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Living in California, I have recently noticed an interesting feature about the West Coast (especially Californian) American English dialect, I am unaware if this occurs anywhere else in the U.S.

The phoneme /ʟ/ commonly occurs as an allophone of /l/, especially when next to a velar consonant. It seems that the very common allophone /ɫ/ is starting to entirely lose its alveolar articulation and just becoming velar.

Just thought it would be fun to share, have any other Americans noticed this?

I'm from the West Coast, but I haven't noticed this as a particular feature of the region's accents. I'm not particularly phonetically knowledgeable or observant, though. Nevertheless, I think in the "How do you pronounce" thread, people not from the West Coast, like Travis, have mentioned non-coronal realizations of /l/. If I remember correctly, Travis transcribes it as [ɰ] when it's not adjacent to a rounded vowel, and [w] when it is adjacent to a rounded vowel, or something like that. (See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39850&p=948552#p948552)

I don't think l-vocalization and similar changes like the one that you mention are localized to one particular area of the US.

Sumelic wrote:I'm from the West Coast, but I haven't noticed this as a particular feature of the region's accents. I'm not particularly phonetically knowledgeable or observant, though. Nevertheless, I think in the "How do you pronounce" thread, people not from the West Coast, like Travis, have mentioned non-coronal realizations of /l/. If I remember correctly, Travis transcribes it as [ɰ] when it's not adjacent to a rounded vowel, and [w] when it is adjacent to a rounded vowel, or something like that. (See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39850&p=948552#p948552)

I don't think l-vocalization and similar changes like the one that you mention are localized to one particular area of the US.

That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

cabinet_cat wrote:That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Keep in mind the French did it in certain circumstances, the Ukrainians did it in certain position, some Allemannians did it and some Bulgerians are doing it right now. We're not alone

cabinet_cat wrote:

Sumelic wrote:I'm from the West Coast, but I haven't noticed this as a particular feature of the region's accents. I'm not particularly phonetically knowledgeable or observant, though. Nevertheless, I think in the "How do you pronounce" thread, people not from the West Coast, like Travis, have mentioned non-coronal realizations of /l/. If I remember correctly, Travis transcribes it as [ɰ] when it's not adjacent to a rounded vowel, and [w] when it is adjacent to a rounded vowel, or something like that. (See this thread: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39850&p=948552#p948552)

I don't think l-vocalization and similar changes like the one that you mention are localized to one particular area of the US.

That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Here in southeastern Wisconsin l-vocalization is pretty much the norm (i.e. it is not disordered speech), with l-vocalization (as anything from [ɰ w] to [ɤ̯ o̯] depending on environment, position, and carefulness) only not occurring in carefully-enunciated stressed onsets or when geminate (e.g. in really in careful speech), and then it is realized as [ʟ̞]. I remember that the first thing I would notice about how people talked when I would come back to visit from the DC area, when I was living out there, to Milwaukee was that everyone was l-vocalizing all the time.

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:

cabinet_cat wrote:That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Keep in mind the French did it in certain circumstances, the Ukrainians did it in certain position, some Allemannians did it and some Bulgerians are doing it right now. We're not alone

Also remember that English and Scots-speakers also did l-vocalization/elision at one time historically (walk, talk, stalk, balk, calm, palm, alms, almond, falcon, etc.), even though in many varieties it has been at least partially reversed by spelling pronunciation.

viewtopic.php?p=853030#p853030

In this thread one person describes the shift even occurring in the syllable onset, thus not restricted to coda. To the original poster: would you say that you have the clear allophone even in words like "play"?

I also remember someone posting an audio clip of a woman on Idaho who had a similar sound all over the place even in words like "slave" and I think, "land". Which would make it almost 100 percent.... no link, though, I tried searching and all I found was me saying there had once been a clip.
Also, that clip was defined as "uvular r".

Travis B. wrote:

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:

cabinet_cat wrote:That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Keep in mind the French did it in certain circumstances, the Ukrainians did it in certain position, some Allemannians did it and some Bulgerians are doing it right now. We're not alone

Also remember that English and Scots-speakers also did l-vocalization/elision at one time historically (walk, talk, stalk, balk, calm, palm, alms, almond, falcon, etc.), even though in many varieties it has been at least partially reversed by spelling pronunciation.

Also, lower-class southern English have been doing it for ages ("milk" as "miowk"), and it's the sort of thing (along with t-glottalisation and th-fronting) that to some extent can happen for a lot of even middle-class people. [it's traditionally a feature of Cockney, but has, in less absolute form, spread beyond that].

