Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[kwoldtimer]

I'll be interested to see what others say. Without knowing, I would have assumed that English speakers from Gaspésie sound "Atlantic", so I can't think of what they'd have in common with someone from southern Manitoba, other than perhaps a "rural" type of accent.

[SignalHillHiker]

I've been to Emerson.

My trips to southern Manitoba were ell with Winnipeggers from there and mostly Mennonite but it did seem to me that people down there were either German, French, or English. Altona - German. Letellier - French. Morden - English. Architecture, garden styles, building materials. They all seemed to match the town ancestry.

I met people who only spoke English but with an accent as though it was their second language.

Never met anyone who sounded generic Canadian. But Emerson is right on the US border so could be there.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I would have assumed that English speakers from Gaspésie sound "Atlantic"

I have realized there's a bit of a cultural wall there due to the provincial border (even though geographically, eastern Gaspésie is as far east as Moncton and very sea-oriented/Gulf-oriented culturally and economically).

For example my gf went to the Cégep de Gaspé in English (they have a number of programs) and then ended up moving to the Quebec City area. It's probably easier to move within your own province. Her niece currently also finishing high school in Gaspé is planning on going to Champlain (college/Cégep) in the Anglo borough of Sherbrooke and then U Bishop's. (No influence or input from me whatsoever on that.)

In terms of distance, places like Moncton or Halifax aren't further away but it seems the default choice for these Anglos is to stay within Quebec for whatever reason.

So maybe that little "wall" applies to accents as well since there's little interaction from the two sides. Because apart from geographical-proximity-caused interaction, what other factor could possibly be at play to make them sound "Atlantic"? The odor of seaweed in the local air?

... so I can't think of what they'd have in common with someone from southern Manitoba, other than perhaps a "rural" type of accent.

Irish component maybe? My gf deals with Americans for her job all the time and she "sounds American" to them, not stereotypically Canadian. Her family have the same-ish accent so it's not contamination from work in her case...

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by lio45

I have realized there's a bit of a cultural wall there due to the provincial border (even though geographically, eastern Gaspésie is as far east as Moncton and very sea-oriented/Gulf-oriented culturally and economically).

For example my gf went to the Cégep de Gaspé in English (they have a number of programs) and then ended up moving to the Quebec City area. It's probably easier to move within your own province. Her niece currently also finishing high school in Gaspé is planning on going to Champlain (college/Cégep) in the Anglo borough of Sherbrooke and then U Bishop's. (No influence or input from me whatsoever on that.)

In terms of distance, places like Moncton or Halifax aren't further away but it seems the default choice for these Anglos is to stay within Quebec for whatever reason.

So maybe that little "wall" applies to accents as well since there's little interaction from the two sides. Because apart from geographical-proximity-caused interaction, what other factor could possibly be at play to make them sound "Atlantic"? The odor of seaweed in the local air?


Irish component maybe? My gf deals with Americans for her job all the time and she "sounds American" to them, not stereotypically Canadian. Her family have the same-ish accent so it's not contamination from work in her case...

Well, it's home.

Can you find a sample of an Anglo-Gaspésien speaking? It's hard to comment otherwise.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

In terms of distance, places like Moncton or Halifax aren't further away but it seems the default choice for these Anglos is to stay within Quebec for whatever reason.

I wonder where Anglophones in that area tended to come from and how long they've been there. They are a pretty small group. If they moved there from Atlantic Canada you'd probably see stronger ties, whereas if they came from farther west or immigrated directly you probably wouldn't.

I have actually noticed this in BC. If you go to some older coastal places, like on Vancouver Island, there are a lot of very obvious cultural and historical ties to the East Coast. This is because the first "British" colonists were really from the Maritimes in a lot of cases (and the first premier here was from NS and so on). Even today lots of people move back and forth between Halifax and Victoria because of the navy. Most parts of Canada don't have this at all, because they were settled by immigrants from outside of Canada and have a different economic base.

There is a somewhat similar phenomenon amongst Francophones in that people living in Madawaska County for example don't necessarily consider themselves to be the same group as Acadians spread throughout the rest of the region. They have relatively close historical ties to Quebec.

