Wikipedia talk:IPA for Korean

Tense diacritic

Since  ͈ doesn't show up on my (and possibly many others') IE display, maybe we should immitate its graphical equivalent. If it's a "subscript double straight quotation mark" does that mean that ◌͈ is ◌_" ? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

No, because the latter doesn't place as a diacritic. It should be under the letter. There are other symbols which have been used for this, but they're all counter-intuitive.

We should fix the IE problem if we can. It looks fine when I toggle to IE display (within FF), so maybe it's just a matter of needing to have a font installed which has this symbol. kwami (talk) 21:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure it's a font issue. I'm just concerned that many people who look at Wikipedia don't have the right font. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Me too. I just don't know what to do about it. There's a danger of catering to the lowest common denominator, in that we could retain a legacy of compromised data long after the fonts and browsers are no longer an issue. I can't imagine it'll be too long before IE has proper font support, for example (though that's not the issue here). E.g., if a user hasn't installed full font support in his OS, he might not be able to see hangul at all. kwami (talk) 22:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's another possibility, the ExtIPA symbol for faucalized voice, [^Ħ]. However, besides being obscure and a pain to typeset, it isn't very intuitive. kwami (talk) 08:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Vowels

The vowels must have different notes! --Kjoonlee 22:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Different how? Also, I reverted your latest edits, as it mixed up aspiration of the stops. kwami (talk) 22:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

에 is most certainly not a diphthong like the one in "main". The main Korean vowels all have very flat formants. And about aspiration.. the English examples used aspiration in them. In Korean aspiration is a distinctive feature, so I wanted to point out that final unreleased stops didn't have any aspiration in them. --Kjoonlee 22:54, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps we should say "similar to" the vowel in main. It really is the closest approximation and a number of English speakers pronounce this as a monophthong. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:44, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried that with "main", but I just can't do the same with "moan". Maybe descriptions from Help:IPA would be better. --Kjoonlee 08:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

shore? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:48, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

That's a start, but in my accent "shore" is definitely diphthongal as well, if you get what I mean. There is a shift in the formants. --Kjoonlee 11:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

More is also a much lower vowel than Korean /o/, which is almost as high as English moon. kwami (talk) 16:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Well I made this suggestion when I looked at the vowel charts at Korean phonology. Depending on dialect, the vowel in more is mid to open-mid; in Korean, depending on length, this vowel is mid to close-mid. I'd say that's the closest we're going to get to an approximation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:51, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The vowel 'a' as in 'saw' might be better example than the 'o' (and the 'r') of the word 'more'.75.27.242.177 (talk) 03:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)hchung

Except that it's a low vowel for many speakers (including myself). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Plain, aspirated, tense

Hi, Korean has a distinction between plain, aspirated and tense stops.

• Plain is neither aspirated nor tense.
• Aspiration is like in English "pin."
• English "spin" sounds tense to Korean ears.

Thus I strongly object to the use of English words like "spar / star / scar" to denote anything other than tense stops. --Kjoonlee 22:57, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, but the t in at is frequently aspirated, so it's not a good equivalent of Korean tenuis [t]. kwami (talk) 23:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I was a bit worried about that. --Kjoonlee 23:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could give examples from Spanish?

Or for [p], maybe napping rather than nap? kwami (talk) 23:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

But in my British accent napping is aspirated as well. Maybe Spanish or French might be better. --Kjoonlee 23:07, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Really? I though it was almost universal that there was no aspiration in positions like that. kwami (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

In my case it still counts as "start of syllable" and requires aspiration; so napping, written (if I don't use a glottal stop), retail and booking all have aspiration. I speak mostly RP. --Kjoonlee 23:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I always thought "rilly?" and "napping" (with the same p as in "spin") were American traits, the same way I thought "fingernells" was Canadian. Anyway... I'd say napping would definately be aspirated in RP. --Kjoonlee 23:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Hm. Is the ambisyllabicity in napping also American? That's the aspiration rule I've seen: Syllable-initial stops are aspiration, which excludes ambisyllabic stops. kwami (talk) 17:35, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out the note about sibilants at Help:IPA chart for Polish. Our "notes" description doesn't have to illustrate all contrasts with English examples and an explanatory note could suffice. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

linked

This chart can now be transcluded through {{IPA-ko}}. kwami (talk) 06:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

correct /n/, please

Given that //tɕoŋlo// is pronounced /tɕoŋno/, our description of /n/ would appear to be wrong. But the claim that both ㄹㄴ and ㄴㄹ may be /ll/ has stood for some time without correction. Can someone elucidate? kwami (talk) 07:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I think ㄹㄴ and ㄴㄹ can both be /ll/, at least regionally. I pronounce 물난리 "watery disaster; flooding" as /mullalli/, and 선릉 is either seolleung or seonneung depending on speaker. --Kjoonlee 02:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

선로 will be a better example (since 선릉 is a place name with a funny reading), which is definitely ll. --Kjoonlee 03:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Alignment of layout

Kwami, can you be more clear why you reverted alignment of the layout in this help page? −Woodstone (talk) 21:30, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I never saw your question. kwami (talk) 08:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Question

Can someone check Seung-Hui Cho? Is Hui really pronounced [ɣi]? kwami (talk) 08:25, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Vowels

Is this reflective of how this template is used on Wikipedia? If so, it should be deprecated since we're trying to stick with one variety that happens to be Standard South Korean pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:24, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Which should we go with? My understanding is that the first is the more common description, but the second the more common pronunciation. kwami (talk) 09:10, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

We can perhaps look at English <ʌ> as a precedent, since it's largely inaccurate for most speakers but is still very common as a transcription symbol. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 10:01, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Dialectology

Could somebody with more knowledge of Hangul than me look over the article on the Jeolla dialect? The transcriptions don't look right to me. For example, the tenuis consonants of Korean have voiced allophones inside of words.

