Ottawa Valley Twang is the accent, sometimes referred to as a dialect of English, that is spoken in the Ottawa Valley, in Ontario, Canada. The Ottawa Valley is considered to be a linguistic enclave within Ontario, in the same manner that Lunenburg, Nova Scotia is within the Maritime Provinces. Ottawa Valley Twang originated with the Irish settlers of the valley the 1840s.
The Ottawa Valley 'brogue' is also explored in Ian Pringle, Enoch Padolsky The Linguistic Survey of the Ottawa Valley The American Speech, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Winter, 1983), pp. 325–344. According to Pringle and Padolsky, there are at least ten distinct varieties of English in the Ottawa valley (326).
Famous quotes containing the words valley and/or twang:
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I know my lazy, leaden twang
Is like the reason in a storm;
And yet it brings the storm to bear.
I twang it out and leave it there.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)