Canadian English in a Multicultural and Contact-Based Perspective

Abstract

Canadian English has developed into a recognizable national variety through prolonged and multilayered contact among Indigenous languages, immigrant languages, British English, and American English. Rather than emerging as a homogeneous or derivative form of English, Canadian English reflects Canada’s distinctive sociopolitical history, patterns of migration, and long-standing commitment to multiculturalism. This paper examines Canadian English from the perspectives of language contact theory and World Englishes, with particular attention to its historical formation and its linguistic characteristics in spelling, vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. The analysis shows that while Canadian English maintains a stable grammatical core, it exhibits distinctive features shaped by environmental conditions, institutional practices, and sociolinguistic identity. As such, Canadian English provides an instructive case for understanding how global languages adapt to local contexts and develop into legitimate national varieties under conditions of sustained multilingual contact.