[KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer

Werner Sasse werner_sasse at hotmail.com
Thu Feb 27 23:16:48 EST 2014


Dear Clark,
thank you for the interesting observations, I will try to talk all this over with colleagues once I am back in Korea.

One hesitation: your example of "교회 might more accurately be transcribed kyöhö," actually makes me suspicious again. Maybe my "German /ö/" may be after all much more front and much more open than the /ö/ you heard in "kyöhö". I have heard this also, probably a kind of regressive assimilation of the in normal speech pretty open and less rounded last syllable /외/, which is quite different from the "German /ö/".

Another question: While you " never heard a clear example of 위 pronounced as ü", did you hear an /i/ {ee}? And if you did, in which surrounding?.

Anyway, Thanks again
Werner
 

> Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:27:19 -0800
> From: sangok at u.washington.edu
> To: koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com
> Subject: Re: [KS]	Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer
> 
> Werner,
> 
> The pronunciation of 외국 사람 as ö:guk saram was not accompanied by a glide, and, as I have indicated in the transcription was clearly pronounced as a long vowel. This was the village head calling in my residential registration to the township police. His speech was slow and clear, and I have the impression that the village head perceived this to be a prestige pronunciation. The example of 교회 might more accurately be transcribed kyöhö, and I heard it in rapid very dialectical speech (that I barely understood) from a women whom I conversed with on a rural road. I have never heard a clear example of 위 pronounced as ü, however.
> 
> As long as we're talking dialect, the part of Kangwon Province that I was in was about 25 km southwest of Ch'unch'ŏn, and thus within the central dialect region that includes Seoul (though there was enough distance from Seoul speech that it took me several months to catch on to the dialect). The east coast of Kangwŏn Province, of course, is in an entirely different dialect region (more like Kyŏngsang dialect). Villagers in the area around Ch'unch'ŏn would tell me that they could not understand that dialect.
> 
> Clark Sorensen
> 
> On Wed, 26 Feb 2014, Werner Sasse wrote:
> 
> > Hi Bob,
> > thanks, yours is the second posting with Kangwon-do coming in, so there must be something here.
> > But again, I wished somebody tested whether the Kangwon-do [ö] is really close to the German  [ö]. There are a lot of
> > possible variations in the Umlaut, and when I say In do not hear it, I am not referring to "similar" but to "same"...
> > Thank you for pointing out Young-Key Kim-Renaud, I will look into that when I am back in Korea
> > Best wishes
> > Your Werner
> > 
> > ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> > From: ramsey at umd.edu
> > To: koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com
> > Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2014 03:04:15 +0000
> > Subject: Re: [KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer
> > 
> > Hey Werner!
> > Great to hear you chime in.  Yes, I did do a lot of listening to Lee Sung Nyong back in the day.  But that was
> > admittedly a long time ago.  The person I know who most clearly uses [ö] in his speech is Lee Iksop.  (He and I talk
> > to each other pretty frequently.)  Now, it's true (as you probably know) that though he's lived much of life in Seoul,
> > he's originally from 강원, which means he's not completely representative of the Seoul standard. But he's also a
> > phonologist, and he assures me that the umlaut pronunciations do represent actual pronunciations in the old Seoul
> > standard, at least in certain phonological environments.  (Young-Key Kim-Renaud, who is a native of Seoul and a
> > phonologist, has described the realizations of those vowels in more detail in her recent book, but I don't have that
> > handy right now.) 
> > 
> > I hope you're having fun in India!
> > Bob
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > From: Werner Sasse <werner_sasse at hotmail.com>
> > Reply-To: Korean List <koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com>
> > Date: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 1:32 PM
> > To: Korean List <koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com>
> > Subject: Re: [KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer
> > 
> > Hi, Bob,
> > this starts to be really interesting. 
> > 
> > > You're certainly right that we don't hear 외 pronounced as [ö], or 위 as [ü], very often today, at least not in
> > Seoul.
> > Well really, I never hear the German [ö], or  [ü], only in discussions with linguists who also speak German well.
> > There is always a slight glide in what I hear. I wished, someone would make decent research based on electronic
> > recordings.
> > However, when I was teaching German in the late 60ies, one of the biggest problems was that the students (coming from
> > all over Korea) had a hard time trying to get even near the pronunciation and were simply unable to make it a habit.
> > 
> > > But in the past the vowels were certainly described as having those phonetic values, just as Martin says.
> > Yes: "described", and by linguists, who were looking for standards... I am sorry, but here is really my suspicion: I