While we're at it, it couldn't hurt to look at the material on other dialects as well (assuming there is any, because there doesn't seem to be much on them, period). Thanks. - AlexanderKaras (talk) 03:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Vowel ɯ versus Approximant ɰ

Ahn & Iverson 2007 mention a new diphthong, /ɯi/. Is there a reference for using a voiced velar approximant for the diphthong instead?

Here is the Ahn & Iverson 2007 citation:

Ahn, S., & Iverson, G. K. (2007). Structured Imbalances in the Emergence of the Korean Vowel System. Historical Linguistics 2005: Selected papers from the 17th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Madison, Wisconsin, 31 July - 5 August 2005 (pp. 275-293). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Retrieved 28 December 2010 from http://www.uwm.edu/~iverson/kordiph.pdf Flexlingie (talk) 20:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

In parallel with the other diphthongs, we should transcribe the diphthongs with approximants to make clear which element is prominant. Based on the source you've provided, it seems like we should transcribe it as [ɯj]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:52, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't you mean [ɯi]? /j/ is part of the on-glide diphthongs.Flexlingie (talk) 21:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

I see what you mean. [ɯi] may be best, then. Are there any other falling diphthongs in Korean? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't believe so. That's the only one I've seen in my research. The others start with /w/ or /j/.Flexlingie (talk) 23:03, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Flexlingie, the ref you give uses ‹ɨy›, which for us would be ‹ɯj›. There were four articles that used that sequence; check my edits for this time stamp if you wish to review them.

BTW, that seems like an interesting article. Thanks for it. — kwami (talk) 02:08, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I think ‹ɨy› is from 19th century Korean. Page 12 of that document has the Modern Korean diphthongs. This particular one in question is in the third table on the right-hand side of the page. So, I think it should still be [ɯi]. Also, this article lists no off-glides for modern Korean. From the paper, "all of the off-glides of Middle Korean have been lost." Flexlingie (talk) 04:21, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I should have read that more closely. They do say that it is [ɰi], with an on-glide as we had it originally, and that it is "seldom" [ɯj] like it used to be. If we adopt their transcription convention of ‹ɯi›, the reader won't be able to tell whether it has an on-glide, an off-glide, or is a vowel sequence like you get in Japanese. I'll revert my changes.

(They actually have [ɉi], perhaps due to assimilation to the [i], but since that's not accepted IPA, and we already have ‹ɯ› in the chart, perhaps it's best to stick to ‹ɰi›. Either that, or introduce the non-syllabic diacritic just for this one diphthong.) — kwami (talk) 08:25, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm confused - they list the diphthong as ‹ɯi›. Why would ‹ɰi› be used here? I don't see the use of ‹ɰ› in that paper, and I think it makes more sense to use ‹ɯ› since it is also listed as a monophthong.Flexlingie (talk) 17:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Because they say it's an onset, not a syllabic vowel [ɯ]. They're not being precise in their notation, though they do write it ‹ɨ̯i› elsewhere. — kwami (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

OK - I think that makes sense now. I'm curious as to why the authors would not have used ‹ɰ› as well. Cool! Flexlingie (talk) 21:06, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe because they feel that they don't need to be that precise, since they explain the details? Also, ‹ɰ› is an uncommon letter. But they could just write ‹ɯ̯i›, so I don't know. — kwami (talk) 21:31, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Isn't ㅟ still pronounced [y] by some older speakers? This ref seems to back that up, making it contemporaneous with [ø] for ㅚ. We had that in the chart once, but it was deleted as unreferenced. For a basic chart, maybe we should remove both? — kwami (talk) 08:59, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

According to Ahn & Iverson 2007, both of those sounds are now "on-glide diphthongs with w."Flexlingie (talk) 17:05, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Vowel ɯ versus ɨ

I'm now curious as to why ɯ is used as the unrounded counterpart for u? Most all other references I've seen refer to the vowel as ɨ (e.g., Lee & Ramsey 2000; Sohn 1999; Kim 1999; Ahn & Iverson 2007; Yang 1996; Yoon 1996; Yang 1992; Kim 1968). Sohn 1999 describes the sound as a high, back, unrounded vowel (p. 156), so I would tend to agree based on that description that it should be ɯ. However, Ahn & Iverson 2007 describe it as a central vowel. What are your thoughts, and what other references have you found that help clarify this issue? Flexlingie (talk) 02:35, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The IPA Handbook has Korean, and plots the vowels as we have them at Korean phonology. Assuming they're correct, and that they used a representative speaker, that would be a back vowel. — kwami (talk) 08:33, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The Korean wikipedia's :ko:Talk:Korean phonology page has the same discussion as its first topic. I think it's generally agreed to be somewhere between cardinal ɨ and cardinal ɯ, but there's a lot of free variation. Anyway, the symbols represent a single phoneme, regardless of how you write it. --Kjoonlee 13:33, 10 February 2011 (UTC)