Salt

I pronounce "salt" as ["sQ:5t]. As far as the UK is concerned, I've read that both /"sQlt/ and /"sO:lt/ are used. Interestingly enough, the Cambridge Online Dictionary ( http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ) gives only /"sQlt/ for the UK pronunciation, whereas the Longman Dictionary ( http://www.ldoceonline.com/ ) gives only /"sO:lt/ for the UK pronunciation. Go figure. ;-)

<<Does the sequence /Al/ even exist in c-c unmerged accents?>>

Definitely. Although some Americans, like Travis, merge most historic cases of /Al/ into /Ol/, a more conservative c-c-unmerged dialect (like New York) would have a whole bunch of worlds with /Al/, like "collar", "doll", "Molly", "follow", "hollow". In fact most American dictionaries, like m-w.com, list /Al/ as the primary or only pronunciation for these words.

The L after a vowel is a strange thing as I have 3 possible pronunciations for "salt":

1. /sOlt/ (same vowel as "hot")

2. /so:lt/ or /solt/ (rhymes with "all")

3. /sOult/ (diphthong rhymes with "soul")

I usually pronounce it as the latter, /sOult/, but some claim it should be as 2 to rhyme with "all".

Australian English here.

>>Definitely. Although some Americans, like Travis, merge most historic cases of /Al/ into /Ol/, a more conservative c-c-unmerged dialect (like New York) would have a whole bunch of worlds with /Al/, like "collar", "doll", "Molly", "follow", "hollow". In fact most American dictionaries, like m-w.com, list /Al/ as the primary or only pronunciation for these words.<<

Actually, what I said applies only to closed syllables, and then only to historical (that is, Early New English) /al/. I definitely have cases of /al/ in closed syllables, but they are not from historical /al/ but rather from historical /Ql/ thanks to the father-bother merger, loanwords and recent coinages aside. Even then, though, said cases of /al/ are not normally realized as [aM] but rather [AM] or [QU] in practice.

Oh, okay.

salt [sAlt] for me

A hard one to explain. In my very bad Estuary English (south east England – Essex) it is pronounced ‘sawt’ and is very close to how we say sort. The L in salt is not heard and likewise the r in sort is rarely emphasised. In fact salt and sort both sound the same, which when thinking about it, is not good.

I think that happens (the silent L) in a lot of accents besides Estuary.