> > do not trust the books as long as I cannot hear it in the street. (Please, I know this is dangerous, as I am not
> > basing my suspicion on research, but my exposure to Korean spans almost 50 years now, and even if I know that
> > prejudices can last long...)
> > 
> > > The ROK government document 표준바름범 'Standard Pronunciation' published in 1989 informs us that the umlaut
> > > pronunciations are standard, which means that the authors of the document must have been taking the speech of older
> > Seoul
> > > natives (think of Lee Sung Nyong) as the model
> > Here we go again: "government document 표준바름범 'Standard Pronunciation' "... Linguists, of course...
> > And now: " which means that the authors of the document must have been taking the speech of older Seoul
> > natives (think of Lee Sung Nyong) as the model." Well, you talked with him much more often than I ever did, but did he
> > really use  the German [ö], or  [ü]? It did not strike me (but then, that was not really the question on my mind when
> > I talked to him)
> > 
> > o.k. I may all be wrong. But I am glad that my somewhat flippant remark starts such an interesting discussion on the
> > question of  how much in our descriptions is biased because of our training which makes us see and hear things
> > pre-patterned .
> > 
> > Another question in this respect is: How much is the regular 이/가 opposition of today the result of school grammar
> > (again: the linguists). The few prose texts from the 19th century I saw do present chaos (is 가 possibly emphatic?)
> > Ooooch...
> > 
> > I am in India at the moment: I hope it is not that the sun is too hot...,
> > best wishes, and I hope we have a chance to meet again soon
> > Your Werner
> > 
> > > From: ramsey at umd.edu
> > > To: koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com
> > > Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:00:38 +0000
> > > Subject: Re: [KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer
> > >
> > > You're certainly right that we don't hear 외 pronounced as [ö], or 위 as [ü], very often today, at least not in
> > Seoul. But in the past the vowels were certainly described as having those phonetic values, just as Martin says. The
> > ROK government document 표준바름범 'Standard Pronunciation' published in 1989 informs us that the umlaut
> > pronunciations are standard, which means that the authors of the document must have been taking the speech of older
> > Seoul natives (think of Lee Sung Nyong) as the model. Cf. Lee and Ramsey, "The Korean Language" (2000), page 64.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Bob Ramsey
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Koreanstudies [mailto:koreanstudies-bounces at koreanstudies.com] On Behalf Of Otfried Cheong
> > > Sent: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 1:57 AM
> > > To: Korean Studies Discussion List
> > > Subject: Re: [KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 24/02/14 13:38, Werner Sasse wrote:
> > > > Right you are. Reminds me of Korean scholars in "Germanistik", who try
> > > > to convince me that Korean 외 is identical with German /ö/ : The
> > > > linguist's need or wish to make a rule, which sometimes is overriding
> > > > simple observation, a not uncommon occupational disease amongst us
> > > > scholars (and not only linguists)
> > >
> > > I have been wondering about this for a long time. When I first learnt Korean, I had some tapes that turned out to
> > have been recorded a long time ago, possibly in the 1950's (with example sentences like "This towel costs 23 Won").
> > >
> > > One of the speakers on those tapes systematically pronounced 외 as /ö/
> > > and 위 as /ü/. If I remember right, the textbook explained that this
> > > pronunciation was a valid variant used by some speakers.
> > >
> > > I have met two (unrelated) senior Professor Choi's, who both told me that their name is properly pronounced /chö/,
> > even though they did not seem to use the /ö/ variant in their own speech.
> > >
> > > Samuel Martin's "A reference grammar of Korean" (my copy was published in 1992) describes /외/ on page 24 as the
> > front rounded mid vowel, that is /ö/. However, he says that "in standard Seoul speech 외 is not distinguished from
> > 웨", and "many speakers tend to pronounce 위 as a long monophthong /ü/ rather than the more common diphthong".
> > >
> > > I personally do not remember meeting a Korean who used the monophthong variants, and when I ask younger Koreans
> > about this, they are completely baffled. They never heard about this variant, and have no idea why Goethe is spelled
> > 괴테.
> > >
> > > When I point out to them that adding 이 to 아 and 어 moves the vowel from the back to the front of the mouth, and
> > that the logical generalization would be for 외 and 위 to be fronted 오 and 우's, they agree (with surprise) that
> > Hangul is inconsistent - but they still can't accept the variant as correct Korean, or think of anyone who speaks like
> > that.
> > >
> > > When did this variant fall out of usage? Or has it always been a regional variant? Is it still alive somewhere?
> > >
> > > Best wishes,
> > > Otfried Cheong
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > 
> >
 		 	   		  
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