# Произношение буквы 'л' в разговорной речи



## b4nny

Is the letter л sometimes pronounced like у in colloquial speech? For example, one time I think I heard someone say "я ходиу", almost like an English w.


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## gvozd

No, never. That particular person just speaks with a burr. The word 'burr' is used for the 'r' sound. Try to imagine the same for 'л' in Russian.


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## Maroseika

Maybe he spoke with Ukrainian or South-Russian accent (Ukrainain - я ходив = Russian я ходил).
Ukrainian "в" is really spelled [ʋ] or [w].


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## Vektus

No, if the person is from Russia, it's just a defect in pronunciation.


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## Enquiring Mind

As a native English speaker, like the original poster, I understand "where he's coming from" (as we so often say now, in other words "the reasons which prompted him to make the statement") on this.  I think it may be to do with the velarised "l" which, to an English native, _can sometimes sound like_ a close approximation of the "w" sound in English, especially if the velar "l" is accompanied, as it usually is, by a rounding of the lips as in the English "w".
There's a previous related thread here.    It may, indeed, have been poor/lazy pronunciation or a speech defect, and I'm not suggesting that the the "l as w" Russian speaker had any connection with Polish - we obviously cannot know.  I do know, however, that in Slovak too there is an a similar-sounding "l" which may, especially in combination with certain vowel sounds, be heard by an English speaker as _something like_ a "w".
Obviously, what we think we "hear" and what the speaker thinks he actually "said" can be very different.  It's highly subjective.


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## Sobakus

To sum it up, pronouncing hard -л as [w] is standard for Belarusian and Polish, a variant for Ukrainian(I mostly hear a fricative [v]), and is considered a pronounciation defect in Russian.


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## Maroseika

Sobakus said:


> To sum it up, pronouncing hard -л as [w] is standard for Belarusian and Polish, a variant for Ukrainian


How is it? In Ukrainian and Belorussian there is just no "л" in the ending of the verbs in the Past Tense (Masc. Sing.). There is "в" or "ў", pronounced more or less like [w]. They do not pronounce "л" like "в", they pronounce [w] in place of Russian л.


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## Russianer

"Л" никогда не произносится как "у" в русском языке. 

Звук У вместо звуков "л" и "в" - это белорусский язык, а также смесь русского с белорусским.. (иногда даже русские говорят в Беларуси "пайшоу" вместо "пошёл", "Махилёу" вместо "Могилёв", "Палыкауския Хутары" вместо "Полыковские Хутора", "косиу Язь конюшину" вместо "косил Ясь клевер..").


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## Syline

What about English dark L? Is it not articulated just the same way as Russian hard Л?


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## Sobakus

Maroseika said:


> How is it? In Ukrainian and Belorussian there is just no "л" in the ending of the verbs in the Past Tense (Masc. Sing.). There is "в" or "ў", pronounced more or less like [w]. They do not pronounce "л" like "в", they pronounce [w] in place of Russian л.


 Uhh, you can just as well say that some Russians don't pronounce л as [w] but pronounce [w] in place of the others' л. But I'm sure any Pole or Belarusian will tell you otherwise, because for them [l] and [w] are a single phoneme, read the thread provided by *Enquiring Mind* if you have doubts. Dropping the etymological spelling doesn't suddenly make it a different phoneme.


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## Sobakus

Syline said:


> What about English dark L? Is it not articulated just the same way as Russian hard Л?


  As I understand it, the dark L is a dialectal variant of the standard L and is indeed pronounced like the Russian one. The funny thing is that in most British dialects it suffers the same vocalisation to [w] that we discuss, and so does the standard English L, especially in the north and in Cockney too.


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## Syline

Russianer said:


> Звук У вместо звуков "л" и "в" - это белорусский язык, а также смесь русского с белорусским.. (иногда даже русские говорят в Беларуси "пайшоу" вместо "пошёл", "Махилёу" вместо "Могилёв", "Палыкауския Хутары" вместо "Полыковские Хутора", "косиу Язь конюшину" вместо "косил Ясь клевер..").


I know that the Polish *ł* sounds like *w*. You can compare Russian *милый* with Polish *miły*.  



Sobakus said:


> As I understand it, the dark L is a dialectal variant of the standard L and is indeed pronounced like the Russian one.


No, it is not a dialectal variant. What do you mean by the standard L? Compare the first L and the second one in the word "little", or L in "light" with L in "milk".


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## Maroseika

Sobakus said:


> Uhh, you can just as well say that some Russians don't pronounce л as [w] but pronounce [w] in place of the others' л. But I'm sure any Pole or Belarusian will tell you otherwise, because for them [l] and [w] are a single phoneme, read the thread provided by *Enquiring Mind* if you have doubts. Dropping the etymological spelling doesn't suddenly make it a different phoneme.



Polish ł tends to be spelled like w in various (all?) positions (although this is rather recent effect, they say 50-60 years only). But in Ukrainian and Belorussian w is in the endings of the verbs for centuries, and there is no tendency to substitute л with w in other places. Or how you think Belorussians pronounce вал, галава or лавелас?


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## Sobakus

Maroseika said:


> Polish ł tends to be spelled like w in various (all?) positions (although this is rather recent effect, they say 50-60 years only). But in Ukrainian and Belorussian w is in the endings of the verbs for centuries, and there is no tendency to substitute л with w in other places. Or how you think Belorussians pronounce вал, галава or лавелас?


Well I can say with certainity that its not only the -л participles: вовк/воўк, the conjunction в/ў/у and other cases of it being in place of the etymological [v]. It also changes to [v] when followed by a vowel, which shows it's not a separate phoneme (not sure if it changes to [l] too). In Polish it's an approximant in all positions.


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## Sobakus

Syline said:


> No, it is not a dialectal variant. What do you mean by the standard L? Compare the first L and the second one in the word "little", or L in "light" with L in "milk".


  Ah, all right, so the dark L is the one that's not followed by a vowel. It indeed is dental like the Russian one is. Thanks for clarification. But apparently a dialectal feature is pronouncing it even before a vowel, this thread suggests.


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## Maroseika

Sobakus said:


> Well I can say with certainity that its not only the -л participles: вовк/воўк, the conjunction в/ў/у and other cases of it being in place of the etymological [v]. It also changes to [v] when followed by a vowel, which shows it's not a separate phoneme (not sure if it changes to [l] too).



Very well, but can it be interpreted like "for them [l] and [w] are a single phoneme"?
Is it that Belorussians do not distinguish them in вал, галава or лавелас?


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## Sobakus

Maroseika said:


> Very well, but can it be interpreted like "for them [l] and [w] are a single phoneme"?
> Is it that Belorussians do not distinguish them in вал, галава or лавелас?


 Yeah well, I guess I'm wrong here. Apparently it's an allophone of В, not Л, even though etymologically it can be either Л or В.


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