Talk:Canadian raising

The transcriptions in the text need to be rewritten in SAMPA

"A boat"

I have to agree with what "Piano non troppo" says in a comment on the history page, "That "out" example was used, for example in "The Story of English", no reason to remove it." This is the easiest way to explain Canadian raising to Americans and other English speakers. It really doesn't matter if a few Canadians don't like it. The reason why this article doesn't make any sense is because someone keeps removing all of the easy to understand examples like this one.

In response to a previous comment on the history page, Precision DOES matter in this case! Without an accurate description of the issue it is impossible to really understand the subject!--63.229.24.98 (talk) 17:31, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Audio Clips

Someone want to add some? The English language has about BIG NUMBER different pronunciation varieties... Not sure if I've ever heard anyone say out and oat the same, though I've heard one person's oat be another's out. Without Audio, I have no way to tell if something is Canadian raising or 'normal' when compared to something that is either New York lowering or 'normal'...

I'd appreciate an audio file that shows 'spider' and 'rider' not rhyming. I'm Canadian, and I can't imagine how they would not rhyme. (IPA vowel symbols strain my ability to memorize and hear in my mind's ear.)

I could potentially upload sound files showing the difference, since I pronounce the two vowels differently. If you still want it, just let me know and I get to it soon.Esdraelon (talk) 04:18, 22 November 2007 (UTC

The article should be rewritten to be more clear. Spider and rider do rhyme, but only "loosely". I pronounce rider with a distinct "d", and spider somewhere between "spider" and "spiter"; the "d" in spider is somewhere between a "d" and a "t". It's hard to tell whether it the syllables in "spider" are spi/der or spid/er, whereas "rider" is definitely ri/der. If I exagerate the pronounciation to distinctly separate the syllables in spider to spi/der, then it rhymes with ri/der. Conversly, they also rhyme if I "slur" rider so the syllables are indistinct in the manner described for spider--T. Mazzei (talk) 06:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm from northern Indiana and I have Canadian raising (or maybe it ought to be called "American raising") of /aɪ̯/. "Spider" and "rider" kind of rime, but not exactly. "spider" is raised, "rider" isn't.--Montgolfière (talk) 01:51, 4 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I can't think of any accent where spider and rider do not rhyme....I'd have to say each word in a separate accent for that...

That thing of avoiding open vowels in cold climates is hard to believe. The phenomenon is much easier explained considering the vowel system of Scots.

The use of SAMPA representations in the article has made it virtualy incomprehensible. I can't even find sounds like /^/ on our chart of English sounds. ☮ Eclecticology 20:13, 2003 Oct 20 (UTC)

I've noticed a partial Canadian raising in the southeastern and possibly southern Wisconsin areas, which applies to /AI/ but not to /AU/. Hence, "writer" and "rider" do not share the same diphthong sound, yet at the same time "route" and "crowd" (yes, I know those don't technically form a minimal pair) do. On that note, I wonder whether there are any other areas of the US which have such a partial Canadian rising. 3:30, 21 Aug 2004 (CDT)

I changed this in the Canadian English article, but will let someone else do it here. Writer/rider have distinct vowels across much of the US. Perhaps they haven't split in New York or Boston, but out West they fit the IPA transliteration given for Canadian perfectly. This was something I'd discovered in my own speech, and I can hear it in others' speech, but the Canadian English article was the first time I'd ever seen it described. /au/ does not do this, like you said: loudish and loutish are homonyms; to disambiguate, I'd need to break loutish into two words, loute ish, and enunciate the /t/ as [t]. No such spelling pronunciation is required for writer/rider. kwami 10:01, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For me (an Ontarian), the vowels of loudish and loutish are different, and exhibit Canadian raising. The "ou" of "lout" is the same as that of "about", which is the canonical example of Canadian raising. --Saforrest 18:36, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would voice samples help? There's a page linked to that has only the Canadian pronunciation (which doesn't help if you're Canadian!). I can contribute one myself; my accent is anglo-quebecer, though. --Andrew 22:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For an example for the Ontario sound, there is this clip for a Geordie (Newcastle) accent where the word "thousand" uses the [ɛʉ] sound from IPA. My Ontario accent doesn't assign the raising to "thousand", but I definitely use the sound for "out", "house", "louse" and "about". Strangely enough, I don't use it for "lousy" or "housing".

