By and large, Canadian and American English sound very similar. Being the two largest dialects in North American English (NAE), they’re more alike than not. What really interests me, though, are the few instances in which they differ. One such example is the cot-caught distinction.
The cot (spelled c o t)-caught (spelled c a u g h t) distinction
In NAE, two specific sounds, ah. and aw., often compete with each other. A word may be pronounced with either of these two sounds, depending on the accent. The symbols I’ve used here belong to the International Phonetic Alphabet – an alphabet system created to accurately represent sounds. These two symbols may seem confusing if you’re not familiar with them, so I’ll do my best to explain what they represent.
Phonetic explanation
The sound ah. is made when you open your mouth wide, as if you’re yawning, with your tongue resting at the bottom of your mouth. It’s an open ah sound. Because of the open mouth and the tongue’s position, this sound is called the open back unrounded vowel. You’ll find it in words like father, car, and art.
The sound aw. is very similar to ah., but when making this sound, your lips are rounded. That’s why it’s called the open back rounded vowel, and it sounds like an aw sound. You’ll find it in words like thought, claw, and caught.
Regional variations
Things get interesting when we look at how people in different regions pronounce these sounds. Try saying the following pairs of words:
- Don (spelled d o n) – Dawn (spelled d a w n)
- Cot (spelled c o t) – Caught (spelled c a u g h t)
- Pond (spelled p o n d) – Pawned (spelled p a w n e d)
For a native speaker of Standard Canadian English like me, these pairs of words generally all have the same vowel sound: aw. But for a speaker of Inland Northern American English (often heard in the American Midwest), the difference is clear as day! They would say don as dɑn don, spelled d o n, with an ah sound. and dawn as dɒndawn, spelled d a w n, with an aw sound.. The same pattern can be found in other dialects, like New York City English and African American Vernacular English.
It gets even more complex when you realize that in some accents, both sounds have merged into ah.. For example, many Californians say both cot (spelled c o t) and caught (spelled c a u g h t) with the ah. sound, while Canadians and Bostonians, among others, say both with the aw. sound.
The cot-caught distinction across Canada and the U.S.
North America is broadly divided by the cot-caught distinction. Speakers in the western U.S. and Canada mostly merge the vowel sounds, while speakers in the midwestern, southern, and eastern U.S. generally do not.
The beauty of linguistic diversity
I find this phenomenon fascinating. It has been a historic trend for certain sounds of the English language to change. While vowel shifts are not uncommon, to see one in everyday life is riveting. Most of us North American English speakers don’t think much about our accents, since they’re fairly similar. When differences like this emerge, however, they highlight the beauty and diversity that exists within even a single language.
Have you ever had an experience that revealed the complexity of language to you? What are the differences that coexist in your language that fascinate you?
