Chapter 1.

Dialects in Canada and Their Origins

1.1. History of Canadian English

The way that English-speaking Canadians write and talk was due to the influence of all
people who have used their language over the years: the colonists who arrived to Canada from
Ireland, Scotland and England in the nineteenth century, fur traders, the pioneers of Upper
Canada, the settlers of the west. As we all know, the grammar, the vocabulary and the
pronunciation are the products of history. For this reason, the historical background is provided
to Canadian English in the first part.
The history of Canadian English is very much alike to that of English in the British Isles
up until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Unquestionably, there were English speakers in
Canada before that time, particularly the United Empire Loyalists. When America's original
Thirteen Colonies went to war with Britain over objections to unpopular taxes, not everyone in
the colonies favored the move. The revolution opponents were treated like betrayers and they
became known as Loyalists since they remained devoted to the British Crown; they continued to
be harassed, denied the right to vote, sell land, sue debtors or to be lawyers, doctors or
schoolmasters. One third of approximately 250,000 colonists that stayed loyal to Britain fled to
other British Possessions. Some of them moved to north to what then used to be British North
America (Canada) and the majority settled in a region of Eastern Canada where one could find
three colonies: New Brunswick, Prince Eduard Island also called Maritimes and Nova Scotia.
Almost 7,000 Loyalists established in Upper Canada (Ontario). The presence of all these people
contributed to the formation of the future nation Canada and their appearance had a profound
impact on the beginning of a broadly English-speaking community in Canada in the west and
east of the Quebec border. Approximately one fifth of Canada inhabitants are able to find their
ancestral roots to one or more of those Loyalist communities. Yet, the tremendous period of
immigration from the British Isles that took place beginning with1825 and lasted until1860
absorbed earlier English in Canada.
From 1825 to 1846 almost one million of newcomers entered Canada from the British
Isles and by 1871 more than two million people could be found in Canada and their homeland
were British Isles, where Irish were the majority. As Buckley (18) states: “846 414 of whom one
hundred had entered in the year 1846, the year of the Irish potato famine.”
The Reverend A.C. Geikie, who was a Scottish-born Canadian, has first used the phrase
Canadian English in 1857, to refer to The English of Ontario which he regarded as being “ a
corrupt dialect growing up amongst our population, and gradually finding access to our
periodical literature, until it threatens to produce a language as unlike our noble mother tongue as
negro patua, or the Chinese pigeon English”(Scargill 11). What Mr. Geikie considered to be
unacceptable were the sources of the Canadian English which came from the English of the late
eighteen century in Ireland, Scotland, England and words of America borrowings. Mr. Geikie
was actually trying to stop the tide of “the corrupt dialect”-should not deny him the credit for
having discovered Canadian English. Beginning with 1889, the matter was adopted again by
W.D.Lighhall, in a magazine article, where it was spoken for the first time, with no prejudice,
about the real state of Canadian English:” It would surprise the average British Canadian to hear
it suggested that the language of his people presents any very distinctive features, so widespread
are certain half-conscious notions that, excepting a few French, the language of the home born-
people of our country is some very British and very un-American and practically uniform dialect,
and that, although English, Scotch and Irish immigrants have individually imported their several
variations, these never long remain without melting into that uniform dialect.(…) Neither do our
home-born people speak a uniform dialect at all; nor is a very British dialect general; nor is our
speech even practically free from Americanisms; nor is the time near when some, at least, of the
variants will disappear. It can be shown that there is a possibility of the English language itself
withdrawing from more than half of area of the original province; that what remains will be long
diversified by traces of dialectic division; and our daily speech is far more like that current in the
United States than we suspect” (Lighthall 581-583). And all those aspects anticipated by
Linghall about the Canadian English continued to be illustrated during the most of its history:
flourishing resemblance to American speech (words e.g. down-town, pants, buggy, limbs, and
location), a loss of uniformity and, mainly in the written language, a decreasing below “the
standard of England’s great literature” (Geikie 11).
 1.2. Linguistic domination of Upper Canada in Inland Canada

