Re: laterals (was: Pharingials, /l/ vs. /r/ in Southeast Asia)

On Fri, 13 Feb 2004, Trebor Jung wrote:

> Merhaba!
>
> And wrote:
>
> > "lj, though, is a different story. As far as I can tell, it is just
> > disappearing over time, so that hardly anybody nowadays would say
> > /slju:/ for 'slew' (the noun, not the verb), while no young person is
> > likely to say 'lure' with a /lj/ (ergo I myself am no longer Young).
> > That's word-initial /lj/; I haven't tried asking people how they say
> > 'curlew'."
>
> Don't some British people say [&ljumInI@m] for 'aluminum'? And what
> about 'million', /mIlj@n/?
As And said, he was talking about word-initially. And in fact, this
discussion is limited to before long u, because as you point out, million
(and onion) has the /j/ for everyone. As for Al, in Britain, Australia,
and probably the rest of the civilised world :P, it's _aluminium_, with
two Is, and pronounced rougly as you say. Probably a combination of stress
on syllable before and not being word-initial. Similar things happen with
words like 'assume', 'presume'; while my dialect lost the /j/ in 'suit'
plenty long ago, in assume and presume, the /j/ state long enough to
become /S/ and /Z/.

--
Tristan.

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