Lest talk calmly about all these Ls

Roughly from 1600-1725 (most likely even predates that) -al /aɫ/ and -ol /ɔɫ/ underwent changes aka "mutations." 

• Before -f & -v,  L /ɫ/ becomes 'silent' (deleted). Words half and calf are now pronounced as -af /af/ and salve and halve are -av /av/. -olv /ɔɫv/ is exempt, so solve retains /ɫ/. -olf /ɔɫf/ is not always exempt, as the traditional pronunciation of golf was /gɔf/.

• Before m becomes /ɑ:/ and /o:/ as in alms, balm, calm, Holmes and palm.

• Before k, a *coronal consonant or word final -al and -ol were diphthongized to /ɔuɫ/ and /ouɫ/ as in all,  bald, colt, false, folk, malt, roll, sold, talk, and Walsh. 

• *Coronals are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue (s, z, θ, ð (TH), n, t, d to name a few).

• BUT THEN: the combination before -k resulted in a lose of /ɫ/ in most accents. Affecting words like caulk, folk and talk. Words acquired after this change, such as talc, were not affected. Falcon was also historically affected, but in some modern dialects (Most notably American English) it has reacquired the /ɫ/due to spelling.

The re-addition of /ɫ/ into American speech has not stopped with falcon. Words such as calm, (palm, balm etc) also have begun (due to spelling) to be pronounced with L again.

To note, there are still dialects within North American English that do still retain the traditional pronunciation without the L.

Is there are a correlation between this re-addition and the phenomenon of intrusive-l in North American English? More research into this area needs to be done before that answer can be given.

-Нафаня-