Help talk:IPA/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)

Please edit the sound notation of ㅇ. It can be silent, not always sounded.

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)

Chongjin

Bad transcription. I fixed up the consonants, but don't know about vowel length. — kwami (talk) 06:57, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

The current version, 청진시 Cheongjin-si [tɕʰʌŋdʑin ɕʰi], looks fine in terms of the transcription. The vowel is short. However, since it's in North Korea, I've changed it to Korean: 청진시; MR: Ch'ŏngjin-si [tɕʰʌŋdʑin ɕʰi]. — Iceager (talk) 11:10, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

do we want [ɸ]?

Cleaning up the transcriptions, and I've come across a fair number with [ɸ] before [w]. Do we want to transcribe that way, or should 회 just be [hwe]? — kwami (talk) 09:01, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

No, [ɸ] before [u] or [w], like [x] before [ɯ] and [ç] before [i] or [j], would be too narrow a transcription (at least in the current version of the Korean phonology page, they are not even mentioned). It would be very misleading as well, as these optional allophones of /h/ are usually much, much weaker than the sounds in other languages that are described by these symbols. They are usually approximants, not actual fricatives (in Korean, optional fricative pronunciations of /h/ only occur word-initially in emphatic speech for some speakers). In fact, I'm not convinced that an actual fricative [ɸ] occurs at all in natural Korean speech. These allophones simply don't come even close to being notable enough to be used in a general-purpose transcription. If we are transcribing allophones of /h/, it would be much, much more relevant to transcribe [ɦ] between voiced sounds, as this weak (and often dropped) sound is known to throw off learners of Korean. — Iceager (talk) 11:44, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Transcription request

I would appreciate IPA transcriptions for Noh Seung-yul and Bae Sang-moon. _{(suoı̣ʇnqı̣ɹʇuoɔ · ʞlɐʇ)} nɯnuı̣ɥԀ 16:24, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

ɦj

The sounds /ɦ/ and /j/ appear to be absent from this chart, even though they are both used in Park Geun-hye. I assume /ɦ/ is an allophone of /h/, while /j/ simply seems to have been forgotten, hasn't it? MuDavid (talk) 07:28, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

You are correct about /ɦ/, and I have now reverted an unexplained removal of /j/. But your questions have caused me to notice some things we probably want to clear up for the sake of the reader. User:Vindication has been doing great work adding transcriptions for Korean, but the guide currently doesn't account for how sandhi between family and given names can change how they're pronounced together versus separately. It looks like Vindication's solution has been to transcribe them twice, once each way, but this is kind of a messy workaround. I decided to be bold on Park Geun-hye and go with [pak‿k͈ɯn.hje]. The tie bar makes it explicit that the words together have mutated somehow, and if we add it to this guide it would give us a place to add a note about the common sandhi effects throughout Korean. Thoughts? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 18:10, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:17, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

"e" and "ɛ"

What English dialect is being used for the vowels here? The "e" in "set" is claimed to be IPA [e], but it is definitely [ɛ] in both GA and RP - so says Wiktionary, anyway. Wiktionary also refers to "says" as having [ɛ], and "rays" as having [eɪ], which would presumably make it closer to [e]. Perhaps this should be cleared up, somehow? - Franxz (talk) 20:58, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Gapjil pronunciation

Hi. Please add the IPA pronunciation of the word Gapjil in the namesake article. Thanks! Thinker78 (talk) 05:11, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Comparision of RP ʌ and Korean ʌ

