Why is Colonel spelt the way it is?

Question

If is sounds like Kernel shouldn't it be spelt like that?

Answer 1

Actually, the English words originally WAS spelled with an "r", matching its pronunciation--both of these were borrowed from the Romance languages (Spanish & Middle French). It was only later, through the influence of Modern French that the spelling was changed to "l".

Here's what happened:

1) The earlier name for this officer was "colonnello", a form found in Old Italian and going back to Latin for "line commander" (through "colonna", meaning "line" from Latin "columna" [cf. "column"]; the Latin name of the officer was columnellus).

2) In Spain, around 1505 (under King Ferdinand), we find an altered form of this word -- "coronel" (which is STILL the Spanish word for "colonel").

How this Spanish form came about is explained as either

a) it was deliberately created/altered to mark the person as an officer of the "crown", i.e., the king (Spanish for "crown" is "corona"); some say this came from confusion about the word's origins
http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/triv4-5i.htm

OR
b) it was just an example of "dissimilation" -- a natural sound change in which one of two similar or identical sounds in the same word changes.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/alike1.html

Shifts of one L in a word to R in Latin and Romance languages are well-known (we see it, for instance, in the adjective ending -al, which becomes -al after words ending with L; thus we have "orbit" > "orbital" but "module" > "modular".. just try saying "modulal" and you'll understand why it was changed!)
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=225168
http://cspeech.ucd.ie/~fred/teaching/oldcourses/phonetics/rules1.html

(My take --very likely, "coronel" came about by dissimilation, and was THEN re-interpreted [not invented] as related to "crown")

3) By 1538 the English are using the word "coronel", borrowed either directly from the Spanish, or from Middle French. By a slight shortening of the vowels (a common enough change) it soon is pronounced /kern'l/. This continues to be THE pronunciation in English.

Meanwhile, the FRENCH shifted BACK to the original "colonel"
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-col1.htm

4) Later (in the 17th century) the form "colonel" was borrowed from Modern French. This was apparently an effort to go back and get the "correct" etymological form. For a time BOTH written forms -- "coronel" and "colonel" -- are found in English, but eventually in the 19th century the pedants who do this succeed in establishing the "correct spelling" as "colonel". BUT they do NOT succeed in getting people to change from the established English pronunciation /kern'l/.

Answer 2

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RE:
Why is Colonel spelt the way it is?
If is sounds like Kernel shouldn't it be spelt like that?

Answer 3

How Do You Spell Colonel

Answer 4

Good question. How about WED NES DAY? or BE A U TI FUL?

There is a reason the English language is the hardest to learn. We take a little from lots of other languages. Too hard to keep track of all the rules. You have to learn all the origins. Even that will not cover everything.

Answer 5

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English has many words that we pronounce much differently than we spell, as you know. Often a word is not spelled phonetically because it was borrowed from another language--English is good at that. Sometimes in Old or Middle English all the letters were pronounced, but gradually language evolution took over and we dropped or changed some of the sounds. (Compare the "gh" pronunciation of "laugh" and "though.") The evolution of "colonel" was more convoluted. The following explanation is from "The Online Etymology Dictionary." "1540s, coronell, from M.Fr. coronel (16c.), modified by dissimilation from It. colonnella "commander of a column of soldiers at the head of a regiment," from compagna colonella "little column company," from L. columna "pillar" (see hill). English spelling modified 1580s in learned writing to conform with the Italian form (via translations of Italian military manuals), and pronunciations with "r" and "l" coexisted 17c.-18c., but the earlier pronunciation prevailed. Sp. coronel, from Italian, shows a similar evolution by dissimilation."

Answer 6

Its spelt the French way and pronounced the German way. English is a complete mish-mash of different languages.

Answer 7

Etymology: alteration of coronel, from Middle French, modification of Old Italian colonnello column of soldiers, colonel, diminutive of colonna column, from Latin columna

Answer 8

It comes from the italian word Collonella which means the commander of a column.

Answer 9

it has French and Latin influences. it came from the Latin, colonello which comes from colonna, column of soldiers. So the colonello probably led a column of soldiers. Then the French took it and made it coronel.

Se we took the French pronunciation and the latin spelling.

Answer 10

Don't know but spelt is 'spelled' this way