Speech pattern and typographical variations across Canada

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Denscity

"don't drive your crr to the brr".

That's the Maritimes, not Ontario.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

The weird thing is that I understand everything she's saying. I don't think your average Québécois with no Maritime Acadian roots could, though.

Almost sure she's from SE NB. Moncton-Shediac-Cap-Pelé area. No one in Quebec sounds like that. The south Gaspé coast has some Acadian inflections but it's quite different.

The parts in French, she has almost the same accent as everyone on my mom's side (from the south Gaspé coast / Baie des Chaleurs coast). I have no problems understanding everything (though, OMG, what an accent.)

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by rousseau

That's the Maritimes, not Ontario.

Yes moreso Maritimes but he does it too to a lesser extent.
Is it possible the east coast accent has permeated into Ontario?

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by JHikka

It's a tiktok so...yes it's exaggerated.


Bob is also a boomer and Toronto really didn't have Toronto Mans at that time. He spent a few years in the Sault so maybe it got to him.

Ya didn't think Bob had a Man's accent lol although that would be funny.
Just the traditional accent from Ontario that I also hear out here from my Ontario friends who moved to Castlegar

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Yes moreso Maritimes but he does it too to a lesser extent.
Is it possible the east coast accent has permeated into Ontario?

I highly doubt it. Apparently it goes like this:
(1) New Brunswick French becomes more Québécois;
(2) Québécois French becomes more like French in France;
(3) Ontarian French, which used to be Québécois French, becomes more English-tinged.

[megadude]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Top guy at TSN Bob Mckenzie was born in Toronto and has a strong Ontario accent. Not sure what his hood was but its pretty strong with the "oot n aboot" or "don't drive your crr to the brr".

I should be more specific when I say Canadian accent. What I mean is stereotypical Canadian accent or hoser accent. There are Ontario people I have met I would say have a Canadian accent, but not a strong one. Here is an example. I don't actually know what province this guy is from but if I were to guess it would be from Ontario outside of the core GTA. My best guess would from somewhere north of Barrie but anywhere in the province is fair game.

As soon as he talks you know he's Canadian and not American.

Good guy by the way. He has helped me out on his home improvement forum too.

• Video Link

[megadude]

Originally Posted by JHikka

We can refer to it as Toronto Mans or we can refer to it as, *checks the link again*, Multicultural Toronto English.

I never picked up on the Somali in it but it's very easy to hear the Jamaican and Arabic. Depends on who you're talking to, really. I've always seen it as more of a Brampton thing with the GTA accent dominating the rest.

The only Somali word I know of in the lexicon of slang is wallahi, which means I swear.

I would say Toronto Mans originated in Scarboro. The two biggest populations of Toronto Mans would be Scarboro and Brampton. But who knows, this was after my time. It started to take shape just after I left highschool, soon before my brother was finishing highschool. He would use a couple of words like "that's arms..." or "he got merked".

[megadude]

Originally Posted by savevp

I find it fascinating how Toronto slang has evolved parallel to modern London slang and ended up remarkably similar phonologically and structurally. The cause most likely being very similar ethnic makeup of immigrant groups in either city.

https://magazine.utoronto.ca/researc...toronto-slang/

Yo, real talk, styll. Translation: For sure.

Example:
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJEFP3Dg/

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Denscity

Yes moreso Maritimes but he does it too to a lesser extent.
Is it possible the east coast accent has permeated into Ontario?

Not "more so Maritimes," but completely Maritimes and completely not Ontario. Nobody in Ontario does the "kerr" for car thing, that's only the Maritimes.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by megadude

The only Somali word I know of in the lexicon of slang is wallahi, which means I swear.

That is definitely an Arabic word. Wallahi, bro. Although Somalis definitely say it.

It's funny that if you go to the urban dictionary entry for it there's a post from 2004 talking about Toronto Mans.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wallahi

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Almost sure she's from SE NB. Moncton-Shediac-Cap-Pelé area.

I was going to say. Some people from around Moncton talk like that.

It's interesting how easy it is to understand and it's not just a "random" mix of English and French. It has a lot of French patterns applied to English and vice versa (calques if you just take 1 and apply it to the other language). Natural evolution at work when two languages merge.

[JHikka]

• Video Link

This is a better and more natural example of pretty decent Chiac.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by megadude

The only Somali word I know of in the lexicon of slang is wallahi, which means I swear.

