If I remember correctly: It was indeed pronounced in medieval English, but between 1400 and 1600, the lateral sound (the „l“), if it was following a dark vowel, underwent a gradual lenization - until it disappeared in spoken Standard English around Shakespeare‘s lifetime.
The orthography, however, remained unchanged.
Yet, there are some English dialects in which you can still (lightly) hear the l after a dark vowel 🙂 It’s just amazing how similar Middle English sounded to German - medieval or modern 😄
Thank you for that info. So much of our language is of Germanic origin. In fact, in looking at the composition of the English I’d venture it’s really three languages” Latin, Gallic, and Germanic.
Consider this sentence in English: “Lets look at the manual and see if we can get a handle on this, if not we’ll call maintenance’’.
Three words, ‘’manual;(’’mano’’) ‘’handle’’(hand) and ‘’maintenance’’.
All three mean the word ‘’hand’’.
In order of language: Latin, Germanic, and Gallic’’.