For the supposedly correct IPA sound, [aʊ],try this website. If someone can find some better samples, go ahead. 09:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.120.54.23 (talk)

How "Canadian" is Canadian raising?

I always questioned the term "Canadian raising" when studying linguistics, because I thought it was an odd generalization for a large country. I grew up in British Columbia and raise on /aI/ but not on /aυ/, which always led me to think that "Canadian" raising as we understood it was an Ontario thing only. I have since appreciated that Prairie-dwellers have their own version of the phenomenon -- I hear it much less with /aυ/ in British Columbia -- but it is not an identical pronunciation to what is found in Ontario, for example. Is there actually anything uniformly 'Canadian' about "Canadian raising," or is it just a regional phenomenon, which happens in varying degrees, with little to do with the US/Canadian border? J21 20:23, 19 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's not isolated to Canada and not all Canadians do it. I think it's called Canadian raising because the largest bloc of speakers who do it are Canadian. I could be wrong though. AEuSoes1 02:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps we could rename it to American Lowering. 216.239.45.4 (talk) 17:09, 12 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the difference exists within England and we should name it after that. I've heard British speakers all over the scale... Actually, I've heard me all over the scale - between American T.V., British 'gamers', Ontarian background, and learning umpteen varieties of French, my accent is inconsistent and a-regional... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.235.186.51 (talk) 04:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Article Incomprehensible

Firstly (which ryhmes with Worstley) I found this article incomprehensible. I did not study linguistics and was hoping for some accesible information. I am Canadian and have lived in many Canadian cities and Spider and Rider always ryhme. Canadians don't say A Boat for about and we don't say aboot. I can say the prounciation but can't represent it in written form. I hope this article is on a list for rewriting. Hopefully by someone who can make it understandable for the average reader. Thanks

I'm not sure I've heard any accent that says aboot, even the stereo typical native canadian accent or the guy with the plaid, suspenders and the gun. . .--69.157.65.108 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)another Canadian - from ontario and have heard voices coast to coast (but maybe not them all)[reply]

The point the article makes (successfully, in my view) is that we don't say "a boot", but that anglophones without Canadian raising think we do. When a sound doesn't exist in your dialect, you're liable to grab for the closest approximate sound that does. For such people, "a boot" or "a boat" is the closest approximate, though since we have the sound, we don't understand how we could possibly be saying either of these.

For this Virginian, the way my relatives from Northern Minnesota say about is immediately reognized as boat. But they way they say boat is much closer to my bought than to my boat. The way they say bought is the same as how they say bot and the same as how I say bot. But I have no idea where people got the idea that they say a boot for about which are as distinct for them as they are for me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.55.81 (talk) 01:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further, a lot of people have mentioned the spider/rider business. I don't know how I would classify my pronunciation of "spider", but it's not quite the same as "rider". It's more clipped, and the 'd' is closer to being voiceless (i.e. a 't'), almost like "spiter" but not quite. According to the West/Central Canadian English article, the sound of the middle consonant in both is an alveolar tap.

Saying "spider" with the ending of "rider", thus emphasizing the 'd', sounds very drawn-out to me, almost New Yorkish. --Saforrest 18:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the article is very incomprehensible. All of the examples use that strange set of symbols, and if you don't understand them and the other linguistical jargon, it renders the article basically useless (I don't go to Wikipedia for indepth technical info, I go to it for an overview, like an encyclopedia) Anyways, I agree, as a Canadian I was disagreeing with all the examples, like "about -> a boat." I read the link to voice clips and came up with this: http://www.yorku.ca/twainweb/troberts/sounds/house.au . I guess it's just Americans exaggerating, to me it doens't sound like "a boat", but maybe it does to others. Maybe it's the same deal with the spider/rider buisness, but I can't understand the article enough. If we could come up with some phrases, I could record myself saying them and an American could as well, so we could have a bit of contrast. Anyways, I think this article really needs to be more understandable for a more, uh, casual (i guess) reader. --JakeParker 01:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Do you feel the same about Quantum field theory? The fact of the matter is that some articles are going to require a casual reader to click on the interwiki links to understand. This happens to be one of those articles. AEuSoes1 03:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't compare this article to quantum field theory. While the QFT article may not be written to be understandable by the average man, it should be written to be comprehensible to someone with knowledge of quantum mechanics. Writing it for joe-anybody or even someone who only knows newtonian physics would be wrong, because it would be redundent (like you said, interwiki articles are there for that purpose.) However, in my opinion, people shouldn't have to understand all the IPA symbols to get anything from this article. Even though this is categorized under phonology, it is also listed under "Canadian English" and "Languages of Canada". Canadians are the ones who seem confused on the talk page. I'm not saying we should remove the IPA content and linguistic jargon, but the article shouldn't depend soley on them. It would be no harm to add better examples and clarify existing ones so that casual readers can get something from the article as well. To summerize, QTF needs only be readable to those with knowledge of quantum mechanics, but people other than linguists may be interested in this small peculiarity of Canadian accents. --JakeParker 18:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The fact of the matter is that there's no better way to talk about pronunciation than with the IPA, especially with something that refers to a more technical aspect of speech. I think most people, especially Canadians, are confused because the article sounds like it's talking about something significant when it's really a very subtle phonetic aspect. I explained Canadian raising in person to someone who had it in her speech and she could barely hear it even after she understood the concepts. AEuSoes1 18:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personal observations

