Canadian raising


Canadian raising is a phonetic phenomenon that occurs in varieties of the English language, especially Canadian English, in which diphthongs are "raised" before voiceless consonants (e.g., , , , , ). For example, IPA (the vowel of "eye") and (the vowel of "loud") become and , respectively, the component of the diphthong going from a low vowel to schwa . As is an allophone of (as in "road") in many other dialects, the (mainly Eastern) Canadian pronunciation of "about the house" may sound like "a boat the hoas" to non-Canadians. Some stand-up and situation comedians exaggerate this to "aboot the hoos" for comic effect.