Canadian English
Uploaded by ruby10 on Jan 15, 2009
CANADIAN ENGLISH
CANADIAN CONTENT, THE UNITED STATES, AND FRENCH
Relations between US an Canada have long (but not always) been peaceful and friendly. But from time to time those relations know to be embivalent and prickly, especially on the Canadian side, Canadians often assert that Americans take them for granted and pay little or no attention to their interests, needs, wishes, and aspirations. Because of the similarity of American and Canadian accents, English Canadians when travelling abroad are generally resigned to being teken for Americans.
In addition to a cross-border prickliness there is an internal itch. The social, cultural, linguistic, and imperial tug of war between Britain and France included religious and social differences. While English, Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh settlers have been mainly Protestant, the French and southern Irish have been mainly Catholic. More recently, in Quebec (the largest and most vigorous French community), the independantiste movement has been largerly secular, insisting on province's nature as un pays (as a country).
There are three French terms in the vocabulary of language politics: anglophone – referring to someone able to speak English and to anything relating to English; francophone – the equivalent term for French; and allophone (''other speaker'') – an umbrella term for any native speaker of any other language (Italian, Mohawk, or Cantonese).
The term Canadian originated, like Canada, in the 16th century, deriving from and co-existing with the French canadien, and with three distinct historical senses. Initially, and well into the 19th century, it served to name not settlers but the indigeneus people. From the 17th century, Canadian was the name for French settlers along the St Lawrence, and from the 18th it was extended to British colonists in both Lower and Upper Canada. In a Canadian context, the terms ''French'' and ''English'' tend to refer more to language than ethnicity, ''English'' are all those who speak English in Canada ( whether they are English, Scottish, Caribbean…) and French those who speak French in Canada ( French, Belgian, Mauritian…).
Significant number of English-speaking settlers began to enter Canada after the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1762, which ceded New France/La NouvelleFrance to Great Britain. Most of them were from the already established colonies of New England, and went to what later became the provinces of...