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The Toronto Accent(s)

I agree! I've talked a lot about an incipient Toronto accent; however, it's nothing I've heard from people over 25, and it certainly hasn't gelled yet. I expect it will over the next few generations as white, brown and black people slowly become beige!
 
dahusbandofbath said:
The only thing that Woodbridge has in common with Brooklyn or Staten Island is the Italian influence. Brooklyners would say "noo yawk", "aba-ot" and "kee-anada" as other East Coasters would. Woodbridgers would say "noo yorrk", "abe-ot" and "Canada" (often with less hint of "ee" than most Anglo-Ontarians.) My wife (Portuguese-Canadian) says "Canada", "can't" and "bad" almost as if she has a cold.

I don't really get how Torontians sound particularly America. We don't sound at all like US east coasters, southerners, or even miswesterners. All you have to do is cross the border into Buffalo or Detroit and, bam, the difference is unmistakeable. Some say that we talk like Californians who have the most "neutral" American accents. I'm not sure that Californians would agree, though, since Canadians actors all seem to need accent coaches when they arrive in LA. I think we're just so used to the way that we talk that we THINK we sound neutral and normal.

Like I've said before, because our differences aren't pointed out much on TV and in the movies, we're not as aware of our uniqueness as someone from any big American city is.
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What's most challenging for Canadian actor's is any word with "out" in it. That would really be the the only way I could pick out a Canadian from a group of Californians. We sound pretty much identical to be honest.
 
Redroom Studios said:
this is a very interesting discussion, but its difficult to really talk about accents in words rather than hear examples and compare the sounds.

here's something I came across that gives an example of a Toronto accent amongst others from around the world.... I think the Toronto one is the only one she gets wrong!
[video=youtube;3UgpfSp2t6k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UgpfSp2t6k[/video]
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Oh dear god, that "Toronto accent" was completely atrocious and down right embarrassing.
 
Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Seeing as about half of Torontonians are foreign-born, we probably won't know what the Toronto accent will sound like until some point in the future when the majority of Torontonians are Toronto-born. I think the only thing that we can be sure of is that we'll continue saying "out and about" the Canadian way. Other than that, nothing is certain.
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I agree, but the guy who strted this thread has gone so far as to say that different neighbourhoods have different accents. I think other than suggesting that the "ethnic" neighbourhoods share a common accent (like Italian, Green, Portuguese, etc" it's a bit of nonsense. We haven't been here together long enough to establish something like that. I recall some time ago reading a report that suggested that it takes 150 years to establish a common accent. This would mean generation after generation living together. That's why you have very distinct accents in places like Boston, or in various places in Britain (despite the short distances between places). I'd even say that it might be impossible for a place like Toronto to establish a common accent unless it ceases its role as a diverse city of immigrants.
 
I recall hearing Michael J. Fox once describe that he learned to pronounce it 'sari' (as in the Indian dress) for 'sorry'.
 
jn_12 said:
I agree, but the guy who strted this thread has gone so far as to say that different neighbourhoods have different accents. I think other than suggesting that the "ethnic" neighbourhoods share a common accent (like Italian, Green, Portuguese, etc" it's a bit of nonsense. We haven't been here together long enough to establish something like that. I recall some time ago reading a report that suggested that it takes 150 years to establish a common accent. This would mean generation after generation living together. That's why you have very distinct accents in places like Boston, or in various places in Britain (despite the short distances between places). I'd even say that it might be impossible for a place like Toronto to establish a common accent unless it ceases its role as a diverse city of immigrants.
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I think to our untrained ears the accent of Boston seems to be a common one spoken by everyone, when in fact there are all kinds of local differences that to people there are strong markers of regional/area identity, status, socio-economic level etc. Believe it or not we probably have this in Toronto too, to one degree or another. It is true though that these things are economizing and diminishing through new technology and greater standardization etc. A linguistic professor once told me that approx. 40 distinctly different local/neighbourhood accents were once documented in Manhattan alone. Many of these subtleties have now largely disappeared. Though I'm sure some new ones have emerged too.
 
Horrible, Florida, dollar, sorry, etc. A lot of Americans will say harrible, Flarida, dallar, sarry. But not all, and it also depends on the word.
 
I wouldn't expect a Toronto English accent to develop - most Torontonians, including Anglos, come from somewhere else and then often move somewhere else later in life. Let's also not forget that a regional accent in the 21st century, while quaint on the surface, suggests that there isn't much social integration between said group and others; hence ebonics in the US.

More interesting to me is the development of mongrel dialects of English and some major immigrant language. For example, I've noticed that my girlfriend talks with her sister in some English-Cantonese mix but with her HK-born parents strictly in Cantonese. I wonder if the substituted English words are common among first generation Canadian Cantonese speakers in Toronto and differ from, say, their counterparts in Vancouver.
 
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maybe people could post examples of Toronto accents spoken by some of our more famous personalities that most of us would recognize... a few that come to my mind are people like Geddy Lee, Gord Martineau, Steve Paikin... and so on.

just as an aside I would say that accents tied to specific locations are likely being watered down because of immigration and our mobile society. Current conditons are very different than those that gave rise to the accents and dialects that developed in England for example, which would vary from one village to the next when populations were very static.
 
HHC said:
What's most challenging for Canadian actor's is any word with "out" in it. That would really be the the only way I could pick out a Canadian from a group of Californians. We sound pretty much identical to be honest.
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I'd encourage you to listen carefully the next time you're talking face to face with a Californian. Listen to words like: forest, sorry, dollar, got, Canada, sad, route, louse. Because we hear a Californian accent all the time on TV, we stop noticing it. It is, however, different than an Ontarian accent.

Don't get me wrong: Californians and Torontonians both talk with unmistakably North American accents. I'm sure we sound less distinct to a Los Angelino than a Newfoundlander or an Atlantan. But to even the untrained ear, there is still something that definitely distinguishes our accent from theirs.
 
dahusbandofbath said:
I'd encourage you to listen carefully the next time you're talking face to face with a Californian. Listen to words like: forest, sorry, dollar, got, Canada, sad, route, louse. Because we hear a Californian accent all the time on TV, we stop noticing it. It is, however, different than an Ontarian accent.

Don't get me wrong: Californians and Torontonians both talk with unmistakably North American accents. I'm sure we sound less distinct to a Los Angelino than a Newfoundlander or an Atlantan. But to even the untrained ear, there is still something that definitely distinguishes our accent from theirs.
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I think even different Canadians say "Canada" differently.
 
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