Whenever a language is taken from its home and put into a new country where
everything is completely different from its speakers have formerly known, it is important for the
language to enlarge the vocabulary so that it could deal up with the new conditions. All this
enlargement is made in certain conditions which comprises the use of existing words with a new
meaning, the use of the new words with a new meaning (hurdy gurdy- a musical instrument that
makes music by rotation of a cylinder studded with pegs), the conscious creation of new words,
the use of the names of people of thing they invent (Bombardier-a snow tractor, typically having
caterpillar tracks at the rear and skis at the front) and the borrowings from people in the new
country who already have names for things which are new to the latest settlers (sockeye-small
salmon with red flesh).
Knowing the story of the first Anglophone pilgrims arrived in Canada, the language of
Upper Canada, which is now known as Ontario, is widely treated as being a linguistically
predominant variety of the English language in modern English-speaking Canadian society
(Clarke, 1993:2). Nonetheless, this sovereignty demands a more accurate explanation.
The westward development of Canada, which took place after 1867, represents the first
reason for the Upper Canada dominance to materialize. This development happened mostly with
the help of white English-speaking Protestants from Upper Canada. The person responsible for
the exodus of Ontarians was Sir John A. Macdonald who pursued the example given by Riel
Rebellions of 1870 in Manitoba and 1885 in Saskatchewan who moved to submerge the French-
speaking Catholics Metis population after they asked for the protection of their civil rights such
as linguistic and religious rights, after the Canadian annexation of these provinces.
He was the one that inspired the mass movement of Ontarians to form the new majority in the
west, giving them new pieces of land at rock-bottom prices in order to offer them the necessary
number of people. Therefore, Macdonald’s policy separated Quebec as a French-speaking
province. In addition to this, Macdonald’s actions exported to the west the English variety which
was used in Upper Canada and which evolved from the United Empire Loyalists and post-
Loyalists.
The second reason for the linguistic dominance of Upper Canadian English in the
territory of inland Canada was the social, political and economic domination of Ontario after
Confederation in 1867. As usual, the language of the socially, politically and economically
dominant territory was considered prestigious” (Clarke, 1993:3). “With this in mind, it becomes
clear why English spoken by the urban middle-class society of Ontario is today’s Standard
Canadian English, and that its status of being standard is historically connected with pre-
Confederation Upper Canada. With the passing of time, it has become evident that Canadian
English spread over a territory larger than Europe and has undoubtedly become diversified, so
researchers in every province have started to study dialectological aspects of Canadian
English”(Léon, Rouillard, Baligand, & Martin, 1979:1).

1.3. Standard Canadian English

Standard Canadian English was first created by English-speaking people who settled in
the north part of Canada after the War of Independence so that they could live in a territory that
was ruled by the British Crown. Firstly, this indicates the fact that Standard Canadian language
was designed partly by Loyalists and Late loyalists from Western New England and
Pennsylvania. Secondly, some Old World Immigrants who arrived from Scotland, Northern
Ireland and Ireland and established in Upper Canada came with a non-southern English variety.
Summing up, Ontarian English, which is currently thought to be standard, was an infusion of the
New England, Irish, Scottish and Northern English dialects. The continuous detachment of these
colonists’ ties to Britain or the United States appeared in the expansion of their own unique
variety of the English language.
Lougheed (1986) talks about the fact that the Standard Dialect in Canada is the grammar
and the pronunciation of educated Canadians. Only some of the grammatical variations that
appear in Canada are unquestionably too provincial or too conversational to permit a place in
Standard Canadian English (Lougheed, 1986:8).
Clarke (1993) argues that Standard Canadian English is used among middle-class
Canadian society in the inland towns and cities of Canada.
Woods (1999), on the other hand, uses “general” instead of “standard”. In his words,
General Canadian points out that a standard dialect is spoken in most parts of Canada from the
Ottawa River to the Pacific:
 “It is roughly the dialect of broadcasters on the national networks and of the university
educated. Increasingly, it is the majority dialect of all Canadian cities.” (Woods, 1999:51)
Clarke (1993) stands for the idea of Woods:
“The General Canadian is defined as the standard dialect of educated speakers from the Ottawa
River to the Pacific.”
(Clarke, 1993:273)
I n their try to define what is Standard or General Canadian English, Lougheed, Clarke
and Woods explain that it is a dialect which occurs among educated middle-class Canadian
society in most parts of Canadian territory.
If language is a social phenomenon which is carefully related with the social structure
and value systems of a society, different varieties are evaluated in different ways. The standard
Canadian English is a dialect used commonly by the most educated and politically powerful
members of the community. The term Canadian English refers to the National Canadian English
which includes Standard or General Canadian English and all territorial varieties, but it is
important to point out that its condition is not properly standardized by any institution. The
standard character relies in the attitude of the speakers, because the General Canadian is the
most important and therefore the most powerful form of English in Canada as it is used by
university educated people in almost all parts of the country. It is also used in Ottawa by middle-
class population who is directly connected to the Federal Government.