Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T20:33:44.218Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Gaelic Substratum in the English of Glengarry County and its Reflection in the Novels of Ralph Connor*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Ian Pringle*
Affiliation:
Carleton University

Extract

One of the many aspects of the study of Canadian English which the late Walter S. Avis pioneered was the study and analysis of the literary representation of a Canadian dialect, first in his M.A. thesis, “The Speech of Sam Slick” (1954), subsequently in the “Note on the Speech of Sam Slick” in the introductory matter of R. E. Watters’ Sam Slick Anthology (1969), and the application of that study in the edition he prepared of that text for linguistically naive modern Canadian readers. Like all those who work in Canadian English, those of us working on the Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley owe a great debt to Walter Avis, not only for his outstanding work in the lexicography of Canadian English and his studies of the Loyalist based dialects of Southern Ontario, but also for many more immediate favours and services: his whole-hearted support of our project, his answers to queries about particular lexical items, his visits to the project and the commentaries he made on our tapes and our transcriptions of them and, outstandingly, his willingness to let us borrow tapes which he himself had made of Valley speakers, and to let us use them for our own purposes. The study which follows tries to reflect something of our debt by discussing the literary representation of another Canadian dialect, one which is spoken within the area under investigation by the Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley, and one heavily influenced by the Loyalist dialects of Southern Ontario which feature so largely in Avis’s work. The dialect in question is the dialect of Glengarry County, Ontario, and more particularly the two northern townships of Glengarry County, and the representation of the dialect of that area in the Glengarry novels of Ralph Connor.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

The fieldwork which forms the basis of part of this paper was undertaken by Mrs. Diane Munier, for whose assiduity, patience and skill I wish to express my grateful thanks. The Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley is supported by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Dean of Arts and Dean of Graduate Studies and Research, Carleton University.

References

Avis, Walter S. (1950) “The Speech of Sam Slick.” Unpublished M.A. thesis, Queen’s University.Google Scholar
Avis, Walter S. (1969) The Sam Slick Anthology, ed. Watters, Reginald Eyre and Avis, Walter S.. Toronto: Clarke Irwin.Google Scholar
BorgstrØm, Carl Hj. (1937) “The Dialect of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.” Norsk Tidsskriftfor Sprogvidenskap 8.71242.Google Scholar
BorgstrØm, Carl Hj. (1940) “The Dialects of the Outer Hebrides.” NTS, supplementary vol. 1.Google Scholar
BorgstrØm, Carl Hj. (1941) “The Dialects of Skye and Ross-shire.” NTS, supplementary vol. 2.Google Scholar
Gordon, Charles W. (1933) The Girl from Glengarry. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Gordon, Charles W. (1934) Torches through the Bush. New York: A. L. Burt.Google Scholar
Gordon, Charles W. (1939) Postscript to Adventure: The Autobiography of Ralph Connor. New York: Farrar and Rinehart.Google Scholar
Gordon, Charles W. (1969) The Man from Glengarry, ed. Beharriell, S. Ross. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Gordon, Charles W. (1975) Glengarry School Days, ed. Beharriell, S. Ross. Toronto: McLelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Hill, Douglas (1972) The Scots to Canada. London: Gentry Books.Google Scholar
Holmer, Nils M. (1938) Studies on Argyllshire Gaelic. Uppsala: Skrifter utgivna av Kungliga Humanistika Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala. 31 no. 1.Google Scholar
McLaren, James (n.d.) Gaelic Self-Taught. Glasgow: Alexander McLaren and Sons.Google Scholar
Oftedal, Magne (1956) “The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis.” NTS, supplementary vol. 4.Google Scholar
Padolsky, Enoch, and Pringle, Ian (in press) Historical Sourcebook for the Ottawa Valley. Ottawa: LSOV.Google Scholar
Shortt, Adam and Doughty, A. G. eds. (1914) Canada and its Provinces. Vol. 17: Ontario. Toronto: Glasgow, Brook and Co.Google Scholar
Wilson, H. R. (1973) “Dialect literature: A two-way street?CJL/RCL 18: 15762.Google Scholar