Aboriginal Canadian English

Aboriginal Canadian English refers to the English used by the indigenous peoples of Canada. The English of the different indigenous groups varies from one speaker to another. However, it is often identifiable to those who are not indigenous.

Differences in the English of indigenous peoples of Canada are primarily due to the influence of indigenous languages. Other factors include geographical and social isolation. Many aboriginals live in the north, in remote communities and on reserves.

A few differences which can be observed in the speech of many Canadian aboriginals are little or no aspiration in plosives, retracted vowels, monophthongs and intervocalic laterals without velarization. In addition, many Canadian aboriginals have low intonation and do not have a strong contrast in the length of stressed and unstressed syllables. In other words, their speech can be classified as syllable-timed rather than stress-timed.

Many of the aboriginals of Canada speak a distinct variety of English. Though this varies from one speaker to another, a number of features can be identified. They include little or no aspiration in plosives, monophthongs and syllable-timed rhythm.