Wallahi/Wallah is a huge part of "Multicultural Swedish" as well. Every school-age kid, no matter what their background, drops it every few words it seems.

(Well I mean... kids with last names like Jansson, Said, or Aboumakir do. Kids with names like Gyllenstierna or von Hessenstein do not. Because the new Sweden, along with being more diverse, is also more stratified. Drop it on Lidingö at the beach house and you're speaking Rinkebyspräk. There is this unforgiving line where it's kind of: street cred... street cred... street cred...some icy blonde being like, 'what are you, the Uber Eats man?')

[Nashe]

Originally Posted by JHikka

• Video Link
This is a better and more natural example of pretty decent Chiac.

That's definitely more common but I have to admit I know more than a couple of younger folk who speak more closely to the lady lamenting the lack of ski slope access above. Especially when they get wound up and/or drinking.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

• Video Link

This is a better and more natural example of pretty decent Chiac.

Even though most people would call them both Chiac, that's actually a pretty different speech pattern from that of the teenaged girl.

These two people basically alternate between complete sentences in French (or about 90-95% anyway) and complete sentences entirely in English.

There are quite a few anglicisms in the French but not even close to as many as with the girl.

In her case, the English words are embedded in the French. Even though close to half her words are probably English (or English words morphed into French-sounding ones) the structure of her speech is very predominantly French.

It's quite likely that many people who speak like the girl think they're speaking ''only in French" when they're talking like that.

[MonctonRad]

I can think of a number of categories for Maritime accents:

1) - urban educated and generic Maritime (standard Canadian)
2) - South Shore "hi, I'm from Bridgewaddah (Bridgewater)"
3) - Cape Breton (and Antigonish County) - a semi Newfoundland accent
4) - Miramichi (hoser-like but with special expressions thrown in) - "how's she goin", the response to which would be "the very best"
5) - Charlotte County (very much like Downeast Maine) ie - Bah Hahbah (Bar Harbor)
6) - non urban PEI ( somewhat twangy with special expressions (slippy instead of slippery, Goody for Gaudet)

7) - urban educated French (pretty much limited to the UdeM crowd)
8) - Chiac (local Acadian dialect in southeastern NB) - largely unintelligible with lots of English words thrown in
9) - north shore French (probably a lot like the eastern Quebec and Gaspésie accent discussed upthread)

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

7) - urban educated French (pretty much limited to the UdeM crowd)

... and the people who work at Radio-Canada!

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

... and the people who work at Radio-Canada!

C'est vrai!!!

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

Wallahi/Wallah is a huge part of "Multicultural Swedish" as well. Every school-age kid, no matter what their background, drops it every few words it seems.

(Well I mean... kids with last names like Jansson, Said, or Aboumakir do. Kids with names like Gyllenstierna or von Hessenstein do not. Because the new Sweden, along with being more diverse, is also more stratified. Drop it on Lidingö at the beach house and you're speaking Rinkebyspräk. There is this unforgiving line where it's kind of: street cred... street cred... street cred...some icy blonde being like, 'what are you, the Uber Eats man?')

I asked my kids about Wallah(i). I guess it's a global thing as they recognized it right away.

They said the only kids who say that are "rapace" (literally birds of prey, but I guess SHH would call them "skeets") or "péteurs de guiche". (Try to figure that last one out for fun.)

Anyway, not a compliment in either case: lower class loser kids often up to no good.

According to them there is no hard and fast ethno-racial dimension to this here. It's more socio-economic and socio-cultural.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Sarah89

I listened to the Saskatchewan Premier speak today over the pipeline issue in a CBC interview - are Saskatchewan accents typically that strong? because that was about as stereotypical as you're going to get. Although the rural towns and rust belt cities in Ontario have a very strong Canadian Accent I think those in Saskatchewan may actually have us beat here.

I listened to an interview with Scott Moe just now and I have to agree... he definitely has a noticeable accent, especially for someone under 50 who would have been exposed to the moderating influence of TV pretty well all his life.

An interesting factor with him is that he is from a farm in north-central Saskatchewan, and one thing I've observed, totally anecdotally but from having farmers in my family and having worked with farmers from across western Canada in the past, is that farmer accents tend to be pretty strong. You can detect traces of the "old country" even if they're a few generations removed from over there. If you heard some of my cousins from the northern Interlake region of Manitoba talk, you'd think they were from Ukraine themselves, and the same goes for Germans, Icelanders, etc.