film=fillum

[sagehen]

>>There aren't many words with /lm/ --which is a pretty marginal cluster
>>in English (elm is often ellum, too).  A lot of the dialects that gave
>>birth to American English--Scots and Southwestern English for two,
>>disallow this cluster.  We inherited that, so we, like those dialects,
>>break the cluster up by inserting a vowel in between.  The same dialects
>>also tend to disallow /ln/ as in kiln, > kill.
>
>Is this epenthesis /lm/ > /l at m/ really universal in Scots, even at the end
>of a monosyllable? My little "Concise Scots Dictionary" doesn't show it (it
>does show "kiln"/"kill"/"kell" /kIl/), and at a glance neither does the SND.
>
>It is said that this is common in Irish English too. Several such
>epentheses are conventional in Gaelic according to my limited
>understanding, which might could influence Scots and Irish English, and I
>suppose maybe Southwestern English might be influenced by Cornish in
>parallel fashion?
>
>If some US-ans ("we" in the above) inherited this from Scots etc., why
>didn't I, or most of my US-an acquaintances? Is it regional in the US?
>
>-- Doug Wilson
~~~~~~~~~~
Elwy Yost, longtime host of TVOntario's "Saturday Night at the Movies,"
always said "fillum," which suggests a Welsh connection also.
A. Murie


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