As a mountaineering enthusiast who holds a life membership in the Sky Line Trail Hikers of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the 1,000-miles emblem of the companion order of Trail Riders, I have made acquaintance with persons from most of the provinces. Mentions of my lexical interests, tracing word origins, have often given rise to impromptu discussions of Canadian speech. These trail-side sessions, while interesting, have rarely proved instructive; the average Canadian is seemingly better informed about American speech than the American is about Canadian, but neither is familiar with the background of his own language. A minority were of the opinion that Canadian English is essentially British English, citing the prevalence of -our and -re endings, as in labour and centre, together with such variants as analyse-analyze, licence-license, cheque-check, and pyjamas-pajamas. A Kansan observed, “Canucks say ‘in hospital’, just like in British whodunits, and not ‘in the hospital’, like we do.“

In linguistics as in any other field of learning, a scholar may concentrate on the particular aspect of study that most appeals to his temperament. One may choose to analyse and classify the structural phenomena which are found in all varieties of human speech; another may seek to determine the relationships which exist between languages known to be or suspected of being related; a third may follow the history of one particular language, tracing its development from the earliest records to the present; a fourth may concern himself with the many differences which exist contemporaneously among the speakers of one language. The different varieties of speech to be found in any language are called dialects, and the person who studies them is called a linguistic geographer

Several serious problems face a Committee on the Historical Dictionary in planning for the proposed Dictionary of Canadian English. At present under study are means of publicizing the project, negotiating adequate financial sponsorship and securing a capable editorial staff, with headquarters handy to research centers and the publisher's offices. These cannot be taken up here, but will be reported upon at ensuing meetings of the Association.

The basic problem concerns acquisition of the dated citations which will serve as the framework of the proposed dictionary. It is an arduous task to collect and digest the huge volume of materials necessary to compilation of any comprehensive dictionary based upon historical principles. The Oxford English Dictionary, garnering 9,000,000 quotations through the unpaid labors of 2,000 members of the Philological Society, took forty-four years to publish; and the much less ambitious Dictionary of American English was eighteen years in the making.

L'enquête linguistique, faite durant l'été de 1954 sur la côte sud de la Gaspésie, à Bonaventure, s'insère dans un groupe d'enquêtes dont le but est d'établir un Atlas linguistique de la région gaspésienne.

Comme on a déjà décrit cette région dans ses grandes lignes et signalé sa richesse en matéiaux linguistiques, nous nous contenterons, dans cet article, de faire les remarques générales qui s'imposent sur la paroisse qui nous intéresse, et de donner un bref aperçu phonétique des matériaux recueillis.

Bonaventure, une des plus vieilles paroisses de la côte sud de la Gaspésie, fut fondée vers 1774 par des Acadiens en quête de terres nouvelles où habiter. Depuis lors, ceux-ci se sont multipliés au point de former l'agglomération la plus considérable du comté, et ce, presque sans apport d'immigrants étrangers.

The colonization of many parts of rural Manitoba got well under way in 1870. The arrival in the south of the province of numerous settlers, most of them from France, is an event of considerable importance in the history of the development of the Canadian west. Indeed, the colonization of Manitoba by French Catholics appeared to preoccupy greatly the St. Boniface diocese. Mgr. Taché remained convinced that St. Boniface ar.d St. Norbert would.cease to thrive unless linked to other cities and towns under the patronage of the church and extending to the very limits of the Saskatchewan boundary. Colonization seemed in many ways to be synonymous with Catholic evangelism, and the booklets distributed free of charge to the new settlers upon their arrival in the province did not fail to point out to them the advantages which they could obtain by settling near an established church, the symbol of Christian fraternity on the barren expanse of the uncultivated prairie.

When I first began to put my ideas on this subject in some sort of order, I did not realize that I had hit on a topic such as many an aspirant to the degree of Master or Doctor of Education, driven to writing dreary theses on ‘A Comparison of the Vocabulary Assimilation of Monoglot and Bilingual Children of Schoolgoing Age, and an Examination of certain Findings of Some Welsh Investigators on the Problem of Bilingualism, with special reference to South African Conditions,’ or, more briefly, ‘Analysis of Chemistry Text Books, 1935,’ must have searched for in vain. But how beautifully it shapes itself: Preface, with modest and grateful acknowledgments to the Director of Studies; Pre-History; the Antiquarians of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; The Germanic Invasion; Anglo-Saxon v. Latin and Greek; Eng. Lang, and Lit; The Cambridge Rebellion; The Problem Today; The Problem with special reference to Canada, South Africa, or wherever it may be; Notes; Bibliography!