Hi, it seems as if users Aeusoes1 and Nardog both have an issue with me trying to make the approximation for the Korean ʌ a bit more accurate to its phonetic sound because I have listened to both this vowel in Korean and the vowel used in RP for words like strut, mud etc. and from what I've listened the sound used for Korean is absolutely NOT the same as the ʌ sound used in RP. Yes the same symbol is used in RP I will admit for traditional/convenience purposes but even though Nardog claimed when reverting my second edit that strut is the same in RP and GA, the symbol in RP actually phonetically represents the Near-open central vowel (ɐ), not the Open-mid back unrounded vowel like Korean and to say otherwise is very misleading in my opinion. The open-mid back unrounded vowel to me sounds a lot closer phonetically to the vowel used in the English words like song or off rather than mud, strut (except perhaps in American English because this vowel is used in some American dialects from what the link from that sound shows) in RP which is why I don't think mud is a very accurate approximation to use here (to me at least as I grew up in England even though I'm off Asian origin). Another reason why I'm interested in changing the approximation is because I've recently listened to the Korean pronunciation of Samsung in some videos (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7anPmip9Xf4) which to my English ears sound a lot like "samsong" rather than "samsahng" as it would in RP and many other English dialects in the south of England which was why I changed the approximation to off before Aeusoes1 reverted it claiming Korean phonology explained it, but when I looked into that article afterwards, I saw no explanation whatsoever to suggest that the vowel is the same as in RP. Due to listening to Koreans pronouncing Samsung, looking for the phonetic sounds in Wikipedia was rather confusing for me because the same IPA ʌ symbol is used in RP and Korean despite the sounds being somewhat different for both and the approximation here stating it sounds like mud in English, now it probably would in some American, South African and a few South East England accents but the sound is completely different to the RP one. I probably would have reverted Nardogs edit if it wasn't for the fact that I attempt to avoid edit wars when possible and because for the most part I do respect other peoples opinions. So I would be very grateful if either Aeusoes1 and Nardog or anyone else can point me in the right direction and if possible, explain to me either why the mud approximation should be kept or if there is another way to change that than what I was doing, many thanks. Broman178 (talk) 05:32, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I pointed to Korean phonology because it has a vowel chart indicating the position of Korean short /ʌ/ to be at or near the cardinal position for that vowel. A cardinal [ʌ] typically sounds like the STRUT vowel to most English speakers. It looks like Nardog has restored off with the logic that some dialects have a rounded pronunciation of this vowel. I'm not 100% behind this reasoning, especially because the vowel of off is variable depending on English dialect, but I can be convinced; I would feel a little more comfortable making this change if it were based on more than just the impressionistic approach of listening to an audio file.

Plus, if it's rounded in some dialects, we might want to mention that somewhere at the Korean phonology page. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:45, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, I can somewhat see your point with the Korean phonology vowel chart however I might point out the the strut vowel in English is also variable because it varies from ʌ, ɐ (the main sound used for strut in most English varieties), ʊ, ɘ, ɜ and a few others depending on the English dialect (e.g. ɐ used in most of Southern England is replaced with ʊ in the northern half of England), and most English transcriptions use the ʌ symbol although for RP and most English phonetic transcriptions, that very symbol actually represents the ɐ vowel phonetically in English rather than the back vowel of ʌ used in Korean. So while I partially agree the Korean ʌ is similar to the English ʌ, its definitely not the same sound at all (unless you count some American, South African English dialects and even in them from what I've looked up, it can be replaced by ɐ phonetically in some cases) which is where I came in to start off with, and I personally feel off, as variable as the vowel may be, is a lot more accurate in my opinion than mud as an approximation for that sound (I'm interested in hearing a response from Nardog on this matter because only if we come to an agreement can this be resolved) and I also do think audio files are important in finding the true approximation for these sounds (I might also point out that in the new Nepali IPA page, off is also used as an approximation for the ʌ back vowel which is also present in Nepali alongside Korean and I used off because the ɐ vowel used for most cases of English strut is present in Nepali as well, so if you were to change it here to strut or mud, you'd have to change it there too to keep the consistency). Broman178 (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

