살 and 쌀 are the same word

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyzM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    3 months ago

    If English does not distinguish between the ㅅ in “soft” and the ㅆ in “sun” then wouldn’t we say those distinct consonants are allophones?

    If the sound represented by ㅆ [s͈] even appears in English (I have my doubts), they would be allophones in English, while in Korean they’re distinctive sounds associated with different phonemes. Like, what one language considers allophones doesn’t coincide with what another does, you know?

    And what you posted in the OP proves that they aren’t allophones in Korean, as their difference conveys different words.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.eeOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      3 months ago

      I think you understand what I mean but something about how I wrote it confused you. Would it make more sense if instead of “language” I said “native language”?

      Yes, both ㅅ and ㅆ occur in English, that’s why some English words are represented by one consonant or the other when written in Hangul. Yes, they are allophones in English. Yes, they are NOT allophones in Korean. And, yep! This meme is about how an L1 English speaker struggles to distinguish the two consonants when speaking Korean.

      Does that make sense? I’m not sure which part suggested that they would be allophones in Korean - I guess I assumed too much context >_< The reason it’s so damn hard to learn the difference is partially because the 살/쌀 dichotomy isn’t as well-known to non-natives, I guess.