In the first article of this series I pointed out the great similarity between the speech habits of Ontarioans and those of their American neighbours across the line: both speak a variety of North American English. This state of affairs should not be surprising in view of the early settlement history of the borderlands and of subsequent cultural and social contact along the border.

There are, nevertheless, many linguistic features not shared by speakers of English on both sides of the border. In terms of vocabularly I have already illustrated a number of such differences, indicating that, in the main, they probably result from the generalization in Ontario of words current in British English—the speech of thousands of immigrants who have come to Canada during the past century or so.

It is not surprising that many a conscientious language teacher is somewhat dismayed at the suggestion that his or her already arduous task should be further complicated by the introduction of scientific linguistic techniques. Languages have been taught for generations, nay for centuries, by more or less traditional standardised methods, and innovations in this work must naturally encounter the same passive, if not active, resistance that they, meet in other fields of human endeavour.

Not the least discouraging factors determining such attitudes are the controversial nature of many linguistic issues and the forbidding hierarchy of unfamiliar technical terms about whose meaning and regular application scientific linguists themselves are by no means always in accord. The progressive teacher wishing to gain insight into some aspect of linguistics must be armed with fortitude when embarking upon the reading of a serious linguistic paper, where he is liable to encounter such terms as suprasegmental, bipolar, dyad, idiolect and the like.

Not long ago a Torontonian shopping in a large department store just across the border asked where he could find chesterfields. On following directions, he was somewhat dismayed to find himself at the cigar counter!

Such experiences often occur in life along the border, as any Ontarioan who has tried to buy blinds or serviettes in New York or Michigan will know. When he has been across the line for some time, however, he discovers that most of his neighbours pull down their shades before retiring and tuck in their table napkins before eating spaghetti Italian style. The visitor from Ontario who stays with American friends just south of the line learns that they turn on faucets at the kitchen sink rather than taps and hold up their pants with suspenders, not braces (trousers is “elegant diction” for most men in both countries.)

Fondée à Québec en 1902, la Société du Parler français au Canada est sûrement la doyenne des sociétés de linguistique au Canada. Seule, croyons-nous, The American Dialect Society, est de fondation antérieure en Amérique du Nord, cette dernière ayant vu le jour en Janvier 1889. La fondation de la Société du Parler français fut l'oeuvre de l'abbé Lortie et surtout d'Adjutor Rivard qui demeure le pionnier des études de linguistique française au Canada.

Le but de la Société fut l'étude de la langue parlée: phonétique, lexique, morphologie, syntaxe. Pour mener à bien cette étude, on organisa une vaste enquête par correspondance qui devait durer un quart de siècle. Les résultats de cette enquête étaient ensuite étudiés en séances d'études, par un groupe de chercheurs, mis sur fiches et versés dans un immense fichier d'où sortit plus tard le Glossaire du Parler français au Canada.

Up to the end of World War II, very little had been done to provide a systematic bibliographical documentation of Canadian linguistics in this country or abroad. Only recently has work been begun by some official and private institutions and individuals to better the situation. Canadian books and pamphlets on linguistic problems are now being listed in Canadiana by Dr. J. Lunn of the Bibliographic Service of the National Library in Ottawa, and some articles are named in the Canadian Index, by Dr. D. B. Chatwin of the Canadian Library Association in Ottawa. So far as the French Canadian linguistic publications are concerned, the quarterly, Culture, provides an excellent documentation. In 1951 a Slavic Canadian bibliography, Slavica Canadiana, was initiated by J. B. Rudnyckyj in Winnipeg. To date, however, there is still no synthesis in this field.

What is a Canadian? Have we who call ourselves Canadians a distinctive culture, a distinctive way of life and thought? Or are we “American” or “British”? Or are we perhaps in the unhappy position of being nothing but reflections of two great, yet different, nations? These questions are exercising the minds of a great many people today, and not just within our own borders. To be sure, the historian and the geographer have their answers: the economist has his. And the ethnologist has yet another. But none of them are quite satisfactory. Perhaps the best answer will soon be provided by another scholar—the linguist. And his will embrace those of other scholars and be better than theirs because it will be based on better evidence.

The findings presented here are part of a pilot study of the vocabulary of English-speaking residents of Alberta. The study was carried out in 1953 and 1954 with the aid of a number of my students who took the responsibility of getting written answers to several hundred copies of a brief questionnaire. The items in the questionnaire were of a general nature; although, since Alberta is greatly concerned with agriculture, some emphasis was placed on terms connected with the farm and with life on the farm. All informants were notified of the purpose for which the answers would be used, and they were asked to give as their answers the names of buildings and so on which they would normally use in their everyday work and talk. Sample questions follow: What command do you give to make a horse turn to the left? What do you call the buildings where pigs are kept?