I have observed during my many years in the praries exactly what Saforrest mentioned about the loud and lout pronunciation in all the western Canadian provinces. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikilord17 (talk • contribs) 23:12, August 28, 2007 (UTC)

For my part, I have noticed that my pronunciations of "fire" and "spire" do not rhyme. I apply "Canadian raising" to "fire" but not to "spire". This doesn't fit any of the cases described in the article. Am I atypical? I lived my first four years in North Dakota, but my parents were from Montana (father) and Chicago (mother). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 19:08, 7 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Raising of /ay/ before /r/ in some or all words has been documented in some parts of the North and Northeast, but (as far as I know) not very seriously examined as a variable. As for me, I apply raising in both fire and spire but not wire; I'm from Beverly, Massachusetts. AJD (talk) 20:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I also do not raise in the word "wire". By the way, my mother's parents were both from Boston (Dorchester). Is the raising we're talking about a feature of the Boston accent? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know—I don't think any research has been done on this. AJD (talk) 18:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could fire and spire be raised in non-rhotic Boston accents or does the /r/ have to be there for the raising to take place? Thegryseone (talk) 05:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Missing section?

Maybe I'm just reading it wrong, but there seems to be something missing between the first and second paragraphs, detailing the vowels used by non-Canadian speakers that are used to approximate Canadian vowels, and which have the effect of exaggerating the Canadian raising. I don't know if it has been removed or was never there at all, but perhaps that section should be cleaned up a bit?

--65.95.137.181 (talk) 17:09, 25 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greater Canada

I'm from way south in Maryland, and I have the impression that raising /aɪ/ to [ʌi] before nonvoiced consonants is nearly standard in "garden-variety" American English (you know, the speech that is without accent :-)). Is it not extremely common for speakers throughout the U.S. to follow the pattern of [aɪ]/[ʌi] in all pairs like:

eyes/ice

ride/right

strive/strife, and

tribe/tripe?

It even seems to me to be productive: it would apply for such a non-word pair as glizhe/glishe. Note that I am not asserting universality; as one example, I'm well aware that for some speakers tribe rhymes with drab. But is my intuition about the frequency of this raising south of the Canadian border way off?—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 03:11, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and by the way, in the great rider/spider debate, for me the former is pronounced with [aɪ] but the latter with [ʌi]. So unless I were speaking very slowly and carefully, I would not pronounce spider the same as I would the verb phrase "spied 'er."—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 03:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is explained as a boundary effect. But if that's the reason, why do spider, tiger and cider, eider, Snider, Niger, Geiger not have the same vowels? Could this be a frequency effect, such as the number of syllables in every (2), memory (2-3), mammary (3)? — kwami (talk) 21:24, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Um... what?

I was born in Canada and lived here for 20 years, half of those years in a different province and I have never once heard anyone pronounce "about" any differently than any American. This article should be deleted. It is 100% nonsense.--70.65.172.41 (talk) 14:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree. I've lived in Canada my entire life (over 50 years) and find nearly all (all?) of these so-called differences in the way Canadians pronounce certain words to be dead wrong.68.146.28.190 (talk) 03:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]