but it seems that many centuries ago, the French word was indeed with an R, like the Spanish. Not anymore, though. Either way, it's bizarre - not just the L pronounced as R, but the way the two Os are ignored and it sounds like 'kernel' more than anything else. Even by the standards of the English language, that's an unusual pronunciation compared to how it's spelled, and it's not as if it even resembles the pronunciation in those languages which do/did use the spelling with an R...