why the pronunciation for coronel?
Conversely, the Spanish were also pronouncing it the same way, but with a different etymological origin! The Spanish understood the word âcoronelâ as the officer of the âcrownâ rather than that of the âcolumnâ. It is possible that both the French and the Spanish pronunciation affected the English one. The English had already begun to use the word âcoronelâ, which became bastardized by their accent to be pronounced as âkernelâ, with an open ambiguous ârâ in the middle overshadowing the âoâ.