When I was learning to speak as a child, for a while my parents noticed I would vocalise /l/ in coda positions, and they assumed I would stop doing it once I got a little older. That never happened. Funnily enough, my mother once told me I used to vocalise these /l/'s as a kid when I was in high school, and I had to point out to her that I stil did that. She'd got used to it to the extend she didn't even notice anymore. Luckily for me, it's just an ongoing sound change in Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands, and becoming common to the point of being the norm in many places. It's typically pronounced like something I would impressionistically characterise as ranging from [w] to [ɔ̯], and /əl/ typically comes out as [ɔw]

So a few examples would be
<veel> /vel/ [fɪːw]
<balk> /bɑlk/ [bɑɔ̯k]~[bɑwk]
<lepel> /ˈlepəl/ [ˈɫeɪpɔw]

Salmoneus wrote:

Travis B. wrote:

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:

cabinet_cat wrote:That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Keep in mind the French did it in certain circumstances, the Ukrainians did it in certain position, some Allemannians did it and some Bulgerians are doing it right now. We're not alone

Also remember that English and Scots-speakers also did l-vocalization/elision at one time historically (walk, talk, stalk, balk, calm, palm, alms, almond, falcon, etc.), even though in many varieties it has been at least partially reversed by spelling pronunciation.

Also, lower-class southern English have been doing it for ages ("milk" as "miowk"), and it's the sort of thing (along with t-glottalisation and th-fronting) that to some extent can happen for a lot of even middle-class people. [it's traditionally a feature of Cockney, but has, in less absolute form, spread beyond that].

Is that more generalized (as is l-vocalization in the English here) than the change I mentioned above to historical /alk/ and /alm/, to which l-vocalization in Standard English is limited?

Grunnen wrote:When I was learning to speak as a child, for a while my parents noticed I would vocalise /l/ in coda positions, and they assumed I would stop doing it once I got a little older. That never happened. Funnily enough, my mother once told me I used to vocalise these /l/'s as a kid when I was in high school, and I had to point out to her that I stil did that. She'd got used to it to the extend she didn't even notice anymore. Luckily for me, it's just an ongoing sound change in Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands, and becoming common to the point of being the norm in many places. It's typically pronounced like something I would impressionistically characterise as ranging from [w] to [ɔ̯], and /əl/ typically comes out as [ɔw]

So a few examples would be
<veel> /vel/ [fɪːw]
<balk> /bɑlk/ [bɑɔ̯k]~[bɑwk]
<lepel> /ˈlepəl/ [ˈɫeɪpɔw]

Now that I think about it, I've seen L vocalization occur especially in Australian and New Zealand English, I think mostly when l is in the final position? I am not too knowledgeable about this however, as prior to this thread I knew nothing about this topic. I suppose it is more common than I thought.

One other note is that it seems, not only from my variety of English but from what I have heard others say, that coda /l/ commonly results in further back allophones of preceding vowels than those vowels normally would be, e.g. here /oʊ u/, while being back vowels, are still a bit centralized, and are only fully backed when followed by /l/; this way I can hear a difference between [oʊ]¹ from /oʊ/ and [oʊ]² from /oʊl/, because [oʊ]¹ is slightly centralized while [oʊ]² is not. (Note that while I personally tend towards monophthongal realizations of /oʊ/ even finally, many people here have diphthongs for it in final positions.)

Travis B. wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:

Travis B. wrote:

ˈd̪ʲɛ.gɔ kɾuˑl̪ wrote:

cabinet_cat wrote:That's really interesting, but I could only imagine those allophones occurring in disorderly speech, but it's not entirely impossible seeing how, for example, polish /ɫ/ became /w/

Keep in mind the French did it in certain circumstances, the Ukrainians did it in certain position, some Allemannians did it and some Bulgerians are doing it right now. We're not alone

Also remember that English and Scots-speakers also did l-vocalization/elision at one time historically (walk, talk, stalk, balk, calm, palm, alms, almond, falcon, etc.), even though in many varieties it has been at least partially reversed by spelling pronunciation.

Also, lower-class southern English have been doing it for ages ("milk" as "miowk"), and it's the sort of thing (along with t-glottalisation and th-fronting) that to some extent can happen for a lot of even middle-class people. [it's traditionally a feature of Cockney, but has, in less absolute form, spread beyond that].

Is that more generalized (as is l-vocalization in the English here) than the change I mentioned above to historical /alk/ and /alm/, to which l-vocalization in Standard English is limited?

Absolutely. I think it's all /l/ in pre-consonant position (milk, etc), and all /l/ in codas of unstressed syllables (medal, etc).

