Canadian Raising — "ow" /aʊ/ pt. 1
The most well-known Canadian feature is called "Canadian Raising", where the vowel sound in words from the mouth lexical set, like "out" or "shout," is said with the mouth more closed, with the arch of the tongue "raised" closer to the roof of the mouth (IPA [əu]). This only occurs on the "ow" /aʊ/ vowel when it is followed by a voiceless consonant. When the "ow" /aʊ/ vowel is followed by a voiced consonant, another vowel or by nothing, the /aʊ/ is not raised, so it sounds essentially the same as it does in General American or other mainstream North American accents (IPA [aʊ]).
Word Pairs
To highlight this difference we've gathered clips of native speakers saying the following minimal pairs. Click on the numbers below the pairs to hear the samples. The second word features Canadian Raising.
| to bow vs. about | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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18. 22. 25.
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| bowed vs. bout | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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11. 15. 18.
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