As a non-native speaker, I find this one of the most frustrating features of English. Sometimes it rhymes with “call”, sometimes with “shall”. Some words, like “mall”, appear to have both pronunciations, and usage differs between British and American English. Any rules that I can rely on to determine, for instance, how to pronounce the name of the not-so-important English village of Albourne, Sussex, when I first come across it?
Good one, Pall Mall is like that.
I think you’ve identified one of the key rules already: always start by answering the question: “Am I trying to pronounce UK English or American?”
All else differs (or at least usually does) depending on that.
Sorry. 
It also depends on what part of America it’s being spoken in, if you’re talking American English.
In American English I think you’re pretty safe if you rhyme all “all” words with “call.” Or all, for that matter. “Shall” is probably an atavism left over from the Brits.
In addition, I have never heard “mall” pronounced to rhyme with “shall,” so that would seem strange to most local speakers.
Cities present far more problems. Some that start with “Al,” like Albany, the capital of New York, use the “call” pronunciation.
Probably more, though, rhyme with the name “Al.” Albuquerque, Alexandria, Allentown, Altoona.
What the Brits do is known only to the BBC.
As you are no doubt already aware, there is no reliable way to predict the pronunciation of English placenames from the spelling, even when we exclude from consideration oddities like Frome or Worcester. 10 years ago in a work context I often had reason to refer to the town of Lynemouth - I still don’t know the correct pronunciation. Each of the first and second syllables has two possibilities, for a total of 4. Similarly with Albourne, I wouldn’t hazard a guess as to whether the second syllable is /bɔːn/ or /bən/. So no.
But would you have an intuition if the first syllable is as in “all” or like the Al- in “Albert”?
In the South, how about “You all”?
Being English and having visited the area a reasonable amount, if I had to read the placename ‘Albourne’ say to ask for directions, I’d personally hazard a guess at the ‘Al’ as in ‘Albert’ version, but I would not be in the least surprised to be corrected by a local to ‘All’.
If it was in the north of England, I would be a little more surprised to be corrected to '‘All’, but less surprised if a local said it closer to ‘Ol’.
It may not even be completely consistent, and may depend to an extent on the accent of the speaker. There are places where multiple pronunciations with minor variations are in use even by residents.
One difference that I see is the word “coyote”. In much of the rural west, it is pronounced something like “kai-yoat” while in the east, I think it is generally pronounced as “kai-yoa-tee’”. And then, some just call them “yotes”. There’s also a “kai-yoa-tay” pronunciation, as well, but I rarely ever hear that.
This isn’t only about pronunciation, but also about word choices in different areas.
Years ago, a physicist told me that when he was an undergraduate in some school in the north east, they had a professor who was very good at telling where someone was from by listening to them speak for a minute.
One day in class, he had each class member say a little bit about them, but not where they grew up. After each classmate spoke, he would tell them in which city or county they grew up in.
The only one that gave him trouble was the physicist because his family had moved when he was still learning the language and so he showed a mish-mash of accents. So the prof asked him a question, “What do you call water fountains for drinking where you grew up?” The physicist answered “bubblers”. With that information and what he could tell from the accent, he identified the precise county the physicist was from.
With all the tv screwing up accents, that would undoubtedly be much more difficult these days.
What was equally surprising to me is that nobody in the class knew that the prof was blind until about half way through the course. One day, he walked in, addressed the class, and started writing on the board. This time, unlike the previous classes, the board had not erased. Not knowing this, he happily wrote on the board.
Not really. I would not be surprised either way. I believe Alton Towers is pronounced with /ɔːl/ so I might go for that one.
Wiley, the Roadrunner’s hopefull nemisis in the Warner Brothers cartoons, is definitely Wiley “Kai-yoa-tee” to rhyme with his first name. I’m not so sure why I hold this to be a fact, seeing as dialog in the actual cartoon is limited to “beep beep” on one side, and defeated screams on the other…
Obviously, Hollywood, where both characters originated is in the east coast.
Not having coyotes in my country I follow the Warner Bros version.
The more I think about the question, the more I think there is no way. For example, I would have assumed that Albany would be pronounced with the al of Albert, but it is, in fact, said with the al of all. I wonder if that could have been the Dutch influence. The Hudson valley was originally settled by Dutch. (Little-known fact: Martin van Buren is the only US president whose native language was not English.)
There isn’t really a name that rhymes with Kai-yote. I spouse Otis Coyotis might have worked.
There’s an affluent 18th century apartment building in London’s Piccadilly, often mentioned in novels as the home of the bachelor protagonist, called Albany. To my knowledge (but I had to google it, and I’m still not 100% confident) it also uses the “all” pronunciation.
It gets worse. In a number of -AL- words, the L is silent:
-
salmon, salve, calf, calve, half, and halve where the vowel in American English is like in “shall”.
-
alms, walk, talk, psalm, balm, calm, chalk, balk, and stalk where the vowel in American English is like that of “all”. Traditionally, almond was also in this group, pronounced like “aw-mond” but it seems to me this pronunciation is rapidly being replaced by “all-mond” in the U.S.
In my flavor of American of your example words these all have the same vowel sound:
- walk, talk, chalk, balk, and stalk
- alms, psalm, balm, calm
That’s in addition to the difference between whether the “l” is sounded at all. Which it is not at all in the first group and most definitely is in the second.
Wait. I pronounce the -l- in calve. Have I been doing it wrong this whole time? (I am sure it’s a spelling pronunciation, because I doubt if I’ve ever heard the word spoken.)
This is dialect dependent. In SE Louisiana:
salmon, salve - the vowel is /æ/
calf, calve, half, and halve - the vowel is a diphthong, /eə/
shall - the vowel is /ɛ/. For us, “shall” and “shell” are homophones.