살 and 쌀 are the same word
this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
6 points (100.0% liked)
Linguistics Humor
1253 readers
1 users here now
Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it
For serious linguistics content: !linguistics@mander.xyz
Rules:
- 1- Stay on Topic
Post about linguistics or language humor & memes - 2- No Racism/Violence
- 3- No Public Shaming No shaming someone that could be identifiable or recognizable
- 4- Avoid spam and duplicates
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I don't get it. A little more context would be appreciated. Are they pronounced the same or mean the same or both?
They aren't the same.
살 /sal/ "meat" is pronounced with [sʰ]. It's roughly like the "ssh" in "grasshopper".
쌀 /s͈al/ "uncooked rice" uses [s͈] instead. It's a "tense" consonant; if I got it right the main difference is faucalised voice, you're supposed to lower the larynx a bit while speaking it.
Since the difference yields different words, they're a minimal pair so they aren't allophones but different phonemes. If you speak Korean (I don't) the difference between those two is on the same level as the one between English "bot" vs. "pot", or between "bit" and "beet". However since the contrast isn't common out there they sound similar for non-speakers, and I think this to be what OP is trying to convey.
Oh it's so hard sometimes to get these differences because one just... doesn't get it. Doesn't have experience of the difference.
In Finnish vowel length matters a lot, and when there are non-native speakers, it's painfully obvious, as that's something that's hard to "get right" if you haven't been exposed to the difference since you were a kid.
It's probably a somewhat subjective feeling of mine, but I'm pretty sure it's easier to pass as a native speaker of English to English native speakers than it would be to do the same for Finnish. Similarly I'd have a lot of trouble learning the tonal and other minor differences in lots of Asian languages as Finnish or English or any other language I speak doesn't really utilise them as much. So I'm "deaf" to them. For now.
Regarding difference in vowel length... Use a machine translator of your choice and translate these two phrases from Finnish to your mother tongue:
Safe travels!
Haha. Nice one.
Especially because getting the vowels right is usually pretty challenging to like, English speakers.