English approximations for /y/ and /ø/

Given that most speakers of Standard Korean do not have front rounded vowels in their phonological inventory anymore, should we keep recommending English /juː/ as in refute as an approximation of /y ~ wi/? The closest mapping for Korean /ø ~ we/ is probably English /wɛ/ as in wet, but the onglide in Korean /y ~ wi/ is a lot more palatal, and it contrasts with /ɰi/. I went ahead and changed the examples to /wiː/ as in tweet, but I’m willing to discuss this further. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stanaita (talk • contribs) 09:05, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

References

Two little bars under geminate consonants

What are the two little bars under the geminate consonants called? Like ɕ͈ 73.118.208.246 (talk) 02:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Aspirated /s/

I remember seeing /s/ formerly represented as /sʰ/ (for example at Seoul), with a useful additional aspiration mark, in line with other Korean aspirated consonants. Is there some reason this is no longer the case? Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 13:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

English dialect thing

"Cool" and 글 in my English dialect is not pronounced the same? to me, it sounds closer, though not exactly the same as 굴 in English. Making me kinda confused here why it's used as an example. Cool as in rhymes with spool, tool, rule, school, etc. I've never heard anyone pronounce 'cool' as keul, unless they were trying to be cutesy. eu [으] is further back in the mouth pronunciation-wise than oo [우] which is front of the mouth.--KimYunmi (talk) 18:40, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

eu and 우 (not strange american oo tho) are at the same place in the mouth, the only difference being that in eu the lips are spread instead of rounded. so in this since the latter is not "front of the mouth" -- but if u talked about american/english oo, it is in fact a more centralized vowel, like a rounded turkish dotless-i.

but, korean eu can also, instead of an unrounded u / japanese u, be a central close vowel, like the russian y in syr (cheese) 91.65.117.153 (talk) 19:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

table of consonants: examples for tense sh

why is the word "guksu" listed as an example for tense SH (and not tense S)? there is no i/y or any other palatal environment which should palatalize the sibilant ? 91.65.117.153 (talk) 19:30, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

example "aga" for the gh-sound

why is the word "aga" (same in Hangeul) used as example for the gh-sound, when the annotations talk about allophones of H ! a word like *ahwa would exhibit the characteristics to surface that sound 91.65.117.153 (talk) 19:50, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

annotations #9 #14 #15

e.g. "ㄱ and ㅋ are [k̚] and RR k at the end of a syllable." all three are phrased the exact same way about k/p/t respectively -- this wording is strange and what is "RR" supposed to mean, no mention on this entire page elsewhere 91.65.117.153 (talk) 19:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

aspirated allophones lack mentioning plain b/d/g

aspiration is a word-initial feature in korean, so at the beginning of words there is no difference in pronunciation between <bul> and <pul>, both a simply "phul" with the sole difference being the pitch of that syllable -- with underlyingly voiced consonants carrying a low tone

also, can we finally get rid of that silly outdated classification no modern papers use anymore? there is no "voiceless" "aspirated" "tense" series, there is simply "(underlying) voiced" "aspirated" and "plain" series -- highlighted by the fact that in the pitch mapping they behave the same as vowel onset and r m n (which even devoice/denasalize since aspiration isnt applicable) at the beginning of words, and by the fact that the "tense" consonants are pronounced like english stops in spin/stone/skin while EVEN deriving from the same environment of (s)p/t/k as showcased in older hangeul that instead of doubling the glyph for the consonant place a s-glyph before it 91.65.117.153 (talk) 20:18, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Derived from?

I'm not very familiar with linguistics. Is it just me or are there a number of different methods for annotating Korean in IPA? Like this website by the National Institute of Korean Language seems to differ from what we do.

I'm currently struggling with getting RS for Hangul#Letters for the IPA transcriptions of Hangul. I've seen different authors transcribe various letters differently.

