I'm working on a research idea related to the mispronunciation of some Arabic words such as "Islam" and "Assalam" by native speakers of English. I noticed that these two words in particular are often mispronounced, especially the syllable -lam which is pronounced as /lɑm/ as explained above instead of /læm/ as in "lamb" which is the closest English equivalent to the native speaker of Arabic's pronunciation of this syllable.
Therefore, I'm trying to trace the syllable /lɑm/ in English to see if it actually exists in the English phonological inventory.
So far I found these results on urbandictionary.com.
Lom http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lom
Lam http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=lam
Plom http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Plom
UPDATE 11/11/2015: I have found more examples, "llama," "lama (a Buddhist priest of Tibet or Mongolia)," and "Lombard".
Thanks in advance for your help :)
We wouldn't use dark /l/ in that position in English (only in coda position). But I can't answer the vowel part of the question.
Thanks for your answer, Carrie. I definitely needed a reminder of the rule for dark /l/. That was very useful.
As you see above I added that "I have found more examples, "llama," "lama (a Buddhist priest of Tibet or Mongolia)," and "Lombard"" including the syllable /lɑm/. I'm getting the impression that this syllable is foreign to English since the examples I could find so far are mainly of foreign words or slang terms that seem to be based on foreign words.
I do realize I need to be specific as to which vowel I'm talking about, especially that in the examples above, e.g. "lam" has a light /l/ and actually I found it is a homophone to "lamb". Also, "plom" is slang and only partially fits the syllable in question. As to "Lom" and "Lombard", I think the vowel sound for "o" would probably be different from that for "a" in "car" for many native speakers, at least of American English.
So, I will be rereading on dark and light /l/ and their environments and what vowels would follow a dark /l/ should it ever be in an onset position. I'm thinking it would be more helpful to you and anyone who would like to help if I shared links to YouTube videos where I heard that mispronunciation of "Islam" and "Assalam", especially the /lɑm/ syllable.
Thanks again and please add in more answers if you have the time.
There are a number of intersecting phonological and sociolinguistic issues going on here. Americans subconsciously perceive words with /æ/ as 'American' and words with /ɑ/ foreign. Since 'Islam' is 'foreign' Americans would tend to think the pronunciation with /æ/ is wrong, and perhaps either disrespectful, or analogous to saying 'Eye-rack' for 'Iraq'. The clear vs. dark /l/ stuff is more complex. The textbooks say the distribution in American English is governed by syllable structure, but I think there may be some stress effects as well--there's a secondary stress on the first syllable. This is off the top of my head--I'll think about this some more, but I'm fairly sure I can come up with some other examples of the same vowel pattern.
Thanks a lot, Stephen and Geoffrey. Your comments are really useful. I'm realizing that the /l/ I'm talking about here is velarized /l/ and not dark /l/. I think I'm a little confused about both of them because light /l/ in American English and also British English (the way I percieve them) are darker than /l/ in Arabic.
I think in Arabic we generally do not have dark and light /l/. Rather, we have velarized and non-velarized /l/. In Fus'ha (standard Arabic), the latter is more common, especially in Qur'anic Arabic in the method (of recitation) of Hafs, which is the most common method of recitation used in Saudi Arabia and Egypt among other Muslim countries.
I found this video on how to pronounce "Muslum"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S156xs5ogVQ
I'd love to hear comments not only on the tips/ steps to pronounce "Muslim" but also on the comments made by viewers of the video.
Thank you :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S156xs5ogVQ
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