Contrary to reports this week, you are pronouncing Adele's name correctly – just not in her dialect.
During a Q&A session last week to celebrate the premiere of the video for “I Drink Wine,” the singer praised a fan in London who “said my name perfectly!”
Turns out, Adele pronounces the “l” in her name as a “w,” which is a feature of Cockney English known as dark L-vocalization. So, she is saying "uh-dehw." (A professor of linguistics explaind to iHeartRadio.ca that North American English does not have this combination of sounds – which caused some media outlets to erroneously report that she is pronouncing her name "uh-dale.")
The name Adele derives from the German word adel, which means “noble," and according to the International Phonetic Alphabet, it is typically pronounced “/əˈdɛl/" ("ah-dell").
The 34-year-old superstar, who was born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins in London to an English mother and Welsh father, previously said she could never have used her full name because it “does not have the same ring as Adele” and sounds “drab.”
Adele is set to launch her Las Vegas residency on Nov. 18 after pulling the plug on it back in January only one day before the first show.