After three decades of research, Canadian scholars have made it up to F, G, and H in the
Dictionary of Old English — a project that maps the roots of our language from the seventh century to the Norman Conquest. CBC TV's Sophia Harris has an update.
CANADIAN ENGLISH
You don't need a Ph.D. to know that Canadian English is distinct. But the differences go well beyond putting a u in colour, tossing the odd eh into a sentence, or pronouncing the letter z as zed, not zee. When the Canadian Oxford Dictionary was first published in 1998, CBC Radio's The World This Weekend spoke to Editor-in-Chief Katherine Barber about the five-year project — including her most surprising discovery after surveying computer files containing about 40 million words.
US AND THEM (U.S.)
Calgary actor and dialect coach David LeReaney teaches Canadians how to sound like Americans. Many of his sug-jestions are inneresting. CBC TV's Paul Hunter talks to him about choice of words and pronunciation.
For a closer look at LeReaney's tips, as well as reaction from both sides of the border, visit CBC News Online's
Speaking American.
KINSHIP
Many of us have great-aunts, grandfathers, and second cousins. But the words used to describe next of kin in other parts of the world are sometimes hard for us to figure out — at least at first. CBC Radio's Dick Gordon talks to Richard Lee, a professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto, about how different cultures describe relationships in different ways.
Note: comments and queries about familial terms have become a familiar sight on This Morning's Web site Canada's Most Wanted Words.
