The "How Do You Pronounce X" Thread

[Vijay]

E.g. /ˈsælmən/ for me is a writer, not a fish.

Not Salman Khan??

Good point. Let me amend that to "a writer or a terrible actor".

Oh what the...why do I get those two mixed up so easily?!? EDIT: Why indeed. I have heard that pronunciation for Salman Rushdie before. Maybe even from my own dad.

That reminds me, though, when I was little, I used to call Amitabh Bachchan [ələbəˈbaːbət͡ʃɛn]. (My parents call him [əmiˈd̪aːbət͡ʃɛn]. They also say [d͡ʒəʋəhaːrˈlaːl] instead of [d͡ʒəˈʋahərlal] and I think also [ʋəɾəˈɳaːsi]).

[Travis B.]

I also have /ˈsælmən/ for the author (never heard of the actor) and /ˈsæmən/ for the fish.

[mèþru]

I have /ˈsɐl.mən/ for both until I found out the /l/ is supposed to be silent for the fish. Now I only pronounce it in Hebrew.

[Zaarin]

I also have /ˈsælmən/ for the author (never heard of the actor) and /ˈsæmən/ for the fish.

Same.

in every case I can think of where popular variants with and without /l/ occur (e.g. almond, balk, salmon), I strongly prefer the /l/-less variant. E.g. /ˈsælmən/ for me is a writer, not a fish.

I have no /l/ in balk and salmon, /l/ in almond (I've only heard /æmənd/ once and found it rather unpleasant--I have /ɑlmənd/), and ambivalent /l/ in folk (they're actually lexically distinct: [fəʊ̯k] refers to the people, [fɔɫk] is a genre of music).

[Vijay]

नहीं!

Their names are [səlˈman], you heretics!!!

[Travis B.]

I have (diachronically l-vocalized):

balk: [pɒʔk]
folk: [foʔk]

but (synchronically l-vocalized):

almond: [ˈɒ̃ːõ̯mɘ̃ːn(t)]

[mèþru]

I usually pronounce <l> in all positions, but native speakers make fun of me for doing so (especially in half).

[Linguoboy]

I usually pronounce <l> in all positions, but native speakers make fun of me for doing so (especially in half).

As well they should. It's been half a millennium since that word had an /l/ in it.

[mèþru]

I'll just go on pronouncing things wiredly [weirdly, but I often pronounce weird like wired as a joke].

[anteallach]

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk, talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong).

I don't have /l/ in folk, salmon or almond. The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why.

[Salmoneus]

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk, talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong).

I don't have /l/ in folk, salmon or almond. The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why.

Probably because "salmon" has never had an /l/ in it - it was borrowed after the lateral was lost, and is in the spelling only for reasons of pretentiousness. Whereas the /l/ was dropped from 'almond' in English, after triggering lengthening of the vowel.

I'm curious about the pronounciation of 'almond' with a short 'a', though. How did that happen? [and I'd never heard before of the spelling pronunciation of 'salmon'! Nor the l-less dolphin!]


[I don't have any of these innovations. I used to have 'l' in 'balk' the verb, but not in the noun/adjective (eg 'balk line'), but I don't think I do anymore.]

[Travis B.]

I'm curious about the pronounciation of 'almond' with a short 'a', though. How did that happen? [and I'd never heard before of the spelling pronunciation of 'salmon'! Nor the l-less dolphin!]

Probably the way that spelling-pronounced falcon ended up with /æl/ despite having not /al/ but rather the diphthong /au/ at the time it was borrowed into English from later Old French as faucon.

[Tropylium]

My English is usually pretty heavy on spelling pronunciations; /hɑːf ~ hæ[ː]f/, /tɔːk/, /wɔːk/ might be the only words I have with consistent silent <em>l</em>. But /pɑːlm/, /ɔːlmənd/, /sɔːlmən/, /fɔːlk/, /jɔːlk/ (not /foʊlk/, /joʊlk/ for some reason). This can be velarized as far as [ʟ] or mere vowel lateralization though (while for some other coda /l/, I may go even with clear [l], maybe most consistently for /ld/).

[Linguoboy]

"verisimilitude"

For as long as I can remember, I've always dropped the first /ɪ/. At some point I learned the stress belonged on the antepenult rather than the preantepenult but I still never say it in six syllables.

[Salmoneus]

I'm curious about the pronounciation of 'almond' with a short 'a', though. How did that happen? [and I'd never heard before of the spelling pronunciation of 'salmon'! Nor the l-less dolphin!]

