Re: Describing the Welsh LL to non-linguists

The BBC's newsreaders' pronunciation of /K/ (other than Huw Davies,
who unsurprisingly gets the sound spot on) always sounds like [fl] to
me (cf, Shakespear's Fluellyn, and the name Floyd). I also hear [kl]
and [hl] or [l_0] as well.

Strangely enough, there was a footballer for Arsenal a year or two ago
named Hleb, from Belarus. In Belorussian, his name is /hlEp/ (I think,
my slavic is rusty), but somehow the commentators found the /hl/
impossible. The favourite anglicisations were [kl] and [K], but [pl]
and [fl] were also heard occasionally. So <hl> might be a good
spelling for non-Welsh speakers.

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