L-vocalization


L-vocalization, in linguistics, is a process by which a lateral approximant sound such as, or, perhaps more often, velarized, is replaced by a vowel or a semivowel.

Types

There are two types of l-vocalization:
Examples of L-vocalization can be found in many West Germanic languages, including English, Scots, Dutch, and some German dialects.

Early Modern English

L-vocalization has occurred, since Early Modern English, in certain -al- and -ol- sequences before coronal or velar consonants, or at the end of a word or morpheme. In those sequences, became and diphthonged to, while became and diphthonged to.
At the end of a word or morpheme, it produced all, ball, call, control, droll, extol, fall, gall, hall, knoll, mall, pall, poll, roll, scroll, small, squall, stall, stroll, swollen, tall, thrall, toll, troll and wall. The word shall did not follow this trend, and remains today.
Before coronal consonants, it produced Alderney, alter, bald, balderdash, bold, cold, false, falter, fold, gold, halt, hold, malt, molten, mould/mold, old, palsy, salt, shoulder, smolder, told, , Walter and wold. As with shall, the word shalt did not follow the trend and remains today.
Before, it produced balk, caulk/calk, chalk, Dundalk, falcon, folk, Polk, stalk, talk, walk and yolk.
Words like fault and vault did not undergo L-vocalization but rather L-restoration. They had previously been L-vocalized independently in Old French and lacked the in Middle English but had it restored by Early Modern English. The word falcon existed simultaneously as homonyms faucon and falcon in Middle English. The word moult/molt never originally had to begin with and instead derived from Middle English mout and related etymologically to mutate; the joined the word intrusively.
L-vocalization established a pattern that would influence the spelling pronunciations of some relatively more recent loanwords like Balt, Malta, polder, waltz and Yalta. It also influenced English spelling reform efforts, explaining the American English mold and molt as opposed to the traditional mould and moult.
However, certain words of more recent origin or coining do not exhibit the change and retain short vowels, including Al, alcohol, bal, Cal, calcium, doll, gal, Hal, mal-, Moll, pal, Poll, Sal, talc, and Val.
While in most circumstances L-vocalization stopped there, it continued in -alk and -olk words, with the disappearing entirely in most accents. The change caused to become, and to become. Even outside Ireland, some of these words have more than one pronunciation that retains the sound, especially in American English where spelling pronunciations caused partial or full reversal of L-vocalization in a handful of cases:
The Great Vowel Shift changed L-vocalized diphthongs to their present pronunciations, with becoming the monophthong, and raising to.
The loss of in words spelt with -alf, -alm, -alve and -olm did not involve L-vocalization in the same sense, but rather the elision of the consonant and usually the compensatory lengthening of the vowel.

Modern English

More extensive L-vocalization is a notable feature of certain dialects of English, including Cockney, Estuary English, New York English, New Zealand English, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia English and Australian English, in which an sound occurring at the end of a word or before a consonant is pronounced as some sort of close back vocoid:, or. The resulting sound may not always be rounded. The precise phonetic quality varies. It can be heard occasionally in the dialect of the English East Midlands, where words ending in -old can be pronounced. KM Petyt noted this feature in the traditional dialect of West Yorkshire but said it has died out. However, in recent decades, l-vocalization has been spreading outwards from London and the south east; John C. Wells argued that it is probable that it will become the standard pronunciation in England over the next one hundred years, which Petyt criticised in a book review.
For some speakers of the General American accent, before may be pronounced as.
In Cockney, Estuary English, New Zealand English and Australian English, l-vocalization can be accompanied by phonemic mergers of vowels before the vocalized, so that real, reel and rill, which are distinct in most dialects of English, are homophones as.
Graham Shorrocks noted extensive L-vocalisation in the dialect of Bolton, Greater Manchester and commented, "many, perhaps, associate such a quality more with Southern dialects, than with Lancashire/Greater Manchester."
In the accent of Bristol, syllabic can be vocalized to, resulting in pronunciations like . By hypercorrection, however, some words originally ending in were given an : the original name of Bristol was Bristow, but this has been altered by hypercorrection to Bristol. In Plymouth l vocalisation is also found but without turning into the Bristol l afterwards.
African-American English dialects may have L-vocalization as well. However, in these dialects, it may be omitted altogether: fool becomes. Some English speakers from San Francisco, particularly those of Asian ancestry, also vocalize or omit.

