The Toronto Vowel Shift

If you listen carefully, you just might hear the first stages of a vowel shift in Canadian English, starting (of course) in Toronto.

A vowel shift is a change in how, and where, a vowel is enunciated. Vowel shifts are the basis of the old “you say tomayto and I say tomahto” saw. And of course, in some parts of the English-speaking world, it would be “toe-my-toe”. Same vowel, pronounced quite differently. Obviously all but one (or maybe even all) have resulted from one or more vowel shifts.

For the last few years, a discernible shift has been subtly detectable in the speech of some Toronto and Toronto-influenced high-end professionals. Nowhere is the shift more evident than in the delivery of the word “all”. For the majority of Canadians during my lifetime, the word is “ahl”, but more and more often one is hearing “ohl”, about half way to British Received Pronunciation. In this progression, the sound is made further to the front of the mouth, and the lips are tightened.

Vowel shifts happen all the time in languages, and typically result from two drivers, usually sequentially. The first is the exposure to, and influence by, some outside example of how others say the same thing. In this particular case, nearly all of the speakers from whose mouths I’ve heard “ohl” are professionals who live in an international space, dealing regularly with other English-speaking professionals all over the world, particularly the US and the UK. They can’t help but hear “ohl” at least as often as “ahl”, so that the speech pattern normalizes in their brains.

The second driver is prestige, or “coolness”. We all want to sound like the cool kids. That’s why most teenage girls sound like they come from California. So, like, I’m just like sayin’, like way kewl, ya know?

Thus, if you’re engaged on a daily basis with respected peers all over the world, and your subconscious mind is hearing the coolest of the cool sound a certain way, then your subconscious is going to start to tell your voicebox and your mouth to start making the same kinds of sounds. And then everyone below your pay grade has to get in on the act, and so on, and so on.

Has this ever happened before? Listen to the first Canadian-born Governor-General, Vincent Massey, in 1952, and decide for yourself. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH3sFXdCQXg )

You heard it here first. And that’s ohl I have to say on the matter.