As an aside, Northern NB is a sparsely-populated hinterland type area like Northern Ontario. The "core" part of the Maritimes is basically the much smaller triangular area between Charlottetown, Fredericton, and Halifax. This area is so well-integrated it is more accurate to think of it as one province. Interestingly, there is an "island mentality" with PEI and Cape Breton in that people there have a strong sense of identity that partly revolves around perceived differences from the mainland. This is reminiscent of another island somewhere. You hear bitter complaints about Halifax, etc., but there is a lot of de facto integration, to the point where 1/3 of the people in the region's primary city are probably from these places anyway (the complaining is probably a direct result of the integration in a "familiarity breeds contempt" sort of way). This type of relationship doesn't seem to exist at all with a place like Gaspé.

[SignalHillHiker]

Every island has that mentality to a certain degree - even Victoria Island. It's just less than us, or Bermuda, or wherever else because it's always been more integrated with the mainland. Prince Edward Island a little less so but it has a similar history in that regard, one of greater integration with what became Canada.

It'll eventually, though, become as genuinely distinct as the Florida Keys. I don't think it'd ever get as distinct as us or, say, Bermuda, though, because it's been so connected and for so long. They joined Canada in 1871. There's no one alive who voted. There's no one sharing stories at family gatherings about what it was like growing up when it was a different country.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by someone123

I wonder where Anglophones in that area tended to come from

British Isles.

and how long they've been there.

Many generations.




(I can't get any more specific than that, but I'll try to get answers as I'm curious. BTW, the first answer is not really such a ridiculous answer as it could appear at first sight because in modern Quebec you have other non-British groups that mostly have adopted English decades ago and will still pass as "Anglos" to the Québécois, such as Jews, Italians, Greeks, etc.)

(Even some Asians groups, AFAIK, will tend to gravitate to English and in the grand scheme of things I can't blame them for that choice. The big exception is the Vietnamese, obviously. But if, say, you go to a random Chinese restaurant in Brossard you're likely to have to use English.)

[someone123]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Every island has that mentality to a certain degree - even Victoria Island. It's just less than us, or Bermuda, or wherever else because it's always been more integrated with the mainland. Prince Edward Island a little less so but it has a similar history in that regard, one of greater integration with what became Canada.

On the one hand there is cultural distinctiveness and on the other hand there is exceptionalism. It's hard to separate the two and the exceptionalist interpretation is more flattering so there tends to be a bias in that direction.

Atlantic Canada is one place where there's a lot more similarity and de facto integration than a lot of people let on. Yes, Cape Breton is a special snowflake. So are many other parts of the region where people have different accents and so on (Acadians even speak a different language, and they did not come from Quebec, the Mi'kmaq are another group, and so are African NSians). And the big bad city is probably 10% Cape Bretoners, so there are de facto cultural and economic ties. This partly explains why there are "Atlantic" sounding accents.

If you take a random sampling in Halifax you'll get a cross-section of people from all around the region. I tend to visit a handful of people when I go back. The group is a roughly even sampling of people from NF, NB, and PEI. Most of the locals have relatives around the region. The scenario where everybody in your family goes back generations locally is an exception rather than the rule. This isn't really compatible with the view of Atlantic Canada as a bunch of tenuously-connected solitudes.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Well, it's home.

More or less agree with that. "It's within the same province as home" would be a more accurate statement IMO. If I'm in Skatchin I'm not "home", but I'm still within the borders of the country of my birth and could settle there and enjoy the same rights as everyone if I wanted.

Can you find a sample of an Anglo-Gaspésien speaking? It's hard to comment otherwise.

I can ask my gf to record speech samples using the same test you guys have been doing as soon as I see her next (in something like two weeks).

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

(I can't get any more specific than that, but I'll try to get answers as I'm curious. BTW, the first answer is not really such a ridiculous answer as it could appear at first sight because in modern Quebec you have other non-British groups that mostly have adopted English decades ago and will still pass as "Anglos" to the Québécois, such as Jews, Italians, Greeks, etc.)

Atlantic Canada (and Canada in general) has distinctions amongst old English-speaking groups. The Loyalists came from the US, but others came from the British Isles. In NS, many early settlers (1700-1750) who switched over to English were also French, Swiss, and German Protestants. It's common to see family names like Langille that are Huguenot French; those families have spoken English since the 1700's.

The big reason for the original British province of NS being partitioned into NS and NB is that NS was the half for the direct migrants from Europe and NB was the half for the American Loyalists who wanted to have their own government.

