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I'm interested in how everybody pronounces their L's. (A velar L is made in the back
of the throat and an alveolar L is made in the front of the mouth, with the tongue
touching the alveolar ridge behind the teeth.)
- The standard British pronunciation is alveolar at the beginning of syllables and
velar at the end - in the word "loll", the first L is alveolar and the second one
is velar. Cockneys vocalize the velar L, pronouncing "milk" as "miwk" for instance.
A similar evolution occurred in Polish, where the velar L (marked by a horizontal
line) is now pronounced as an English W.
- I pronounce all my L's velar, and I think this is the most common pronunciation
in the US. However, I think there are areas, such as Appalachia (?), where people
may pronounce L's the British way.
- I've read that there are some people in Ireland (and maybe elsewhere) who pronounce
all their L's alveolar.
That said, are you: alveolar-velar (standard British), alveolar-vocalic (Cockneyesque),
velar-velar (most Americans), or alveolar-alveolar?
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I have trouble with that sound, especially when preceeded by an R.
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I think I pronounce all my "L"', velar too. I vocalize this too I think... how can
one not? Or is the definition of vocalic different?
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I myself always pronounce /l/ as being velar, one way or another, and also I make
it syllabic, which is probably what you mean by vocalic, very often in many different
contexts, especially when word-final, after a vowel.
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Tiffany and Travis:
I didn't make myself clear. By "vocalic" I meant that you turn the L into a pure
W, like when a Cockney says "miwk" instead of "milk".
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So unless you live in the London area, you probably don't vocalize your L's.
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Ok, the "l" sounds like an "l" in "milk"
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Okay, so I don't normally vocalize /l/, except in some limited contexts, such as
when it is followed by /w/, which it will assimilate to, becoming /w/ itself. At
least such is so in the general pronunciation of "Milwaukee" that I'm used to, which
is either /mI"wOki/ (--> [mI."wO.ki]) or simply /"mwOki/ (--> ["mwO.ki]), which shows
such assimilation quite strongly, as well as outright elision of /I/ in one version
of it.
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So have I got this right:
alveolar l (clear l): the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge behind the
teeth, but the back of the tongue isn't raised towards the velum.
velar l (dark l): the tip of the tongue touches the alveolar ridge AND the back of
the tongue is raised towards the velum to form a narrowing
vocalized l: the back of the tongue is raised towards the velum but the tip of the
tongue DOESN'T touch the alveolar ridge (= /w/)
So at least the vocalized l should be easy to distinguish: if the tip of your tongue
doesn't touch the alveolar ridge when you say these words for example: hell, nelly,
lap, girl.. then your /l/s are vocalized
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A "clear l" is just [l], that is, a voiced alveolar lateral approximant, a "dark
l" is [5], that is, a voiced velarized alveolar lateral approximant, and a "vocalized
l" is just [w], that is, a voiced labiovelar approximant. [w] has a labial element
which [5] lacks, and is not lateral, unlike [5]. Mind you that I don't think that
alveolar ridge is necessarily directly touched, even though it may be, in [5], but
I think that the velum /is/ touched, or at least gotten close to.
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I think my normal /l/ may be slightly velarized in some cases but I still mark it
as [l], while using [5] for the appropriate "dark" context because there is a clear
contrast there, [5] being much more velarized--definitely not the same as [l], even
if the latter has some degree of velarization going on. I'm not aware of any cases
where I vocalize [5] to [w] or possibly [o] as in "dark l" words like "milk" (as
in Cockney British English). "milk" is [mE5k] for me unless I'm being more formal
and use [mI5k].
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