0:04  
What connects people in Toronto?

0:06  
Some may say it's the sports

0:09  
surge. Others may suggest or former infamous Mayor

0:14  
john

0:16  
and many might say it's the TTC with its subway tracks and streetcar routes stretching across the city and far into its neighborhoods for

0:26  
pain, but another major connection that bridges the city's communities and the people within them is Toronto slang.

0:31  
Yo, yo, yo,

0:33  
I have a sicker flexline Dobby.

0:37  
The same tape by CMB. It's all our world sightings.

0:41  
Say? Well, I say word for those

0:45  
who live in the city phrases like this or something we hear every day. Many of us know people who speak like this. And some of us use these terms ourselves. I'm Alexis Perry clothes.

0:55  
And I'm Spencer Turcotte. We're two university students living in Toronto. We were talking about Toronto slang and different terms that are more common in certain parts of the city. And that's what sparked the question for us. Where does Toronto slang actually come from? Neither of us really knew. We also wanted to see how it's used for electronics communities and the influences it has on the city's culture. But we found out pretty quickly it's something that's really underreported and even under studied.

1:21  
We're also working on this project with Max Carmela. During his reporting, he met up with a socio linguistics professor at the University of Toronto named Derek Dennis Derek's one of the few people in the city who actually studies Toronto slang.

1:41  
Arriving at St. George St. George station. For whatever

1:45  
reason, no one has, like looked into these neighborhoods that are just extremely multi lingual and multicultural. And it's not the case that they don't exist.

1:59  
while speaking with Derek Dennis. He explained to me that the unique language and way of speaking that so many people in Toronto use is what linguists call a multi ethnic.

2:08  
So Toronto slang isn't just like, any old slang, it's not like cool and wicked or rad or whatever like these kinds of like slang words, there's some connotations to what Toronto slang is right? And so I think what we're talking about is a multi ethnic. And so multi ethnic select is a is a particular variety or kind of language, they tend to arise in particular kinds of communities and neighborhoods, where there is a lot of immigration from all over the world. So you have multilingualism, you have lots of languages spoken. And in that mixture. What you end up having is like loan words and borrowings from all of these different languages.

2:54  
We figured that with Derek's research, he be able to offer us a better understanding of the specific cultures that lies at the root of Toronto's multi ethnic,

3:02  
the Jamaican community just has a huge influence on on on Toronto slang, and so, like, Jamaican Creole or patois has been a major influence. I can think of, like at least to like mandem is directly from from patois. And ally is also definitely a bordering from from patois. Another big influence is the Somali community. So, Buck T is from Somali and voila, he is probably Somali. Also, Arabic Wallah. There's probably mutually reinforcing of that.

3:51  
And while it can be dismissive to refer to this language and speech as a slang the community itself refers to it this way.

3:58  
Because like for us as linguists if we hear slang, usually that's coming from somebody who's trying to diminish whatever the language variety is, right? say like, that's just slang means that it's not important and it's bad, it's corrupt or something. But an important aspect of Toronto slang is Toronto slang is what people who use it call it right. And so it's incredibly important to to listen and use the labels that the speech community uses.

4:29  
What's important to note about this emerging language here in Toronto is that it has similar characteristics to other established and study ethnics around the world.

4:38  
Maybe five years ago when I was like reading and learning about multi ethnic blacks like in London like multi we call it multicultural London English. When I was learning about multicultural London English, and I saw the description of the neighborhoods where they're spoken. They tend to be areas that are relatively segregated, whether that's That's socially, economically or physically. And they are places where you have this global immigration from all over the world. And so I read that as a description of these neighborhoods in London. And I think that there's places like that in Toronto, and no one has has gone in there.

5:22  
One thing that London and Toronto have in common is their large population of Jamaican immigrants. Lincoln Brown is connected to all three of these places. He was born in Jamaica, immigrated to England in 1967, and then moved to Scarborough. 10 years later.

5:49  
Arriving at Scarborough center,

5:51  
Scarborough center station.

5:54  
Obviously, in Jamaica, the official language is English, but so many people speak in patois just bread breakdown. For me why you think speaking that way is so significant.

6:07  
The industry is most Jamaicans the original ones went out from as African slaves, and they spoke the African language. Then, from what I gather, they lost the African language totally.

6:25  
Then they picked up this patois, which is broken English. Did you like did you experience that a lot when you were in Jamaica for for younger years, do you automatically you automatically pick up the pipe while because it patois is spoken at home? and proper English is spoken at school. Just sort of like moving into England out there's like a well studied distinct variety of like the English language that is found in urban neighborhoods. Did you experience that at all when you lived in England?

7:02  
Oh, yes, in in Brixton, back in the in the good old back in the 50s, and so on. Most Influential Jamaicans the only place they could live because of a little bit of racism and so on. In places like Brixton, where there were quite a lot of Caribbean people. So you see, people tend to speak

7:24  
their patois. Just sort of like moving to Toronto now. How have you seen patois merged or influential? Some of the language that you hear here in Toronto?

7:37  
I think it is. It's similar to to England, because wherever you have Jamaicans Caribbean people, the patois tend to take over.

