# Southern accents: Dropping the L in the middle of words **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2012, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987 "2012-08-19T18:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/21 "2012-08-19T23:47:23Z")
L is just R pushed forward and up. Both are very vowel-dependent, almost to the point of being semi-vowels. In some upper-Atlantic accents, R vanishes or becomes a modifier most of the time, so it really is not surprising the L might behave similarly. Spoken language is a balance between intelligibility and convenience (clarity and sloth). If we can trim the edges of precision and still be understood, many or most of us will. Context and melody will often make up the difference for sloppy diction – English is not a tonal language in the same sense as Asian or African language, but tonal inflection does play a major role in conveying meaning. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/22 "2012-08-20T00:05:14Z")
In college, a pretty irritating girl mocked me for how I said “talk,” with the /l/ clearly pronounced. Eventually I got out a dictionary to prove her wrong–only to find that the /l/ isn’t normally pronounced. It was embarrassing, and I changed how I said it. Grew up in mid-NC. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/23 "2012-08-20T01:48:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Where do English-speaking people pronounce the L in “chalk”? Dunno. Here it sounds like chock. > [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > My wife (born in Boston) insists that the “l” in “palm” is silent. I was born in New Jersey, and I insist the “l” is pronounced. I…I honestly can’t tell if the l in palm or calm is voiced or not. I do know that Dragon Naturally Speaking has NO idea what I’m saying when I say either, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/24 "2012-08-20T02:22:34Z")
It’s not that Southerners don’t pronounce L in the middle of the word, it’s just that they overwhelm it with the vowel next to it. Wolf = wOHHHf Gulf = gOHHHf also tAHHHk, chAWWWk, etc. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/25 "2012-08-20T02:34:08Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Dunno. Here it sounds like chock. That’s what I figured. “-alk” words generally rhyme, or very close to it, with “-ock” in MOST North American accents. I’d love to hear a sound file of Ephemera or someone else who says they pronounce the L in talk or chalk. I’ve never heard that before, and hell, I’ve been to Tennessee. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/26 "2012-08-20T02:57:56Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Perhaps the opening scene was in or near Fargo, but the rest was eastern Minnesota. Brainerd is in central, not eastern MN. There are regional differences there too. I was told that the movie was called Fargo, because Brainerd or Detroit Lakes, were not likely to be recognized by our geographically-challenged citizens. I have lived in the Twin Cities all my life and it is not an accent you hear here very often. But I do know people in both MN and ND who speak like this. Much of the sound is a holdover from our scandihoovian language background - call it mock Swedish if you prefer. I have been told that some of the southern lack of the letter “L” pronounciation comes from the Cajun influence; something similar to French where double-Ls are not pronounced. Williams is “We-ums” and suchlike. I don’t know if it is true but that could be an explanation for some of it. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/27 "2012-08-20T13:13:06Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > So it appears L is blending into W, at least in my dialect. > [@tapu](#): > > In my upper appalachian dialect, word-final /l/ has become labialized (ie, more like /w/). I considered naming my son something that had the nickname Cal, but people thot i wwas saying Cow. Grrr. That happens a lot in various languages. There are two /l/ sounds in English, known as clear L and dark L. The way these two sounds pattern in many languages including English is that clear L always comes before a vowel sound, while dark (velarized) L [ɫ] always comes after a vowel and before a consonant or the end of a word. This is how in French the contraction of _a+le_ became _au_. Compare French _auberge_ and Italian _albergo_ (which still has the original L, because there is no dark L in Italian; it’s always clear, even after vowels). Latin \*alba \*\> French _aube_. Latin _camelus_ \> Old French _chamel_ \> French _chameau_ Latin \*follis \*\> Old French _fol_ \> French _fou_, which is a homonym of “fool” in some dialects in English. In Polish, they considered dark L a separate phoneme from clear L, because each of the two sounds can occur either before or after vowels. So in Polish orthography the dark L got distinguished with a slash through it: Ł ł. Except that about 2 centuries ago the pronunciation of Ł shifted to [w]. Łódź is pronounced “Wootch.” So this thread is all about how that [ɫ]\>[w] shift happens in English. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/28 "2012-08-20T13:57:41Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That’s what I figured. “-alk” words generally rhyme, or very close to it, with “-ock” in MOST North American accents. I don’t know about North American, but, in the US, the cot-caught merger (which would govern the vowel in “talk”–whether you say “tawk” or “tock”) is not in the majority of accents. It is a sizable minority, though. For example, in my Great Lakes accent (Chicago), “talk” and “tock” absolutely do not rhyme. (ETA: Actually, it does depend what kind of Chicago accent you have.) As to the OP: I don’t say the “l” in “talk” or “calm,” either. I’ve never heard the “l” pronounced in these words, although apparently people do do it. On the other hand, I pronounce the “l” in “yolk” and “folk,” even though I discovered, at least in the case of “folk,” the dictionary doesn’t even _give_ a pronunciation with the “l” in it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/29 "2012-08-20T14:47:28Z")
