Re: CHAT: Korean "double consonants" and all that

On Wed, 8 Nov 2000, Danny Wier wrote:

> Hey, saw your homepage and it's a lot better than mine. (And it's neat
> and simple; I can't stand schmaltzy graphics-heavy webpages; I'm an
> ultra-slow modem and an even slower early Pentium.) Anyway, I'm gonna try
> my hand at learning Korean, and I'm also working on ideas and characters
> for a hybrid fantasy/sci-fi RPG. I was also interested in your mention of
> anime, religion, being born in Texas...
Oh!  You're talking to me.  Couldn't tell for a moment.  :-p  The
relative lack of graphics is due to the fact that my sister and I spent
years on a slow modem and slow computer, even though I'm now on cable
modem.  I *hate* slow-loading pages unless they're artists' sites (in
which, OC, lots of art is only expected!).

I find Korean natural but then I have a *very* dormant L1 advantage.
<sheepish look>  I was interested in rpg's in Texas but couldn't find any
help in where to start; the only one my sister and I had heard of was
xD&D, and when we hit the bookstore (gaming stores being something our
parents were clueless about) we saw this huge variety of AD&D books and
didn't know which one you were supposed to start with.  It took serious
mail-ordering from South Korea and college to get us up to speed....

> I've read two different descriptions of Korean. One said the "double
> consonants" (ssangkiyeok, ssangtikeut, ssangsios etc. -- I like that term
> "double strength") were glottalized (ejective I guess) variants of their
> "single" counterparts -- but the other source specifially described them
> as "tense" and not glottalic! (And the IPA symbols they used included the
> consonant plus an apostrophe. Now I AM confused.) I'll have to listen to
> the sound files, except I have trouble hearing glottalism.
Yes!  I've seen the IPA with the consonant-plus-apostrophe.  I spoke out
hastily thinking that tense and glottalic must be mutually exclusive
terms.  <shaking head>  Yet that website has 'em down as "glottalic."
I've looked for other sources of IPA-for-Korean on the web without much luck.

I can tell the difference between the "double strength" and "regular" and
"aspirated" stops in Korean, but I don't know what glottalized or tense
would sound like in itself.  :-(  In my experience English-speakers have
trouble hearing the difference between "double strength" and "regular."

> So my question is: when does "glottalized" not mean "ejective" (besides
> voiced implosive consonants, of course)?
I'd love to know this, too.  :-(

> Also, if anybody read my description of Quaelitz (I'm thinking of
> changing the name to Q until I come up with a better name , I mentioned
> that North Caucasian "geminates" (I probably should've said "long
[snip[ of interesting stuff which unfortunately I don't understand, due
to lack of phonetics/phonology background]

> I too used to live in Austin, TX, and there was a woman on public access
> who had bible studies in Korean (she mixed some English in there if I
> remember right.) She was from Korean Presbyterian Church in Austin. She
> was using some sound that resembled the pharyngeal fricatives of Arabic.
> Since Korean doesn't have pharyngeal consonants, I'm wondering if either
> that's what she meant by "tense" consonant, or am I hearing a different
> language...
Koreans often mix in English, especially in the U.S.  :-)

I don't know how Arabic sounds--well, I do vaguely from the time my
friend Abby in HS tried to teach me the alphabet (and caught me writing
it left-to-right; I was so ashamed!  I'd even read about it being
right-to-left) and its sounds, since she was fluent from quite a while
spent in Yemen, but I don't know which sounds are in which category.
There were some sounds I couldn't quite get my mouth around but I don't
remember any of them being equivalent to Korean sounds.  OTOH it could've
been "tense" at another stop or something.

YHL