Why<s> people don't</s> pronounce the letter L in the word palm? -->

Why don't people pronounce the letter L in the word palm?

Palm, calm, half and calf are all common words which follow the same pattern.

Chalk, talk and walk follow another pattern.

Could, should and would are another set.

As you can see, silent 'l's are common in English.

By the way, La Liseuse makes a great point (I have no idea why she got a downvote — thumbs-up from me). It’s important to use inversion in asking questions. Pronouncing the L in “palm” or “calm” won’t cause any problems, but if you cannot form a direct question in the simple present, no one will ever know when you’re asking a question. Big problem.

I think it depends on the country, as well as the region of the country. I'm American, and I pronounce the "L" in palm, as well as in psalm, calm, alms, the name Palmer, and balm (as in lip balm).

Actually, a good question would be “why doesn’t English update the spelling of words to conform to the current pronunciation?” Let’s just say the English speakers like using the traditional, etymological spelling, even hundreds of years after the sound has changed. Chinese, on the other hand, is written in characters, so even thought the pronunciation has changed radically, the “spelling” hasn’t much at all. If you saw a phonetic transcription of Classical Chinese, all the silent letters would blow your mind.

I don’t know; it just got dropped at some point. Other examples: Calm*, balm*, psalm* (the P is also silent), salmon.

Note: Some Americans pronounce the L in the above mentioned words these days. This is a “spelling pronunciation”, and, in my opinion, wrong. But, who knows, maybe the standard will change in the coming decades.

Note that the L is also silent (with all speakers) in words like: Walk**, talk**, could, should, would.  (The L in "could" was never ever pronounced; it's just there by analogy with "should" and "would".)

*The A is a broad-A.

**The A is an open-O.