Probably the way that spelling-pronounced falcon ended up with /æl/ despite having not /al/ but rather the diphthong /au/ at the time it was borrowed into English from later Old French as faucon.

That is indeed also a weird one, though I'm not sure I've ever heard it in person. The spelling pronunciation of the /l/ isn't too great a surprise, but it's odd that some dialects also change the vowel. I wonder whether this is a hyperavoidance of the trap-bath split? (Since I think it's the north of england has that pronunciation mostly). Even though it's not actually the bath vowel in standard english anyway...

[anteallach]

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk, talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong).

I don't have /l/ in folk, salmon or almond. The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why.

Probably because "salmon" has never had an /l/ in it - it was borrowed after the lateral was lost, and is in the spelling only for reasons of pretentiousness. Whereas the /l/ was dropped from 'almond' in English, after triggering lengthening of the vowel.

Looks like it. I'd assumed that French saumon would have been borrowed into Middle English with /au/, and that that might have given modern /ɑː/ just as it did in calm, palm, almond where the /au/ came from older /al/. However, it seems like the usual English pronunciation has always been with /a/; the OED does show spellings such as sawmon but it looks like they were in the minority.

On the other hand, faucon was indeed borrowed with /au/, and /au/ developed regularly to /ɔː/, hence the pre-spelling-pronunciation version /ˈfɔːkən/. (I have /ˈfalkən/ though.)

[Salmoneus]

I have /l/ in balk (but not in walk, talk etc.), dolphin and Salman (which I seem to have as /'salman/, with both vowels strong).

I don't have /l/ in folk, salmon or almond. The latter two have different vowels: /ˈsamən/ but /ˈɑːmənd/; I don't know why.

Probably because "salmon" has never had an /l/ in it - it was borrowed after the lateral was lost, and is in the spelling only for reasons of pretentiousness. Whereas the /l/ was dropped from 'almond' in English, after triggering lengthening of the vowel.

Looks like it. I'd assumed that French saumon would have been borrowed into Middle English with /au/, and that that might have given modern /ɑː/ just as it did in calm, palm, almond where the /au/ came from older /al/. However, it seems like the usual English pronunciation has always been with /a/; the OED does show spellings such as sawmon but it looks like they were in the minority.

On the other hand, faucon was indeed borrowed with /au/, and /au/ developed regularly to /ɔː/, hence the pre-spelling-pronunciation version /ˈfɔːkən/. (I have /ˈfalkən/ though.)

You're up north, iirc? (sorry if I misremember)

I have /Q/. But I think that for me the Q/O: distinction is neutralised in this position. I'm certainly familiar with O:, but that might just be from cloth-splitting dialects.

[Travis B.]

The pronunciation [ˈfɒo̯kn̩(ː)]~[ˈfɒo̯kɘ̃(ː)(n)], i.e. with /ɔːl/, is more natural for me than the pronunciation with [ˈfɛɤ̯kn̩(ː)]~[ˈfɛɤ̯kɘ̃(ː)(n)], i.e. with /æl/, and since I picked up the word from reading it rather than from hearing it I naturally opted for the former pronunciation - I only realized that people here pronounce it the latter way later on.

Two words that interestingly enough have l-elision (and not vocalization) for me are polka (where I have [ˈpʰokə(ː)], i.e. with /oʊ/) and Volvo (where I have [ˈvoːvo(ː)], i.e. with /oʊ/); what makes them interesting is that the words post-date the period of /l/ vocalization or elision in Standard English.

[Nortaneous]

Isn't the /l/ in 'polka' usually vocalized? (I guess the test for 'usually' would be how Weird Al pronounces it, but that I don't know.)

balk /bɔ(l)k/
walk /wɔk/ (also 'talk', 'chalk', 'stalk')
dolphin /dɔlfin/
Volvo /vɔlvəw/

half /hæf/ (also 'calf')
falcon /fælkən/
Salman /sælmən/ [sæɫmən]
salmon /sæmən/ [seəmən]

calm /kɔlm/ [kɔˤm] (also 'palm', 'almond', etc.)

folk /fəwk/
yolk /jəwk/

[Travis B.]

Has anyone here heard centralization of /oʊ/ in the Upper Midwest? I notice that my daughter frequently has [əʊ] for it when most people at least close to my age or older here have some sort of allophony between [o] and [oʊ] (e.g. I have [o] except before vowels and sometimes finally, where then I have [oʊ] or even [ou]) with little centralization, even if they frequently centralize /uː/.