Leksičke osobenosti kanadskog engleskog

The aim of this paper is to point out lexical peculiarities of Canadian English. Canadian English has always been left in the shadow of its American and British equivalents. Many people think it is identical to American English, and that there are no features that are exclusively Canadian. This might even be accepted when it comes to questions of grammar or phonology, but one should always bear in mind the history of settlement of Canada. At the beginning, today’s Canada was populated by various Aboriginal tribes whose vocabularies and cultures helped to shape Canadian English. The European settlers of Canada were mostly from France, the British Isles and the United States, so it is obvious that British English and General American were the basis for forming Standard Canadian English. Moreover, even after French defeat, the francophone population has not decreased in number, along English, French is also an official language. In view of the fact that there are almost none distinctively Canadian additions to grammar, Canadians mostly combine grammatical conventions of the British and Americans. The case is the same with phonology, except for the Canadian Raising, its most famous feature, but also not exclusively Canadian. However, over time, Canadians developed their own additions to vocabulary called Canadianisms. As it is the case with Americanisms, Canadianisms include expressions that are connected with various aspects of everyday life specific to Canada. Even though they are found in other varieties of English as well and they do not necessarily originate in Canada. Canadianisms are divided into subtypes: lexical, grammatical, orthographic, and phonological. Moreover, this paper will highlight some typically Canadian fixed expression