Acutally, [here’s the reference I found about the cot-caught merger](http://aschmann.net/AmEng/#CotCaughtMerger). > [@](#): > > You will notice that in the most of the area on this map people pronounce “cot” and “caught” the same, the areas with either single or double hatching. However, much of this area is sparsely populated, so actually the majority of speakers in North America pronounce them differently, probably about 50% more > > […] > > In fact, I have made the calculation, taking the population of all of the states and provinces, and estimating for the mixed states, and there are approximately 220,000,000 speakers for whom cot ≠ caught, and 130,000,000 for whom cot = caught. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/30 "2012-08-20T16:19:50Z")
Whenever these threads come up, we should all keep in mind that people don’t really pronounce _ **any** _ letters at all. Rather, letters are used to represent the sounds that we make, and we make these sounds regardless of how the words are spelled–except in those very rare cases when we’re trying to enunciate an unfamiliar word encountered in print (or if we’re ESL speakers). No one determines how they pronounce a word like _talk_ or _chalk_ by looking at the spelling. We speak these words long before we are able to read them. And so if you’re trying to make an evaluation of how you pronounce a particular word, to look at something in print–especially if you’re playing around with arbitrary variant spellings like “chawk,” etc.–and then just sit there and enunciate the word alone, isolated from the flow of spoken discourse in ordinary circumstances of conversation–is not realistic or helpful at all. If you want to truly evaluate your pronunciation of something honestly, you need to hear yourself speaking it (via recording) _ **without reading it** _, within the play of unselfconscious conversational interaction, when you’re not thinking about pronunciation. Also, to talk about whether (or not) someone “pronounces the L” in a word apparently becomes misleading for some in this thread, because what we’re really talking about is the coloring of the previous vowel. It’s not like there is a distinct and separate sound, even though English spelling conventions might make it appear that way. It’s not like you can pronounce this sound separate from the vowel that precedes it. You can’t pronounce /l/ without a vowel. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/31 "2012-08-20T16:36:01Z")
> [@For You](#): > > Perhaps the opening scene was in or near Fargo, but the rest was eastern Minnesota. The opening scene, in the “King of Clubs” bar where the hapless car salesman arranges to have his wife kidnapped, takes place in Fargo. Says so on the screen, and it’s referred to later by his wife. The remainder of the action taken place in Brainerd (where the first murders take place, drawing in Chief Gunderson) Minneapolis (home of hapless car salesman Jerry Lundegaard) and Moose Lake (the kidnappers’ hideout) which is near Superior. I’ve been to Brainerd. Yup, some people there do talk like that. ---
**Author:** ![tapu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@tapu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tapu)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/32 "2012-08-20T19:45:23Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > That happens a lot in various languages. There are two /l/ sounds in English, known as clear L and dark L. The way these two sounds pattern in many languages including English is that clear L always comes before a vowel sound, while dark (velarized) L [ɫ] always comes after a vowel and before a consonant or the end of a word. > > This is how in French the contraction of _a+le_ became _au_. > Compare French _auberge_ and Italian _albergo_ (which still has the original L, because there is no dark L in Italian; it’s always clear, even after vowels). > Latin \*alba \*\> French _aube_. > Latin _camelus_ \> Old French _chamel_ \> French _chameau_ > Latin \*follis \*\> Old French _fol_ \> French _fou_, which is a homonym of “fool” in some dialects in English. > > In Polish, they considered dark L a separate phoneme from clear L, because each of the two sounds can occur either before or after vowels. So in Polish orthography the dark L got distinguished with a slash through it: Ł ł. Except that about 2 centuries ago the pronunciation of Ł shifted to [w]. Łódź is pronounced “Wootch.” > > So this thread is all about how that [ɫ]\>[w] shift happens in English. I think the general term is frontalization: moving the articulation (of /l/) forward to the lips (buccanization or something like that) to get /w/. The only “reason” I can think of for frontalizing it is that the dental/alveolar articulation is more precise, thus harder, than the buccinated. BTW, I just post for a chance to use these terms and impress everybody. Is it working? ---
**Author:** ![InsomniaMama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ad7895/32.png) [@InsomniaMama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InsomniaMama)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/33 "2012-08-20T21:03:55Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I find it strange that while dropping the L from some words, like bulb, people here in south Georgia pronounce the L in walk, talk, chalk, and… salmon. I’ve spent 40 years trying to get my German parents to stop saying the L in salmon. I keep swearing to myself that I’ll give it up. Good work, tapu. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/34 "2012-08-20T23:06:59Z")
> [@tapu](#): > > BTW, I just post for a chance to use these terms and impress everybody. Is it working? You fit right in here. 😃 Welcome! ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/35 "2012-08-25T19:17:45Z")
I guess I was wrong in that other thread where I said the only silent L I could think of was in “half”. It’s also in all the other AL words that are often unpronounced. It’s the OL words where I say the L. And, yes, I know we don’t actually say letters and all that junk. I don’t see anyone having trouble figuring out what we mean that speaks English. (ESL users would be more knowledgeable, I’d think, since silent letters are one of the unusual things about English that they’d have to master.) ---
**Author:** ![A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a87d85/32.png) [@A\_Dodgy\_Dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/A_Dodgy_Dude)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987/36 "2012-08-26T17:05:01Z")
Vernon Presley was a Mississippian and I heard him pronounce his son’s name as “Evis.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/southern-accents-dropping-the-l-in-the-middle-of-words/631987.md?page=1)