Canadian raising

English

Examples
Canadian pronunciation of out (above) compared with the American pronunciation (below) Audio: (file) Audio: (file)

Noun

Canadian raising (countable and uncountable, plural Canadian raisings)

1. (phonology, dialectology) The phenomenon in some dialects of English, especially Canadian English, in which /aɪ/ is realized as [ʌɪ] and/or /aʊ/ is realized as [ʌʊ] or [ɛʊ] before underlying unvoiced consonants.
2. (phonology, dialectology) A similar but more restricted phenomenon, found in most dialects of American English, that applies only to /aɪ/, which is realized as [ʌɪ] in certain contexts, especially before underlying unvoiced consonants but with significant speaker-to-speaker variation.