Canadian raising

English

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