Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Smee]

[Smee]

[mithridates]

That's easily changed. Persian uses arabic letters but adds an extra stroke on the arabic k to one to show a g pronunciation.

I already made a hangul alphabet last year when I was bored that works just fine with English pronunciation and also stays with the one syllable per character rule.

[Pangit]

That's funny, I always tell everyone, including other foreigners, that IPA is the better alphabet.

As to the faults of Korean:
No f
no v
no z
no real r/l distinction
can't do high, back, short, or open vowels
can't pronounce this, that, thick and thin
always adds schwas everywhere
can't put consonants together
etc.

[Wangja]

[mithridates]

Yep, there was also a double h sound before as well and quite a few others that don't exist in the language today. The only problem would be in making sure that the characters encode properly if new ones have to be made. That's the largest advantage that roman characters have and Korea would have to be sure to provide all the technical support a people would need if they really want to propose it as a viable option. I doubt it will appeal to that many people though. Korea just doesn't seem to have that colonial sort of atmosphere. Maybe they could start with promoting the language here a little bit. Just a thought.

[mithridates]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Something is being over-looked here. Hangul works fine for Korean because it was designed specifically for Korean. If any other language adopts it, it will need to be changed to fit that language. Hmmm...a whole lot like the Western European languages monkey with the Roman alphabet to make it serve their languages.

[Pangit]

Wangja - sorry, I should have specified that I meant "adding schwas everywhere" also meant after final consonants, implying an inability to release them, as you say. They can pull off some of them with a bit of regularity, like m and n, for example.

mith - sorry to say, but whatever alphabet you come up with will probably not remedy the Korean spelling rules of consonant/vowel/consonant, pachim, whatever they call it. It's too deeply ingrained in the language. It would be better for them to learn English as English, and not to transcribe it.

I think, actually, that Roman alphabets have their own limitations. In English, for example, there should be more distinction for th sounds, and whatnot. Also, a lot of letter combinations like ph, I feel, are superfluous.

The bigger picture that we should be looking at is that there is no language aside from IPA that gives a symbol to any sound a human can make, including those African tribal languages with the tongue clicking and glottal noises. Yup, we should all learn IPA and put it into practise. Okay? Okay.

[mithridates]

Pangit: I already came up with the alphabet, and it works fine. I'm not saying that it should be used anywhere, but hangeul can be modified quite easily to fit other languages.

Using the IPA would make it harder to guess at the meaning of words you've never seen before, and there would be the added chore of decididng which pronunciation to give weight to, so that wouldn't work. Would the New York Times have to write coffee as kuofee or however they pronounce it over there? Sometimes it's better to have an alphabet that isn't phoenetic.

[Gwangjuboy]

Many other countries in Asia already have a Romanised alphabet, as well as virtually every country in the Americas, and Europe. (the script varies in Eastern Europe though.) Most importantly, Korea needs to promote its language to foreigners already living in Korea before it can export its alphabet elsewhere. For example, it takes me over an hour to get from my house to the nearest place where I can study Korean. I also recall an article on this site about the Korean government slashing its funding of Korean language courses at Oxford or somewhere.

[Pangit]

mith - I see what you mean with Hangeul. When I first started teaching English here in Korea, I thought it was a good idea to transcribe English into Hangeul. It seemed suitable, for the most part, in representing sounds. For language learning, it is not useful. I noticed that my students weren't learning to read quickly enough and were still making the same mistakes because of the Korean rules of pronunciation. Learning English in English is more efficient.

I understand how you feel about IPA when it comes to sight words. I think, however, that the use of IPA would have a standardizing effect on pronunciation. The New York times would obviously write coffee as kofee because that's how it's pronounced (or at least should be) almost everywhere.

[joe_doufu]

oh boy that article made me laugh on the bus today

[Swiss James]

how do you market a language anyway? Free dipthongs with every packet of biscuits?

[kermo]