Canadian English

**Canadian English** is the type of English that is used by Canadians.
It is like American English in terms of vocabulary, but its grammar is like that of British English.

Canadian English is generally taught in schools using British ways of spelling, such as , , and so on. However, the word themselves are usually American, in part because Canadians watch a lot of American TV shows and listen to a lot of American pop music. Rarely, the British form of words may be replaced with American forms, such as , , and so on. Canadians and Americans spell the outer rubber portion of a wheel as *tire* instead of *tyre*, put *gasoline* or *gas* in their vehicles instead of *petrol*, store items in the *trunk* instead of the *boot*, and may drive a *truck* instead of a *lorry*.

Canadian English is different from other forms of English in its spoken form also. The dialects vary from sounding overtly English to an indistinguishable form very similar to those spoken in the northern states. Significant differences have been found in variant preferences among Canadian adolescents, adults, and elderly speakers. This change is speculated to have been influenced by the cultural impacts of widely accessible American literature and mass media. 

* In Ontario, variants of "strange" and "odd" (favoured by Canadians over 60 years old) are dramatically being replaced by "weird", the preferred variant for ages 9―59, particularly 85% of adolescents.
* Features such as "will" or "have got to", which are common in older speakers, are being replaced by "going to" and "have to" in younger generations. Western Canada, Ontario, Montreal, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, each separated by a lexical boundary. Lexical boundary distinction is measured on the basis of "major isoglosses", which occur when there is greater than a 50% difference in the frequency of a linguistic variant between regional boundaries; and mean net variation between the borders of neighbouring lexical regions. "Chalet" is used in Montreal, while Western Canadians prefer "cabin", and Ontario is split between Northwestern Ontario's usage of "camp" and the South's use of "cottage".

#### Gender
Lexical distinctions have also occurred on the basis of the speaker's gender.

## Popular perceptions 
### The "Groundhog Day Loop"
Since the birth of Canadian English via the publication of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP-1) in 1967, the public awareness of this "district"  variety has been greatly dulled by several factors. In his article entitled *The Groundhog Day Loop in Canadian English*, Stefan Dollinger points to the bridging efforts of David Suzuki and Bob McDonald's efforts in "improving the public knowledge of science"  and emphasizes that it is linguistic scholars in Canada "who are not only utterly and completely to blame for this situation"  Indeed a search for "Canadianisms", "Canadian slang" and "Canadian English" demonstrates continuous mixed messages on the part of traditional media. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported on the second edition of the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles in two separate articles in 2017   (see also Canadian Television Network: Where did that come from, eh? New Dictionary traces ‘Canadianism by Jackie Dunham 2017) and then printed an article in 2022 by Jackson Weaver entitled "Canada's English Dictionary hasn't been updated in almost two decades. What does that say about us?". These examples illustrate a complete lack of continuity of narrative on the part of legacy media in informing the public on issues of Canadian identity like language.

### Academic and Public Collaboration
Fortunately, evidence can be found indicating that bridges are being made, through various media forms, to educate the public and disseminate knowledge on features of Canadian English. The best example of this bridging effort is from a 2018 article from the10and3.com entitled "This is How Canada Talks" by Zack Gallinger and Arik Motskin. The article summarizes the results of a questionnaire survey, conducted by the authors in consultation (and oversight) with the esteemed Canadian linguist Charles Boberg, enquiring as to "the different ways Canadians speak". The survey was distributed via social media, elicited 9500 responses covering every province and territory and identified several "interesting linguistic subregions like Cape Breton, Labrador and the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland". This is precisely how academia can bridge the "linguistic chasm" as coined by Dollinger. This cohort is then broken down into "104 Americans, 52 Canadians, and 19 people from the following Commonwealth countries: New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, England, and Wales".     but very few are as clear as Walter Avis when he states that: "a word, expression or meaning which is native to Canada or which is distinctively characteristic of Canadian usage though not necessarily exclusive to Canada"; Clearly there is not only great need for better collaboration between scholars and media but also greater effort placed on public outreach and education.

## Related pages
*Language
*Dialect
*Canadian French

## Notes