A warm welcome to Canada from our Beaver!

Canadian Grammar!

Hi! Today  I am going to point out some important aspects about the grammar of Canadian English.

Have you ever seen the construction “ as well” ? It is used a lot in English and it means the same as “ in addition”. But the first one is more used in Canadian English than the last one.

What about the definite article “ the”? It is compulsory in American English. But in Canadian English there are some phrases such as “in hospital” and “at university” which don’t need the use of this article. In American English there is an alternative to “ to university”  which doesn’t use the definite article. It is “ to college”

If you’ve ever read a dialogue or you’ve listened to a conversation  in English you may have noticed about the frequent use of the interjection “eh”. It is used in order to change a statement into a question and to add emphasis.  Its meaning is like “ isn’t it ? and “haven’t you?”. It is associated to Canadian English, but this kind of interjections appear in many languages. For example in Italian, Greek, Japanese and French. In Spanish, there is also an interjection similar to that one, it is “ ¿no?. 

I hope this information has been of your interest.  If you want to know more about Canadian English keep on reading us. 

Thanks! 

      The Maple Leaf Flag 

The official colors of Canada were proclaimed in 1921 by King George V, white stands for peace and honesty and red for bravery and strength.But it will be only in 1945 that the Maple flag will replace forever the Union flag which had been it's official flag for years.The emblem on the Canadian flag pictures a stylized maple leaf which is centered in the white square.The  maple leaf has served as a symbol celebrating the nature and environment of what is now Canada since the 18th century.

The maple tree is native to Canada and has been used as food by the aboriginal inhabitants of Canada since ancient times.It has been a symbol of the Canadian land and people since the 18th Century.

Red and white were later associated with France and England during the period of the Crusades,these colors became very a very important symbol for the Knights who were wearing crosses on their tunics and flags.

The french name of the flag is "l'Unifolie" which means the one-leaved.Canada was claimed french in 1534, and the first flags used in the colony were French military flags such as the fleur-de-lis. The Union Jack became Canada's flag after it was ceded to Britain in the 1760s. In the 1870s Canada adopted a flag which featured the Union Jack and the Royal Arms of Canada. The Canadian people began searching for a design of a distinctive flag free of British symbols in 1925. However, a design was not selected until 1964.

The french military flag flour-de-lis 1534

The Union Jack flag 1760

                         

Union Jack and the Royal Arms of Canada 1870

                                                   

The Maple Flag 1945

Giulia

Texting&Chatting!!

Good afternoon!!

Well today we will deal with a common theme which nowadays is much used!texting and chatting!certainly in the last years technology has improved enormously and with it ourselves have to go on with time and change!.

If you have ever received a text message or chat message that seemed to be written in a foreign language it's all because of the the popularity and rise of  Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, e-mail, Internet and mobile phone text messaging (SMS), this is why we can consider texting language a real "new language".

Thanks to some canadian friends which this "Canadian Beaver Blog" has got we have been able to discover some peculiarities which canadian youngsters write to send texts or use in their chats.Even if most of the abbreviations in Canada are similar to the rest of the whole american continent there are a couple that are specifically from canada in this case Toronto.

The abbreviation of the name of the city Toronto is "T.dot" so for example if I would like to say "I'm going back to Toronto for Christamas who is going?" I would write: "going back to T.dot 4 xmas whos ballin?" here there is also the abbreviation of the word Christams as "xmas.Also the word "hey" has got a general use and is inserted in most of the conversations such as "so what r we going to do 2nite hey?" which means "so what are we doing tonight?".Also the famous american bar chain Starbuck has got a "personal" abbreviation for example to say talk to you later i'm going to Starbucks now I would write "ttyl going to *$ now".

This is a list of the most common abbreviations used in texting and chatting:

- BFN -- Bye for now

- KK -- Okay, okay (I understand what you're saying)

- LOL -- Laugh out loud

- OMG -- Oh my God

- TTYL -- Talk to you later (also TTYS -- talk to you soon)

- UOK -- Are you okay?

