American and urban? I've noticed that all a lot of black people in and near cities pronounce the L. I always get a chuckle and they look at me like I'm a pompous British/French general from the 1800s or an idiot that can't pronounce Ls.
Yea I'm finding the bulk of the Vermont accent is just stressing the beginning of words and mumbling the least letter. So lie we kinn a sou liee thihs all the timee. It was pretty jarring moving to Florida after growing up around folks that talked like that.
fun fact: the S in island is completely fucking made up, the original spelling was "iland" with "i" being cognate with "ö" in swedish. It basically means island land and the only reason why there's an S in there is because some shithead thought it was related to the french word "isle" and felt that INCORRECT idea warranted changing the spelling.
Yep. It is indeed. Same with the K in knight, which was added for no fucking reason. Sweden also has an island called Öland which means island land.
"Knight" used to be pronounced with the "K." It was always there, it's not pronouncing it that's new.
"Receipt" is a good example. A silent "P" was shoved in there to make it seem more fancy.
I think what you said is slightly wrong. Island and isle are both English words that seem to have no ethymological connection. However close semantic relation of "isle" might have cause the introduction of the "s" at some point. Isle itself probably comes from latin "insula". The French still have only one word "Île". Germans have "Eiland" and "Insel".
island [OE] Despite their similarity, island has no etymological connection with isle (their resemblance is due to a 16th-century change in the spelling of island under the influence of its semantic neighbour isle). Island comes ultimately from a prehistoric Germanic *aujō, which denoted 'land associated with water,' and was distantly related to Latin aqua 'water'. This passed into Old English as īeg 'island,' which was subsequently compounded with land to form īegland 'island'. By the late Middle English period this had developed to iland, the form which was turned into island. (A diminutive form of Old English īeg, incidentally, has given us eyot 'small island in a river' [OE].)
Isle [13] itself comes via Old French ile from Latin insula (the s is a 15th-century reintroduction from Latin). Other contributions made by insula to English include insular [17], insulate [16], insulin, isolate [via Italian) [18], and peninsula [16].
i-sand... is-and... isund? iand? Ok, I give up, how are you supposed to pronounce it without the L?
etymologically the word is made up of "i" and "land", the "s" was added by some idiot in the 15th century. "i" is cognate with "ö" in swedish which simply means "island", so just pull a power move and drop all the other letters completely.
Swede caveman sailor 1: What that?
Swede caveman sailor 2: is land
Swede caveman sailor 1: ö
...
You're welcome, I've made all of us dumber...
I already do this with the word "solder" which confuses my fellow Americans greatly. They seem to think I'm lying that the L is sounded out in some other English speaking countries.
I just think the American pronunciation (SAW-dur) sounds wrong.
I don't solder, so I'm no expert, but I've only ever heard it pronounced "sodder" (though agreed, leaving out the "l" sound is an odd choice).
It was friends and YouTube content creators from the UK that made me realize that dropping the L isn't done everywhere else. I grew up thinking that it was just one of those English words that break all the pronunciation rules.
That's a lot or a little or a standard amount of years! And, still will be and is if people read or are reading these comments years from now. Or before now.
Out of all the different ways Americans pronounce words differently, hearing sodder is the only one that makes me cringe.
What area of the country are you in? I'm on the West Coast and the normal pronunciation is with the L. Pronunciations often depend on region though
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=ra7Fa6kE718
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
You say that, but there's the anachronistic nautical slang "soger" for an inept or lazy sailor. It came from the soldiers assigned to British navy ships, who did not participate in the sailing of the vessel.
I always find it odd that Americans pronounce it so weirdly, but that's different cultures with different fresh takes on our language I suppose.
I'm in the US and I've never heard anyone pronounce it "SAW-dur" in person or in any form of media. You are supposed to pronounce the L in the General American accent.
If you use Google's word pronunciation tools, both General American and Received Pronunciation pronounce the L in soldier.
Edit: I like the downvotes to all my comments without anyone showing me people pronouncing it that way.
I think this is a misunderstanding. The poster you're replying to is talking about solder, not soldier (which you wrote, assuming that's the word you meant). Solder, as in a soldering iron, is pronounced Saw-dur in the US. Ya dingus 😉
Lmao thank you! This is the comment I was looking for. Calling me out for being stupid and making a mistake instead of downvoting without explanation!
