Editing Canadian English (section)

==== Maritimes ====
{{Main|Canadian Maritime English}}
[[File:Atlantic Canada IPA chart.PNG|350px|right|thumb|Based on Labov ''et al.''; [[Formant#Phonetics|averaged F1/F2 means]] for speakers from N.S., N.B., N.L.]]
Many in the Maritime provinces&nbsp;– [[Nova Scotia]], [[New Brunswick]] and [[Prince Edward Island]]&nbsp;– have an accent that sounds more like [[Scottish English]] and, in some places, [[Irish English]] than General American. Outside of major communities, dialects can vary markedly from community to community, as well as from province to province, reflecting ethnic origin as well as a past in which there were few roads and many communities, with some isolated villages. Into the 1980s, residents of villages in northern Nova Scotia could identify themselves by dialects and accents distinctive to their village. The dialects of Prince Edward Island are often considered the most distinct grouping.

The phonology of [[Maritimer English]] has some unique features:
* ''Cot–caught'' merger in effect, but toward a central vowel {{IPA|[ɑ̈]}}.
* No Canadian Shift of the short [[front vowel]]s
* Pre-consonantal {{IPA|/r/}} is sometimes (though rarely) deleted.
* The flapping of intervocalic {{IPA|/t/}} and {{IPA|/d/}} to alveolar tap {{IPA|[ɾ]}} between vowels, as well as pronouncing it as a glottal stop {{IPA|[ʔ]}}, is less common in the Maritimes. Therefore, ''battery'' is pronounced {{IPA|[ˈbætɹi]}} instead of {{IPA|[ˈbæɾ(ɨ)ɹi]}}.
* Especially among the older generation, {{IPA|/w/}} and {{IPA|/hw/}} are not merged; that is, the beginning sound of ''why'', ''white'', and ''which'' is different from that of ''witch'', ''with'', and ''wear''.
* Like most varieties of CanE, Maritimer English contains [[Canadian raising]].

'''Nova Scotia'''
As with many other distinct dialects, vowels are a marker of Halifax English as a distinctive variant of Canadian English. Typically, Canadian dialects have a merger of the low back vowels in palm, lot, thought and cloth. The merged vowel in question is usually /ɑ/ or sometimes the rounded variant /ɒ/. Meanwhile, in Halifax, the vowel is raised and rounded. For example, body; popped; and gone. In the homophones, caught-cot and stalk-stock, the rounding in the merged vowel is also much more pronounced here than in other Canadian varieties. The Canadian Shift is also not as evident in the traditional dialect. Instead, the front vowels are raised. For example, the vowel in had is raised to [hæed]; and camera is raised to [kæmra].

Although it has not been studied extensively, the speech of Cape Breton specifically seems to bear many similarities with the nearby island of Newfoundland, which is often why Westerners can have a hard time differentiating the two accents. For instance, they both use the fronting of the low back vowel. These similarities can be attributed to geographic proximity, the fact that about one-quarter of the Cape Breton population descends from Irish immigrants (many of whom arrived via Newfoundland) and the Scottish and Irish influences on both provinces. The speech of Cape Breton can almost be seen as a continuum between the two extremes of the Halifax variant and the Newfoundland variant. In addition, there is heavy influence of standard varieties of Canadian English on Cape Breton English, especially in the diphthongization of the goat and goose vowels and the frequent use of Canadian raising.<ref>{{cite book | doi=10.1017/CBO9780511676529.005 | chapter=Canadian Maritime English | title=The Lesser-Known Varieties of English | date=2010 | last1=Kiefte | first1=Michael | last2=Bird | first2=Elizabeth Kay-Raining | pages=59–71 | isbn=978-0-521-88396-2 }}</ref>