German

In colloquial varieties of modern standard German, including the northern Missingsch, there is a moderate tendency to vocalise coda into, especially in casual speech. This is commonest before in words like ' or ', which latter then merges with . To a lesser degree, the same may also occur before other dorsals and before labials.
A similar, but far more regular, development exists in many dialects of Austro-Bavarian. Here, etymological in the coda is vocalised into i or y in all cases. Hence, Bavarian vui, Viennese vü, corresponding to standard German viel.
In the Bernese dialect of Swiss German, historical in coda position has become, a historical has become, whereas intervocalic persists. The absence of vocalization was one of the distinctive features of the upper-class variety which is not much spoken anymore. For example, the German name of the city of Biel is pronounced.
This type of vocalization of, such as for Salz, is a phenomenon recently spreading in many Western Swiss German dialects, with the Emmental as centre.

Middle Scots

In early 15th century Middle Scots , and often changed to, and. For example, all changed to aw, colt to cowt, ful to fou and the rare exception hald to haud.

Middle Dutch

In early Middle Dutch,, and merged and vocalised to before a dental consonant :
The combination, which was derived from or through umlaut, was not affected by the change, which resulted in alternations that still survive in modern Dutch:
Ablaut variations of the same root also caused alternations, with some forms preserving the and others losing it:
Analogy has caused it to be restored in some cases, however:
Many speakers of the northern accents of Dutch realize in the syllable coda as a strongly pharyngealized vowel.

Romance languages

French

In pre-Modern French, vocalized to in certain positions:
By another sound change, diphthongs resulting from L-vocalization were simplified to monophthongs:
In early Italian, vocalized between a preceding consonant and a following vowel to : Latin flos > Italian fiore, Latin clavis > Italian chiave.
Neapolitan shows a pattern similar to French, as is vocalized, especially after. For example, vulgar Latin altu > auto; alter > auto; calza > cauzétta. In many areas the vocalized has evolved further into a syllabic, thus àveto, but auto "other" > ato.

Ibero-Romance languages

West Iberian languages such as Spanish and Portuguese had similar changes to those of French, but they were less common: Latin alter became autro and later otro or outro, while caldus remained caldo, and there were also some less regular shifts, like vultur to buitre or abutre.
In Portuguese, historical has become for most Brazilian dialects, and it is common in rural communities of Alto Minho and Madeira. For those dialects, the words mau and mal are homophones and both pronounced as ~, while standard European Portuguese prescribes. The pair is distinguished only by the antonyms.

Slavic languages

South Slavic languages

In Standard Serbo-Croatian, historical in coda position has become and is now so spelled at all times in Serbian and most often in Croatian. For example, the native name of Belgrade is Beograd. However, in some final positions and in nouns only, Croatian keeps archaic spellings stol, vol, sol vs. Serbian sto, vo, so. The archaism of orthography does not apply to adjectives or past participles of verbs, which are the same in Standard Croatian as in Standard Serbian.
In Slovene, historical coda is still spelled as l but almost always pronounced as.
In Bulgarian, young people often pronounce the L of the standard language as, especially in an informal context. For example, pronunciations that could be transcribed as occur instead of standard or .

Polish and Sorbian

In Polish and Sorbian languages, almost all historical have become even in word-initial and inter-vocalic position. For example, mały "small" in both Polish and Sorbian is currently pronounced as . The pronunciation, called :pl:wałczenie|wałczenie in Polish, dates back to the 16th century, first appearing among the lower classes. It was considered an uncultured accent until the mid-20th century, when the stigma gradually began to fade. As of the 21st century, can still be used by some speakers of eastern Polish dialects, especially in Belarus and Lithuania, as well as in Polish-Czech and Polish-Slovak contact dialects in southern Poland.

Ukrainian

In Ukrainian, at the end of a closed syllable, historical has become . For example, the Ukrainian word for "wolf" is вовк as opposed to Russian вoлк.

Uralic languages

Proto-Uralic *l was vocalized to *j in several positions in the Proto-Samoyed language. Several modern Uralic languages also exhibit l-vocalization: