Introduction

This chapter describes the vernacular varieties of English spoken in Newfoundland and Labrador, the most easterly province of Canada. Until union with Canada in 1949, the island of Newfoundland, along with its continental portion, Labrador, constituted an independent colony of Britain. Known to European explorers and fishermen from the late fifteenth century, the island represents one of the earliest of Britain's transatlantic colonies, with permanent (if sparse) settlement dating back to the first decades of the seventeenth century.

Though perhaps more has been written on Newfoundland and Labrador English (NLE) than on many of the varieties represented in this volume, much of this material is little-known outside the local area. Moreover, this work has dealt largely with the region's rich and unique lexical heritage, culminating in the 1982 publication of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

The phonology and morphosyntax of present-day NLE, however, are likewise highly distinct from those of many varieties of English found on the North American mainland. The province also exhibits considerable internal dialect diversity. As late as 1950, much of the island's population was distributed in some 1,300 small fishing villages scattered over 6,000 miles (c. 9,660 km) of coastline; many of these communities were linked to the outside world only by sea. This situation, coupled with the region's relatively isolated geographical location at the northeastern extremity of North America, is in large measure responsible for the generally conservative nature of local speech, which preserves a number of features no longer current in world Englishes.