Over the past 40+ years or so, ever since my ear began being “tuned” more finely to pronunciation of words, via various vocal pedagogy studies, foreign language studies, etc., I have noticed a certain class of persons that has a strange pronunciation pattern. Now, this pattern isn’t a regional accent, but occurs in the same class of persons, widely separated by economic, social and educational status, as well as geography. Yet, they all belong to one class of persons (which I won’t identify, since some asshat would then call me a racist).
Examples of the consistent, idiosyncratic pronunciation of certain words by this group of persons:
- children~chirdren (or almost as often, chiwdren)
- million~miwyon
- killed~kihwed
Since this problem with the “l” or “ll” sound seems to be pervasive within this group, despite geography, education or social and economic status, I have begun to wonder if there might not be some genetically influenced predisposition to an inability to accurately hear and reproduce the “l” and “ll” sounds, as they occur in English, in this group. Certainly I do know persons within this general class who are able to hear and reproduce these sounds accurately and do so, but in my experience (which may, of course, not be a truly representative sample, though gathered over 40+ years and exposure to folks in 46 of the 48 contiguous states), they are not the norm.
Just an idle pondering that pops into my head now and then…
Note: I did not attempt to reproduce pronunciation markings as would be found in most linguistic studies or most dictionaries, as I’m not quite sure that most folks really understand those markings nowadays, and besides, making sure they reproduced accurately on all platforms on all browsers may be problematic as well. Or not. On both counts. *heh* If you have no problems with common pronunciation guides, please don’t assume I am being condescending.