Canadian English

Canadian English is the group of English varieties spoken across Canada, with Standard Canadian English the most widespread form, common through western and central Canada and among urban middle and upper class speakers elsewhere. The variety grew out of five waves of immigration over two centuries, the most important being Loyalist refugees who fled the American Revolution, largely from the Mid-Atlantic states. It draws on French from Canada's colonial settlers, British English from later immigrants, American English through close cultural and economic ties, and Indigenous languages, which contributed words such as moose, toboggan, and kayak. Its pronunciation is closest to American English and includes distinctive features such as Canadian raising and the low back merger shift, while its spelling blends British endings such as our with American forms in other words, including adopting American automotive terms because of the two countries' trade history. Serious academic study of the dialect took hold around the Second World War, well after the term itself was first used, dismissively, in an 1857 speech by the Scottish Presbyterian minister Archibald Constable Geikie.