7:47  
Why do you think Jamaican culture has such a strong influence on language in countries that are entirely different continents?

7:57  
Pontus it is, I would say the music because you know, Bob Marley. And Jimmy Cleveland saw their their Jamaicans and Jamaicans that we tend to have Jamaicans personalities, where it's so overbearing to the point of brashness. So I think it's that Jamaican personality where Jamaicans are tend to be a result, friends tend not to back off, so it it, it transcend from your personality, the way you do things into the language. And we tend to use the language to identify ourselves to tell the other people look, I'm Jamaican, and this is, this is my language. Have you?

8:38  
Like, have you heard even people like, like, have like the adolescent or youth sort of age in Toronto, like speaking in a way that's similar to patois? Like even though Oh, yes,

8:50  
in fact, they pick it up. In fact, I know quite a few Italian people need one I work with his son, his price wise, almost as good as mine.

8:59  
So you've seen it, you've seen it a lot amongst the younger the younger age groups as well.

9:04  
Yeah, the younger age. Oh, yes.

9:06  
I'm also just curious as well, like when you hear people that that are not of Jamaican descent, speaking in this sort of way, do you like consider it like cultural appropriation or?

9:19  
No, we we consider it. We appreciate it because it means we have transcended and people recognize our language and tried to mimic us when she mentions Brixton.

9:29  
It's a multicultural district in London with strong Caribbean roots, kind of like what Scarborough is to Toronto. In 2016. Almost three quarters of Scarborough's population were a visible minority. Adrian smiley is of Jamaican descent and grew up in Scarborough. He's the host of the cool table. It's a radio show on Ryerson campus where he interviews Toronto musicians. He says he's definitely noticed more artists representing their city and the neighborhoods they're from in their music.

10:02  
Arriving at Dunn das Dundas station

10:08  
Good morning, good afternoon.

10:09  
Good evening,

10:10  
and good night. Welcome to the cool table. This is like what I see like me, I watch the video The why most people don't but I watched YouTube videos a lot. And what you see is like, the artists kind of trying to make their videos show show where they're from. So it has, like, you know, specific things that show this is this block, you know, before there's lots of videos that were like, either in a popular spot that everyone used or kind of generic so you know, this is a Toronto Street, but they're not trying to show off with street fixes. Now you have guys like showing off that I'm on the corner of so and so we're showing off that this is the corner that I live on.

10:42  
Another way artists represent their city is through the slang and phrases they use in their songs. So many people who aren't even from Toronto know our slang because it's become so prominent in our local music

10:52  
wherever it kind of whoever has the most slang in there like lyrics is like the coolest kind of thing. So I do that with like some artists like a lot of times and but I that kind of I get differentiates like, I guess who's more poppin or like how they're viewed.

11:06  
Adrian also says that one of the reasons that our slang becomes so commonly used is that it allows him to express his thoughts in ways that regular speech can't.

11:15  
The people who don't use slang are the I guess there's something they have is that if you use slang, you're using them because you don't know other words to use. But that's obviously not always the case. Like I get that's why I take it upon myself to use as much as possible because I consider myself intelligent, like a smart person. So it's like, you know, if someone's going to really think that I'm not intelligent because I'm using slang like, you know, that's, that's on them. Again, I said, there are slang terms that are the only way to describe something, you know, it's like if I said, I'm mad, and I am cheesed. The two different things. If something happened, I was like, Yo, I was so mad. Like, that's different than me saying, I was so cheesy. And although they're, they're synonyms. They're not the same thing. So it's things like that, where flying is often looked down upon. But for those of us who use slang often, we often know the difference between certain words.

12:02  
She has a good point, growing up in Scarborough and constantly being surrounded by people who speak in slang. I've picked up a lot of these terms as well. And I really feel like there are some slang terms that are the only way I can get across what I'm trying to say. For example, my friends, and I use the term gassed a lot, which basically means to hype someone up excessively, like, Oh my gosh, she looked really good. Last night, everyone was gassing her or I'm gassed. Well, it's

12:30  
kind of funny because I grew up in Milton, and it's about an hour outside of Toronto. So slang wasn't used all that much in my circle. But when I moved to Toronto, I definitely noticed more slang being used in the conversations I was having when I was meeting people. And honestly, I didn't really catch on to a lot of the terms I heard at first. So I think hearing certain terms and music and hearing how they were used helped me become more familiar with it all.

12:52  
We're in the qat with Heather Russell, the girl had ever interviewed. She had a song on our album called done no fam. Like made the name of the song. And she's she's a she's a singer. She's not a rapper, and she hasn't lived in Toronto in some years. But like, she's, she's 18 like the slang is like everything for her. You know? I think hustlers like will use the slang in the interview like and he is the example of using like slang to answer questions that can't be answered any other way. So he like be the type of talented rapper. So I asked him, you know, you are skilled like lyrically, but you don't you're not someone like Kendrick who, you know, focuses on, like, talent in your in your work, but it's clear that you're skilled. How do you have that balance? And he goes, it's just a sauce.

13:39  
My name is Lincoln. Brown.

13:41  
This is Adrian smiley. I'm

13:42  
Derrick Dennis

Transcribed by https://otter.ai