Can you link me a to a clip or a pronunciation source that has someone pronouncing it like that? I've never heard that anywhere in my life. I'm guessing it's a less common accent.
I speak Spanish and it's wild to have no many randomly decided silent letters in words. We have the H that is silent always, and that's it. We have Salmón, with the intonation in the o, and we of course pronounce the L. I can't even say salmon without the L while not sounding stupid.
English took over a lot of French words, originally written and pronounced like the French words, for example saumon (salmon). Then someone decided to go back to how the words were written in Latin (salmo), but they kept pronouncing it more like the French word.
The ultimate blend of multiple languages that are difficult to learn. We shall make it the universal trade language!
(And I know it doesn't have things like tonal shifts)
No me entra en la cabeza que hagan silenciosa la L de salmón.. hasta te diría que me ofende ligeramente esta información.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Geuss I ain't ever gonna pronounce this damn language correctly . You can't blame this on French tho because in that language it's saumon pronounced somon. They didn't drop a consonant in the middle of the word.
The word comes ultimately from the Latin salmon, but we got it by way of French, as we did with so many other food words. The French, as was their wont, had swallowed up the Latin L in their pronunciation, so by the time we English borrowed the word, it was saumon, no L in the spelling and so no L in the pronunciation.
https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-l-in-salmon.html
True, we kept the L, but we got the pronunciation from them.
Pronouncing the word based on how another language says it is strange to say the least. Imagine if train had the same treatment. In French it's a short tr-un instead of English tr-ayn.
Pronouncing the word based on how another language says it
French influence on English is rather unique in this regard. French was the language of the upper class, so an effort was made for English to sound more French when possible.
My favorite example of how this has carried into modern day is the expressions "cordial reception" and "hearty welcome." They both effectively mean the same thing, but the first, which is latin-derived, sounds fancy, while the second, which is germanic-derived, sounds more informal.
I know this but didn't fully apprehend how deep the affect was.
If I ever visit an English speaking country I'll have to remember to say half the words in French to sound very haut class. Lol
It hasn't been this way for hundreds of years, so you'll most likely just confuse people! Unless you're in Canada, maybe.
Sallemonne /s
Edit: Looked it up, the French word is actually "saumon". The L in the English word probably isn't from French.
The word comes ultimately from the Latin salmon, but we got it by way of French, as we did with so many other food words. The French, as was their wont, had swallowed up the Latin L in their pronunciation, so by the time we English borrowed the word, it was saumon, no L in the spelling and so no L in the pronunciation.
https://katherinebarber.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-l-in-salmon.html
So no, the L isn’t, but the pronunciation is.
I think it's optional in "salmonella". I was a biology student in college and heard both pronunciations all the time.
Got a question for you. What's heavier: a kilogramme of salmon or a kilogramme of semen?
Clearly the semen, as it's more dense you can fit more semen in a kilogram than salmon.
/s
Akshully, the density plays its part becase of Archimedes force an atmosphere is applying to an object. The less dense an object is, the lighter it will weight for the same mass. E.g. the air baloon with helium inside will have a mass even higher that an empty one because of added helium mass, yet it may float up thus having a negative weight (in the atmosphere)
You know what? You're absolutely right! We have no future, if climate change doesn't get us in the next 50 years, or the endless crushing of the working classes under late stage capitalism, then the rising new wave of western fascism will when it takes over.
Nothing matters any more, let's just do whatever we want <3
Partly wish I had Twitter in order to commend them on their choice of Frisky Dingo profile pic, but I'd rather pull the pubes off my scrotum one-by-one with tweezers than visit Twitter so it's not going to happen.
Anybody want to DM OP for me? Or get their pubes removed?
While we are at it, the. The t doesn't sound like a t. The h doesn't sound like an h. The e doesn't sound like an e.
None of the letters sound like how they should when looked at individually. I propose we change this. From now on, each letter gets pronounced as itself in the word the.
We used to have a letter for 'th' (thorn (Þ, þ)), but it was replaced by 'th'. There are people trying to bring back, but I wonder if they just like typing þorn (thorn)
As someone who regularly mispronounces this as rhyming with almonds I feel a little attacked
I also say the following wrong: Ikea, Nutella, idea. Somehow my bilingual brain just gives up.