Comments on: Funny Spellings in Old Language

By: Doug 陀愚

Doug 陀愚 — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 07:05:34 +0000

Hi Paul B. Gallagher and welcome to the JKLLR! I really appreciate your input on this, as it helps to explain what exactly was the change (and when).

I’ve amended the post a bit, to better reflect your explanation and give credit where credit is due.

Thanks again.

By: Paul B. Gallagher

Paul B. Gallagher — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:38:44 +0000

P.S. In a form like 좋다, the ㅎ aspirates the ㄷ, so it sounds like 조타, not 조다. You do hear the /h/, indirectly, just as we hear the “h” in “church.”

By: Paul B. Gallagher

Paul B. Gallagher — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 18:35:10 +0000

Korean spelling was originally pretty phonemic (write what you say), but in the 20th century they switched to a morphophonemic approach (try to write roots the same way in all forms). So a root like 좋- has forms like 좋아요 johayo “okay, fine” (the /h/ is hard to hear, especially in rapid speech, but it’s kinda sorta there), which would’ve been written 조하요 under the old system, and 좋겠네 jokhenne “would be good,” which would be written 조켄네 under the old phonemic approach. In the second form, the ㅎ tells you to aspirate the ㄱ to ㅋ, so it really does have an audible effect. In the modern system, the root 좋- is consistently written the same everywhere, which is an aid to recognition.