What makes the word "colonel" be pronounced as "kernel"?

Answer 1

Buttercup gives a nice thumbnail of what probably happened. To be more long-winded about it --

A few details are unclear but it went something like this:

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 shift BACK to "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/.

In other words, the real shift came from adopting the MODERN French spelling "colonel". (Some have said the English were "messing with the French", but in fact, English grammarians were showing great RESPECT for the French here!)

Answer 2

In modern English, the word Colonel is pronounced similarly to kernel (of grain) as a result of entering the language from Middle French in two competing forms, dissimilated coronel and colonel. The more conservative spelling colonel was favored in written use and eventually became the standard spelling even as it lost out in pronunciation to coronel.

Answer 3

That's just the way the English language is. It would weird to say co-lon-el, so we pronounce it "kernel".

Answer 4

It has to do with how the English and Americans interpreted the French's nasal pronunciation of a word that was *foreign* to them. *Co-lo-nel* doesn't easily roll off our palates.

Answer 5

"his is way of pronunciation for some words.
colonel is kernel
rendezvous is rondewoo
aide-de-camp is aidekong.
we have to pronounce as we are taught. " - Manz

You are incorrect.

aide-de-camp interpreted nasaly in english would be aied-de-co.

rendez-vous = rahnday-voo

Answer 6

this is way of pronunciation for some words.
colonel is kernel
rendezvous is rondewoo
aide-de-camp is aidekong.
we have to pronounce as we are taught.

Answer 7

Coo-pon.