Cape Breton accent
Encyclopedia : C : CA : CAP : Cape Breton accent
The Cape Breton accent describes variants of Canadian English spoken on Cape Breton Island, a small island off the north-eastern coast of the province of Nova Scotia in Canada. Most of the inhabitants of European ancestry descend from people long resident on the island, and the community has had time to develop a local dialect. Much of the population is descended from Highland Scottish settlers fleeing the Highland Clearances. But there has long been a French-Acadian element on the island, as well as Irish, Italian and Eastern European influences.
The accents can be divided into three categories: the Western or Gaelic accent (Judique, Mabou, the Margarees), the Industrial accent (Sydney, Glace Bay) and the French Acadian (Communities surrounding Cheticamp, L'Ardoise and Isle Madame).
Western accent
The primary influences on the accent are Scottish Gaelic and Scots. The rhythm of speech is generally quick-paced, with unstressed syllables often completely elided. Examples can be found with the speaking voices of performance artists The Rankins, Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie MacMaster, or the Huey & Allen comedy duo.Some characteristics:
- the s sound can be overstressed, almost approaching a soft th sound.
- the a sound can be shortened- the name John Allen can be pronounced jun nallen.
- the a sound resmebles the broad a type, similar to English dialects
Industrial accent
This speech is heavily influenced by Irish settlers and is often the accent referred to as the Cape Breton accent. This accent has been popularized in by comedians coming out of the Rise and Follies theatre/recording series and Mary Morrison.Some characteristics:
- the long a sound is often pronounced like the a sound in the word baa as in Baa, Baa, black sheep
- the oo can resemble a short u sound.
- the d and t sounds can be dropped from some words where they appear in the middle, ie/ metal sounds like me el, bottle like baa el. The t sound is even dropped from the Breton portion of Cape Breton.
- the r is trilled resembling dialects of Scotland and Ireland.
French Acadian accent
This speech stems from the influence of Acadian settlers residing in French communities throughout Cape Breton, resulting in many loanwords.Some characteristics:
- Voiced th, as in "that", is usually replaced by a d sound, and voiceless th, as in "thin," is usually replaced by a t sound. For example, "three" can be pronounced as tree and "that" as dat. This can be seen in the sterotypical phrase "Dis, dat and dee uder ding" (This, that and the other thing).
Other characteristics
Cape Breton speech also has some idiosyncratic expressions. One feature of Cape Breton dialect is common use of the term "boy", but is given the spelling "b'y" and pronounced "bye" as in 'good-bye', to address a person to whom one is speaking in lieu of use of the person's name or a more common term such as 'sir', 'mame','man','my son' or 'mate', originally when the addressee is male but now is used to refer to both genders. A plural form "b'ys" is used to address numerous people. The terms can also be used to refer to a person or people not being addressed. This feature of Cape Breton vernacular is also characteristic of Newfoundland English.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.