I occasionally hear [ɰ] or [ʁ] for /l/ out here, but it's not at all a common sound change. People who have [ʁ] for /l/ (e.g. Tom Brokaw, I think) have it there in all positions.

Nortaneous wrote:I occasionally hear [ɰ] or [ʁ] for /l/ out here, but it's not at all a common sound change. People who have [ʁ] for /l/ (e.g. Tom Brokaw, I think) have it there in all positions.

[ʁ] for /l/ sure would confuse me, since [ʁ] for me is /r/, and contrasts with [ɰ].

Travis B. wrote:[ʁ] for /l/ sure would confuse me, since [ʁ] for me is /r/, and contrasts with [ɰ].

You have [ʁ] for /r/ when speaking English?

mèþru wrote:

Travis B. wrote:[ʁ] for /l/ sure would confuse me, since [ʁ] for me is /r/, and contrasts with [ɰ].

You have [ʁ] for /r/ when speaking English?

You haven't seen him talking about how he pronounces stuff in English before?

mèþru wrote:

Travis B. wrote:[ʁ] for /l/ sure would confuse me, since [ʁ] for me is /r/, and contrasts with [ɰ].

You have [ʁ] for /r/ when speaking English?

In many positions, yes, I have a uvular approximant for /r/, with the exceptions of that word-initially it is labialized too, that after coronals it also has postalveolar articulation, and that in codas it is sporadically epiglottalized. In vocabulary that NAE-speakers would likely be more familiar with, it is a sort of bunched /r/, albeit one that has lost coronal articulation except after another coronal.

I should note that it doesn't really sound any different from the normal postalveolar /r/ in NAE except I probably labialize it in less environments than most people, except when I epiglottalize it, but that is only sporadic and only in codas in most cases.

Travis B. wrote:

Nortaneous wrote:I occasionally hear [ɰ] or [ʁ] for /l/ out here, but it's not at all a common sound change. People who have [ʁ] for /l/ (e.g. Tom Brokaw, I think) have it there in all positions.

[ʁ] for /l/ sure would confuse me, since [ʁ] for me is /r/, and contrasts with [ɰ].

There's a Youtube video somewhere of Tom Brokaw talking about how badghy Donaghd Trump is breaking the ghaw. The ghaw is very important, you see. We have rughe of ghaw. Ghaw ghaw ghaw.

I would love if you or anyone else here could find that video. I wasn't able to find it using any of the obvious query strings.

in my variety of American English, I have father/bother/cot/caught all with the same vowel, and talk/walk/stalk are pronounced with the same /a/ as father (tock/wok/stock), with no remnants of the /l/ present in the spelling. My father was horrified to learn that I did not pronounce the /l/ in talk/walk/stalk. Being from Colorado, where pretty much all accents (except chicano) are imported, there is not much consistency. I do pronounce the /l/ in caulk to distinguish it from cock when it is isolated. I say "caulk the gap with the cocking gun". My fathert's heritage was from Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas; my mother's was from Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming. I'm sorry they have both passed, otherwise I would be able to ask them about their pronunciation.

I'm from Texas but moved here when I was just under seven years old from St. Louis, Missouri. I was born in Cleveland. I pronounce all those words exactly the same way you do. (Well, okay, I'm a little weird about "father" since I'm always tempted to front the first vowel in that word so it's more like [aː], probably due not to substrate influence from Indian languages but rather to all those "Learn X in 30 Days" books from India where they'd say [aː] was pronounced "like the 'a' in 'father'," but other than that...).

Oh, and I forgot palm/balm/psalm/calm: I do pronounce the /l/ in those words, and the /a/ is pronounced the same as father/bother/cot/caught/walk/stalk. I do not pronounce the /l/ in calf/calves/half/halves, but do in valve. calf/calves/half/halves/valve all have the /a/ as /æ/.

garysk wrote:in my variety of American English, I have father/bother/cot/caught all with the same vowel, and talk/walk/stalk are pronounced with the same /a/ as father (tock/wok/stock), with no remnants of the /l/ present in the spelling. My father was horrified to learn that I did not pronounce the /l/ in talk/walk/stalk.

Who pronounces the l in talk/walk/stalk (in American English)? The AHD has them all as /ɔk/, which is how I say them. I don't have the cot/caught merger, so I don't merge cock /kak/ and caulk /kɔk/.

Likewise, putting an l in half/calf would seem odd to me, and the dictionary agrees.

But I'm with you on the -alm words— for me they're /ɔlm/, at least emphasized. In rapid speech they might well be /ɔm/.