-SUS -- see you soon

Well we hope you find it interesting,we have!!bfn!!sus!!

Giulia

Phonology and Spelling

Hi! In this post we are going to deal with the most important aspects of Canadian phonology and spelling.

PHONOLOGY

The most important characteristics of the phonology of Canadian English are:

1.Canadian English is rhotic because in its words the syllable-final r is pronounced. For example: car and farm.

2.Flapping can occur if the t or d is between two vowels, and the second vowel isn’t stressed or if there is an r between the first vowel and the alveolar stop. For example: waiting , seated and party.

3.Canadian raising, the onsets of the diphthongs /ay/ and /aw/ raise to mid vowels when they precede the voiceless sounds /p/, /t/, /k/, /s/, and /f/. For example: Knife and  knives.

4.Canadians pronounce borrowed words with low vowels with a front [ae] , while Americans tend to use [a].

SPELLING

Canadian English combines British , American and Canadian English. Here you can find some examples about Canadian spelling and if it is similar to British or American English.

a)  defence and  offence: they are written with British spelling.

b) curb and tire : they are written the  same in American and Canadian English but different in British English.(kerb, tyre)

c)   Words such as realize and paralyze are usually spelled with -ize or -yze rather than -ise or -yse.

d) Canadian English and British English double consonants when adding suffixes to words. For example: travelled and counselling.

Virginia

English and French in Canada

English and French are the most talked languages in Canada. The 75% of the population speak in English ( 24,8 millions of people) and the 23% of the population speak in French (7,7 millions of people).

English is estimately the mother tongue of 58% of Canadians (19,1 millions of people), and the 22% of the population used to have French language as mother tongue (7, 2 millions of people).

Most of the French speakers live in Quebec.  According to the language talked at home, the 66% of  the Canadians use English and the rest 21% use French as usual language.

The 17,5% of the population speak English and French ( 5,8millions of people) and bilingualism has increased since 2006.The increase of bilingualism comes from the Quebecers who make sure that they can have a conversation in English and French at the same time. Quebec has contributed the 90% of the bilingual people’s increase in Canada between 2006 and 2011. 

In Canada the population use more than 200 languages to communicate.

The ten most used languages in Canada are:

• Punyabí: 1,3% (430.705 people)
• Chinease: 1,28% (425.210 people)
• Spanish: 1,24% (410.670 people)
• German: 1,23% (409.200 people)
• Italian: 1,23% (407.485 people)
• Cantonese: 1,12% (372.460 people)
• Arabic: 0,98% (327.870 people)
• Mandarin: 0,75% (248.705 people)
• Portuguese: 0,63% (211.335 people)
• Polish: 0,57% (191.645 people)

Carmen

"Canadian Bilingualism"

Good afternoon everybody!!! 

 As we said we are going to deal with the English language spoken in Canada, a North American country which extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.

 Canada is a country where two official languages are spoken, one is French and the other one which we will study is Canadian English.

Both languages have got equality of status and equal rights and privilege in the country.The Official Languages Act in 1969 gave these languages equal status, rights and privileges in matters of federal jurisdiction, so we can consider Canada as an official bilingual country.

Among all Canadian cities, Quebec is the only Canadian province where French is the only official language at a provincial level, and to be considered so a monolingual French-speaking province.

 In 1982 the Constitution Act was signed and it was provided that the city of Quebec wouldn't have been considered under the list of "Canada's official bilingualism policy".The city of Quebec has been fighting for several years to achieve an independence-status from the same Canada,as they don't feel culturally an linguistically part of it.Canadian speakers can be divided into three groups depending on which there mother tongue is.

 Anglophones are Canadians whose mother tongue is English.

 Francophones are Canadians whose mother tongue is French.

 Allophones are Canadians whose mother tongue is any other language.

 I'll leave you a map where you can have a look at the different areas of Canada where bilingualism is more or less developed. 

Giulia