If you had a time machine and could go back to the 1800's, you'd find people in Halifax speaking something closer to British English inherited during the 1700's whereas the Loyalists would have sounded more like Americans, who inherited their language from groups coming over in the 1600's and originally landing in places like Massachusetts. The level of religion inherited in the American colonies also never really took hold in NS or NF.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

Every island has that mentality to a certain degree - even Victoria Island. It's just less than us, or Bermuda, or wherever else because it's always been more integrated with the mainland. Prince Edward Island a little less so but it has a similar history in that regard, one of greater integration with what became Canada.

It'll eventually, though, become as genuinely distinct as the Florida Keys. I don't think it'd ever get as distinct as us or, say, Bermuda, though, because it's been so connected and for so long. They joined Canada in 1871. There's no one alive who voted. There's no one sharing stories at family gatherings about what it was like growing up when it was a different country.

Do you mean Vancouver Island? Because it wouldn't be that surprising for Victoria Island to have that sort of sentiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Island_(Canada)

[SignalHillHiker]

Yes, I do. Sorry.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by someone123

On the one hand there is cultural distinctiveness and on the other hand there is exceptionalism. It's hard to separate the two and the exceptionalist interpretation is more flattering so there tends to be a bias in that direction.

Atlantic Canada is one place where there's a lot more similarity and de facto integration than a lot of people let on. Yes, Cape Breton is a special snowflake. So are many other parts of the region where people have different accents and so on (Acadians even speak a different language, and they did not come from Quebec, the Mi'kmaq are another group, and so are African NSians). And the big bad city is probably 10% Cape Bretoners, so there are de facto cultural and economic ties. This partly explains why there are "Atlantic" sounding accents.

If you take a random sampling in Halifax you'll get a cross-section of people from all around the region. I tend to visit a handful of people when I go back. The group is a roughly even sampling of people from NF, NB, and PEI. Most of the locals have relatives around the region. The scenario where everybody in your family goes back generations locally is an exception rather than the rule. This isn't really compatible with the view of Atlantic Canada as a bunch of tenuously-connected solitudes.

Oh, definitely - regarding Halifax being a mix of everyone (and I don't say that as some sideways way of taking away from what Halifax is - just acknowledging it's the go-to city in Atlantic City for migrants who aren't willing to go west).

My mother's family is mostly here, but my father's family is actually MOSTLY in Nova Scotia today, I think. Lower Sackville/Bedford/etc. They both have 13 siblings and I can't remember them all, let alone where they live. But my father has, for sure... 6 siblings, plus their spouses, and children in NS.

I suspect Cape Breton's militant differentism is a result of the high Newfoundland-heritage population. We would have brought that mindset there with us, even as we interbred with the locals and the awareness of Newfoundland heritage waned.

Before we joined Canada, we were counted as foreign-born in the Canadian census. So that actually shows us how many Newfoundlanders were in a given place. The stats for Cape Breton are a HUGE percentage of the population. And keep in mind this only includes Newfoundland born - not their children born in Canada. And this was part of the 50-year period when we had several times more kids, on average, than Canadians (my grandfather had 21 siblings, for example):



As an aside, Boston alone accounted for more Newfoundland-born residents at that time than all of mainland Canada.

[someone123]

The prominent local culture people talk about in Northern NS (CB, Pictou, Cumberland, and Colchester counties) has more to do with Gaelic-speaking Scottish settlers who moved there in much the same way Irish settlers ended up in parts of NF. Back in 1900, surprisingly, these counties were majority Gaelic speaking. The number of declared Gaelic speakers in NS is down to about 1,500 today, but it is interesting that they still exist. In Northern NS you can find schools that teach Gaelic, street signs in Gaelic, the Highland Games, etc. Residents moving there from Newfoundland may have been a contributor but it's not really a core part of the well-defined regional identity today. The regional split there also isn't even so much island vs. mainland.

The generic "Nova Scotia" tartans and bagpipers and all of that stuff comes from Northern NS. It doesn't have much to do with the south, aside from the fact that many northerners moved south as the economy went downhill in places like industrial CB.

Lunenburg County has the same thing with German and Swiss settlers. You don't hear as much of an us vs. them mentality along the near South Shore though, I think, because it's closer to the city, and there is more of a sense that they benefit from the growth of the city. Many people commute from Lunenburg, Kings, and Hants to Halifax.

