| North
American English (USA and Canada) |
| Regional dialects of the United
States are clearly defined in the East coast: dialect from the North, middle and South.
The first one is spoken in New England, the second one, from Point Pleasant (New Jersey)
until Dover, in Delaware. The third one covers the coast region of Delaware until South
Carolina and extends towards Florida. Besides these differences, the rest of the territory
identifies itself with the English language known as "General American". |
|
Dialects from the North, where first British
colony settlements occurred, keep better the way of talking from the South and Southeast
of England, with the incorporation of indigenous words. Naturally, a constant
incorporation of words from other languages from European immigrants that arrived to
America constantly (French, German, Italian, Slavic and Scandinavian languages), have
given a unique terminology and pronunciation to these English dialects, particularly in
the Atlantic coast. However, nowadays the fast development of the media and transportation
have been eliminating progressively the smaller dialectal differences between Americans.
Canadian English, even though subject to the huge influence of American English, still
owns strong British features, particularly in the great cities. Specially; the Scottish
influence can be felt in Ontario. An example of the characteristics of Canadian English is
the phonological process called "Canadian raising". According to this process
the beginning of diphthongs /ay/ y /aw/ are raised to medium vowels when they precede
voiceless consonants (like /p/, la /t/, la /k/, la /s/ y la /f/), what causes an apparent
convergence of pronunciation between Canadians and Americans. This way, when saying the
word "about", for example, a Canadian raises to a medium vowel his pronunciation
of /aw/ instead of doing it in a lower position, so for any American ear it would sound
like "aboot", although is only an illusion. This feature is very notorious
between natives of Toronto, which also have an unique way of pronouncing the name of their
city. |
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