The Silent L in Salmon Was Added on Purpose
Salmon is a fish famous for returning to its birth river to spawn. The l in the spelling was inserted by scholars and has never been pronounced.
Salmon is a large fish that hatches in fresh water, grows at sea and returns to spawn. English inherited the word from French as *samoun*, with no l at all. Scholars later inserted one to make the spelling resemble the Latin *salmo* — and nobody has ever pronounced it. The same tidy-minded habit gave us the b in *debt* and the s in *island*.
- The fish. *Wild Atlantic salmon.*
- The flesh as food. *Smoked salmon.*
- A pinkish-orange colour. *A salmon shirt.*
- Salmon ladder — a stepped structure that lets fish climb a dam. *They built a salmon ladder.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | salmon | One salmon. |
| Plural | salmon | Three salmon. |
| Adjective | salmon | Salmon pink. |
| Latin | salmo | Salmo salar. |
| Related | spawn | They spawn upstream. |
- The salmon run begins in late summer.The migration.
- We caught four salmon, not four salmons.The plural is unchanged.
- She wore a salmon jacket.The colour.
Letters added to English spellings by scholars
- Salmon — l added to echo Latin *salmo*
- Debt — b added to echo Latin *debitum*
- Island — s added by false analogy with *isle*
- Doubt — b added to echo Latin *dubitare*
- Receipt — p added to echo Latin *recepta*
Old French *saumon*, from Latin *salmo*. Middle English wrote *samoun*; the silent l was reinserted in the 1400s and 1500s during a fashion for making English spellings look classical.
Why is the l in salmon silent?
Because it was never spoken. Scribes added it to the spelling to match the Latin form long after the pronunciation had settled.
What is the plural of salmon?
Salmon. Salmons appears occasionally when talking about different species, but the unchanged plural is standard.