattered throughout the Western United States.
The vowels in the words cot and caught merge to [ɒ], a low back rounded vowel. The /æ/ of bat is retracted to [a] (except before nasals). Indeed, /æ/ is lower in this variety than almost all other North American dialects;[12] the retraction of /æ/ was independently observed in Vancouver[13] and is more advanced for Ontarians and women than for people from the Prairies or Atlantic Canada and men.[14] Then, /ɛ/ and /ɪ/ are lowered in the direction of [æ] and [ɛ] and/or retracted; studies actually disagree on the trajectory of the shift.[15]