Is there a reason this page is the way it is? Is it based on any specific sources? grapesurgeon (seefooddiet) (talk) 18:53, 23 September 2025 (UTC)

Update: I've been going through the given sources on the page, and no this is not based on any of the individual sources. I suspect it's mostly OR... Ugh... grapesurgeon (talk) 00:25, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

As a side note, see wikt:Appendix:Korean pronunciation, differs from what is done here and is completely unsourced. Two bits of OR that have raged unchecked for years :/ grapesurgeon (talk) 00:27, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

See also my rant on Talk:Korean phonology#IPA values.

I'm going to give up on fixing all this for now. I have other more visible things to work on and these bits of OR are systemic and have been going on for years, not easy to fix.

Imo the system that's closest to what is currently employed across this page, Hangul, and Korean phonology is the one by Jiyoung Shin, published in Brown, Yeon (2015) and in Shin, Kiaer, Cha (2012). Wikipedians apparently modified it by using ◌͈, instead of * and /ɭ/ instead of /l/. Also the "/y/ ~ /ɥi/" and "/ø/ ~ [we]" I think are possibly unsourced. Also, "/ɛ/" is "/ᴂ/" in Shin's system.

Imo we should just use Shin's system without modification. It's close enough to current practice without all the OR tacked on grapesurgeon (talk) 02:14, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Incorrect information in cite note 19

Cite note 19 of the article states that "When ㅢ is preceded by anything but ㅇ, /ɰi/ is interchangeable with, or completely shifted to /i/." However, according to exception 3 (다만 3.) in article 5 (제5항) of chapter 2 (제2장: 자음과 모음, https://www.korean.go.kr/front/page/pageView.do?page_id=P000098&mn_id=95) of the official pronunciation guide (표준발음법) by the National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원), when ㅢ is preceded by a consonant, it is pronounced as [ㅣ]; that is, when ㅢ is preceded by anything but ㅇ, /ɰi/ is completely shifted to /i/. Wanted to clear this up before editing. 118.38.76.56 (talk) 15:05, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

And just to add a question here, should ㅢ be /ɰi/ or /i/ when giving IPA for names like Yong-hui (Korean: 용희)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AjaxSmack (talk • contribs) 01:27, 26 July 2026 (UTC)

weird transcription...

"ɾ ㄹ [ㄹㅇ] 여드레, 얼음 yeodeure, eoreum Scottish great or American atom" What the? atom sounds like an r? When what t is a liquid? Also most American rs are rhotic, ɹ/, /ɻ/,/ so may be the poorest dialect to pull from. It's a post alveolar ridge r.--KimYunmi (talk) 05:02, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

@KimYunmi: /t/ and /d/ are often tapped/flapped as [ɾ] between vowels in American English, so atom /ˈætəm/ becomes [ˈæɾəm], and latter /ˈlætɚ/ and ladder /ˈlædɚ/ both become [ˈlæɾɚ]. I'm less familiar with the Scottish ⟨r⟩ in great, but the American ⟨r⟩ is broadly /ɹ/, like you said. Snowman304|talk 11:46, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, so I'm saying that "American 'atom'" is not a good linguistic equivalent. /d/ /t/ is a different sound in American English than Korean liquid r. Korean /r/ is a post aveolar ridge r. So it might be better to pull from say a British dialect or a European language all together which has similar liquids to Korean, more than anything in standard US dialects. KimYunmi (talk) 16:54, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

@KimYunmi: Do you have a published source that says that /ɾ/ is post-alveolar, whether that's [ɾ̠] or [ɽ] or something else? The sources I'm looking at consistently use /ɾ/ (e.g., doi:10.1080/23311983.2024.2384708) or /l/ (e.g., doi:10.1017/S0025100300004758; discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1324541/1/1324541.pdf) as the main allophone, with the other as an alternate. I'm seeing [ɭ] as a syllable-final allophone, but that's covered in a different cell of this chart. Snowman304|talk 18:02, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

And none of what you linked is a /d/ but as noted on the article [ɾ̠] that might sound a lot like the American /d/ even though it's argued to be a different sound (within said wiki article noting tongue position on curl). The problem with ㄹ is it changes sound based on 1. position 2. is there are 2 in a row, 3. (I'd argue emotionality as well, as noted more in the research gate paper) none of which the papers you cited seems to go into, with the last one going more into nasalization. (Going over how Koreans, as a Korean, handle scholarship is a pain. So many problems sometimes.) Oddly, language textbooks do go over this linguistic sound change, while linguistic papers don't, which is aggravating.

