“Eh?” in Canadian English Can Ask for Agreement or Soften a Command

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Martha. This is Brian from Canada.

How are you and Grant today?

Doing well. Where are you in Canada, by the way?

Just outside of Ottawa, about an hour outside of Ottawa.

Great. Well, we’re glad to have you, Brian. What’s up?

Being in Canada, we love our winter vacations and always head south.

So a few years ago, we were in the Caribbean, my family and I,

And we were on the beach one day, and there was like a hut, you know,

That sold refreshments and snacks and things like that.

And my daughter would have been about maybe 10 at the time,

And we would go up to the shack and order some things.

And the third time, I guess it was, we went up and we walked up.

The gentleman in the hut said, what can I get my Canadian friend today?

And I sort of looked at him, and he took me back a little bit,

And I ordered what it was, and then I’m looking at myself,

And all I have on is a bathing suit.

And I’m thinking,

So I look at my daughter, and I’m looking to see if she has, like, Canada on her T-shirt or a picture of a beaver or something.

I’m thinking, how did he know I was a Canadian?

So anyway, I leaned over and I said to her, how would he know that we’re a Canadian?

And she sort of rolls her eyes back and said, eh?

I said, that’s how he knew, eh?

And then she rolls her eyes even a little more than ever.

So my question is, is that a made in Canada thing?

Oh, yeah.

It’s kind of become this stereotypical Canadian thing, right?

It’s the thing that I think Americans would mention that in a boot.

Like, by Americans, I mean U.S. Citizens, U.S. Residents would mention when they think of Canadian English.

But it didn’t used to be that way.

It’s kind of only become stereotyped in the last three or so decades.

And it’s really interesting to see linguists trace this over the decades since the 80s, more or less, and just watch it kind of become kind of prominent in the mind of the everyday person.

There is a fantastic article by Elaine Gould of the University of Toronto about A, E, H, in the book Canadian English, a Linguistic Reader.

And she explores Canadian English, and she focuses particularly on the discourse tag A,

And that’s what we call that E-H, because a discourse tag is something that you kind of tack on to other things

To change the value of everything else that came before, everything that it’s attached to.

As you noted, a widely recognized marker of Canadian identity.

And just simply inserting that anywhere in a speech will mark you as a Canadian.

And then like I joked about it, it’s as good as a a red maple leaf, seriously, yes. So it’s been noted

Since the 1950s although it probably existed before that. There’s a chance that it is influenced

Or maybe even comes from the French Canadian h e i n because the French have a very similar

Discourse marker, but it’s not for certain.

It’s got a couple different things that it does.

So it does have a role besides indicating that you’re Canadian.

One is that it basically asks if you agree.

It’s kind of like…

Yeah, kind of a confirmation, I guess.

Yeah, it’s kind of like saying, right?

Or, you know?

Yeah.

And the other thing that it can do is it can soften what it’s attached to.

So I can say, get in the car, eh?

And it’s a little less forceful than just saying, get in the car.

Yes.

I never thought of it that way, yes.

And if I have an opinion like we should have tacos, and if I say we should have tacos A, it’s a little less forceful of an opinion.

That’s true, yes.

Never thought of it that way.

Yeah.

So there’s a bunch of other things.

But in general, it’s a softener.

It’s not consistent across all of Canada.

For example, where you come from in Ottawa, there’s more usage than, say, in Vancouver.

Yeah, and when you say about the French origin, it’s interesting because I’m about less than 10 miles from the Quebec border.

Yeah.

And very prevalent around here and also on the other side of Quebec in the Maritimes.

You would hear, A, a lot more often there and in Ontario than you would in, say, Saskatchewan or out west.

So the French influence, who’s right in between the Ontario and the Maritimes, that makes a lot of sense then.

Yeah, and French used to be a first language for a lot more Canadians the further back you go.

But as each decade passes, fewer and fewer people speak French as a first language in Canada.

Oh, that’s very interesting.

And obviously we say it a lot of times and don’t even realize we’re saying A at the end.

That’s how it is around the whole world.

People speak and they don’t realize that their dialect is unique, that it’s got these features that nobody else has.

Brian, take care of yourself.

Thank you very much.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

All right.

Take care.

Bye.

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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