Learn English – Does anywhere else add an ‘L’ to words ending in a vowel sound

dialectspronunciationregional

When I was six I moved from Manchester (northwestern England) to Bath (southwestern England). I was baffled to hear my school mates describe the 'aerials' they lived in.

Fast forward many years and I live in Bristol (10 miles from Bath). I find now that sometimes I add 'L's to words ending in vowel sounds, involuntarily! Because that's how Bristolians (and Bathonians) speak (although they didn't always – the city name, originally was Brycgstow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bristol)).

I'm wondering whether anywhere else routinely adds an 'L', or any other letter for that matter, to words ending with a vowel sound.

Best Answer

I personally have never heard an l added to the end of most vowel sounds -I live in the United States-, but I have a friend who, when a syllable ends with a "w", will then add an L. This often makes the W have an "ah" sound and I suppose it could then phonetically be considered a vowel. For example, when he says draw or drawing, he pronounces it as "drawl" or "drawling". I assume that it may be because of an accent although I'm not really sure because I have noticed some of his other family members do the same thing.

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Learn English – How does one pronounce words ending in “‑ae”

I'm listing the English words ending with -ae and formed as the plural of a word in -a of Latin origin. I found in the New Oxford American Dictionary (by alphabetical order):

word          American English        British English
---------------------------------------------------------
algae         -dʒi or -gaɪ            -dʒiː or -giː
alumnae       -mnaɪ or -mni           -niː   
amoebae       -bi                     -biː    
antennae      -ni or -naɪ             -niː 
axillae       -li or -laɪ             -liː 
ballistae     -sti or -staɪ           -stiː   
branchiae     -kii or -kaɪ            -kiiː                  
bursae        -si or -saɪ             -siː              
catenae       -ni or -naɪ             -niː               
drachmae      -mi or -maɪ             -miː                
exuviae       -vii or -viaɪ           -viiː

I stopped there, but it appears clear that:

There is a rather general rule, i.e. most of them are pronounced either -i (rhymes with tea) or -aɪ (rhymes with cry).
There is a US/UK difference, with British English favouring the -i form, ending in long i (same as tea, again).
You can do no wrong if you go with the ending —i (short for US English, long for British English)

Learn English – Where did “sorry” get its vowel sound

The words you list all contain what is called an "intervocalic /r/". As danorton mentioned in his answer, in Received Pronunciation an "o" preceding an intervocalic "r" is pronounced as /ɒ/ (like the "o" in "lot" or "orange"). This pronunciation also occurs in Boston, USA. In Canada, the "o" is pronounced /ɔ/ (as in "cord"). In much of the mid-Atlantic (e.g., New York, Philadelphia, and the Carolinas), the "o" is pronounced /ɑ/ (as in "card"). In the remainder of the US, the pronunciation varies between /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ depending on the word. The words you gave as examples are usually pronounced with /ɑ/, whereas words like "horrible", "origin", and "Florida" are usually pronounced with /ɔ/.

In conclusion, this phenomenon varies by dialect. It is also related to the "horse–hoarse merger," in which the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ are merged when preceding an /r/, thus making words like horse/hoarse, for/four, war/wore, or/oar, morning/mourning, &c., homophones.

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Learn English – How does one pronounce words ending in “‑ae”

Learn English – Where did “sorry” get its vowel sound

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