ㄷ is closer to d/t (softer t) of [American] English, but Koreans don't particularly distinguish the sounds well with it sometimes floating back and forth in normal speech. I've never, ever seen any paper argue that ㄹ sounds like ㄷ, though. There is a noted flattening of ㅐㅔ with contemporary speakers and only people over 40 distinguishing the sounds... but never that ㄹ sounds like ㄷ.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350238620_Phonetic_variation_in_the_Korean_liquid_phoneme

This one says there is more variation between the two sounds listed in common Korean academic papers. As I said, Korean consonants tend to be a little more liquid in natural speech, but the problem with Korean academia is that they often give the "idealized" version of the speech, especially when publishing in English. (It's a beef I have with Korea academia: The narrowing down to the idealized, rather than honoring the range, often to lock out outsiders. I'd argue, though no one will post papers about it, for example, that the ㄹ in Jeolla saturi tends to *also* have some rolled sounds to it in natural speech, especially under emotional stress, but Korean linguistic papers are entirely unwilling to note anything beyond gross sound changes between Seoulmal and saturi. Meh, half of my relatives are from Jeolla... I definitely hear it in a natural Jeolla speaker versus a Seoul speaker trying to imitate Jeolla saturi. It's one of the ways I catch Seoul actors...)

(Not a reliable source, but a demonstration)

Tiktok

https://www.tiktok.com/@korean_summer/video/7625305758321708295

You can hear the Youtuber use both sounds for ㄹ here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIQyW1nSgS0 despite saying it's (l with the loop, sorry can't type it...)

ㄹㄹ== more of an /l/ sound.ㄴㄹ, as noted, also produces an /l/ sound.

ㄹ "traditionally" when taught sounds something like /ɾ/ [ɾ̠], there was a phoneme shift as well between Middle Korean and Contemporary/Modern Korean in initial position and something like /l/ in final position.

But as noted in the previous paper, the "ideal" version of ㄹ in language learning classes and in linguistics versus the reality... the range is much wider than the Korean papers are willing to admit in public.

BTW, I would, personally also argue this for ㅂㄷㄱ as well, where the "ideal" doesn't meet the cultural linguistic reality of dialectal behavior and everyday use. (None of the papers you cited cited cross sections of the mouth during natural speech, but more gave specific phrases to the only Seoul participants and used wave forms, rather than examined the phonemes themselves.) It's sometimes like a /l/~/ɾ/ or floating sometimes to [ɾ̠] (much like the ㄷ floats a bit in natural speech between d~t, but linguistic papers from Koreans aren't going to list that). TT When I speak Korean American Korean and am precise in the US, I don't get flagged as much. But in SK I do until I relax it. So I know it's a thing. (Linguistic papers need to catch those variations though)

BTW, noted here is a sound shift in nasalization of ㄹ between Middle and current Korean: https://journal.kci.go.kr/koreall/archive/articleView?artiId=ART002268223 Neither here nor there, but might be useful to note.

Either way there is no way a ㄹ is going to sound like a /d/ or a soft /t/ due to how the tongue curls and the clear differentiation between ㄹ and ㄷ. So I stand with the idea of using a different dialect of English /r/ instead. American English does not have to be mentioned to make the linguistic sounds legitimate in the article. (Another weakness of Korean academia is deferring to SAE and also not recognizing that US English has some weird diphthongs in natural speech that do match Korean sounds.) KimYunmi (talk) 14:45, 10 June 2026 (UTC)