Our Alberta Accent

"Hey youse guys! I'm on my way to pick up some poutine, but I forgot my toque. It's a good thing I remembered my bunny hug though, because these chinooks are sometimes pretty cold, eh?"

Canadian slang may be used more in your everyday speech than you might think. Many Canadians don't realize

that words like toque, poutine and chinook are distinctly Canadian. Some words may be strictly provincial, like Saskatchewan's "bunny hug," while others are national such as our infamous "eh."

Curious as to what terms and phrases are uniquely Albertan, Nicole Rosen, a modern languages professor at the University of Lethbridge, is dedicating her time to finding out.

Studies on our dialect have never been conducted in the West, so information pertaining to Canadian English 
doesn't include Albertans. Over the past few months, as part of the Southern Alberta English Dialect study, Nicole and several undergraduate students have been conducting interviews and collecting data, which will form the first database of speech to focus on a Prairie province.

"Once this corpus is available, other academics like me will be able to start examining the more pragmatic facets of the language," explains Nicole. "We'll be able to examine those more informal terms Albertans seem to use."

The Southern Alberta English Dialect study is still open to new participants. If you are between the ages 18 through 100; were born, raised, and have remained in Southern Alberta; and are interested in participating you can email Nicole at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In the meantime, share your Canadian slang with us! What "Canadianisms" or "Albertanisms" do you know or have heard. Be as Canadian as you'd like.