Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by Docere

If they live in a heavily Italian area, I think there's an "ethnolect."

There's definitely something there. My elementary school was heavily Italian (both students and staff) and I remember there being a noticeably Italian flavour to how some of my classmates and teachers spoke. Many of the Italian kids spoke with the generic suburban Toronto accent I was raised speaking, others had that Toronto Italian colour to their speech, and still others had the Montreal Italian accent (this was the 90s and many of my classmates had recently moved here from Montreal). A lot of the kids would code-switch, speaking one way at school and another way at home or with their Italian friends.

Some examples of what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tdWszVHrt4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpGz6JLx42c (skip to ~1:45 especially)

(As an aside, one of my relatives married into an Italian family from Hamilton who speak in a rather different way altogether)

As has been mentioned, there's also a Jewish "ethnolect" spoken by some in the city.

An example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXALfmqVS0

Then there's the Caribbean-influence you hear in some:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv85vTHrq24

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqn7igXhUOM

The Caribbean influence on slang here is also undeniable, and while this following example is purposefully extreme, you can hear elements of it even outside of those with a Caribbean background:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqn7igXhUOM

And then there's the old upwardly mobile White working class accent you hear sometimes, especially in the inner suburbs (AKA Ford Nayshun-speak):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lx1JQuUMBo

My landlady speaks like this (and, coincidentally, is the only remaining Ford supporter I know).

I wish I had a recording of my grandmother speaking. She still has an old working class WASP accent that's almost entirely disappeared from the city - unlike anything else I've heard in Canada ("yuzz iz ahl comin' over to yur aynt's hoos fer thaynksgivin.'") IIRC, her family had been in Toronto since before Confederation, which is ridiculously rare these days.