The 1921 demographics are interesting. I would have expected higher percentages in Toronto and Montreal. I am not surprised by the Sydney area and Halifax. Sydney back then was a lot like Alberta today (or, err, 6 months ago). You could move from a rural area and work in a mine or steel mill as a labourer for a good wage. Halifax wasn't as great of a destination for these migrants. It had a relatively weak economy in 1921 and was a somewhat more white collar town.

I'd regard that list as more of a snapshot than a sign of the way things were during a large period of time before Newfoundland joined Canada. In 1911 or 1931 the demographics might have been quite different.

[SignalHillHiker]

Yeah they were. There was a huge exodus from NL in the 1920s. Mostly U.S. bound. I've never seen the stats to say conclusively, but evidence would suggest the numbers would be slightly lower in 1911 and WAY higher in 1931.

The catch is the exodus was mostly young men. Not whole families. And most went to NYC to, fittingly for this forum, build skyscrapers (at least two of the men in that famous lunch on the high rise beam photo are Newfoundlanders). So not sure if they made a population difference. If they married local women... Then the kids would probably be fully local in culture.

Even with the exodus, though, our population kept climbing:

[Docere]

Tom Marshall, who briefly served as premier, has the Newfoundland to Cape Breton background in reverse. His father, Senator Jack Marshall, came out of Cape Breton's Jewish community and moved to Newfoundland after World War II.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by someone123

Atlantic Canada (and Canada in general) has distinctions amongst old English-speaking groups. The Loyalists came from the US, but others came from the British Isles. In NS, many early settlers (1700-1750) who switched over to English were also French, Swiss, and German Protestants. It's common to see family names like Langille that are Huguenot French; those families have spoken English since the 1700's.

The big reason for the original British province of NS being partitioned into NS and NB is that NS was the half for the direct migrants from Europe and NB was the half for the American Loyalists who wanted to have their own government.

If you had a time machine and could go back to the 1800's, you'd find people in Halifax speaking something closer to British English inherited during the 1700's whereas the Loyalists would have sounded more like Americans, who inherited their language from groups coming over in the 1600's and originally landing in places like Massachusetts. The level of religion inherited in the American colonies also never really took hold in NS or NF.

Some background on immigration to the Maritimes.

http://www.canadian-studies.info/lcc...09/Buckner.pdf

Since there was little direct immigration from England to the Maritimes and Loyalists hailed mostly from homogeneous New England (nearly all English descent), English origin is a good proxy for Loyalist origin when looking at historic census data.

In Ontario/Upper Canada, Loyalists and Simcoe's "late Loyalists" tended to come from Upstate New York and Pennsylvania.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Docere

Since there was little direct immigration from England to the Maritimes and Loyalists hailed mostly from homogeneous New England (nearly all English descent), English origin is a good proxy for Loyalist origin when looking at historic census data.

Are you just talking about the period of time around the American Revolution? During the 1600-1755 period, most immigration came directly from Europe. From 1755-1800 there were the Planters and the Loyalists. Again from about 1800-1860, most immigration was from the British Isles. The linked article points this out; the population of the Maritimes grew by about 8x during the 1800-1860 period and I think that is when the demographic profile of the region more or less stabilized into what we are familiar with today.

The immigration counts need to be corrected for their demographic impact if you are looking at culture and language. There were only a few thousand immigrants from France to Quebec in the early years of the 1600's, but they had an enormous impact there. In the same way, a couple thousand immigrants from France established the Acadian minority that exists today in Canada (and consists of about 100,000 people). The ~5,000 British and foreign protestant settlers to the Halifax and Lunenburg areas in the 1700's likewise had a very big impact over the generations. Presumably, the early settlers to Newfoundland were also a relatively small group that grew in population over the centuries.

[Docere]

I specifically said direct immigration from England, not Europe.

[Docere]

Ethnic composition of the Maritimes after the end of mass immigration:

New Brunswick (1871 census)

Irish 100,643 35.3%
English/Welsh 83,598 29.2%
French 44,907 15.7%
Scottish 40,858 14.3%
German/Swiss 4,542 1.6%

Nova Scotia (1871 census)

Scottish 130,741 33.7%
English/Welsh 113,520 29.2%
Irish 62,851 16.4%
German/Swiss 33,717 8.7%
French 32,833 8.5%
African 6,212 1.6%

Prince Edward Island (1881 census)

Scottish 48,933 44.8%
Irish 25,415 23.3%
English/Welsh 21,568 19.8%
French 10,751 9.9%