Japchae

[Victor Steinbok]

[Sitting in my mailbox for nearly 36 hours]

JapChe Guevara?

Chapchae seems to be predominant retail and menu spelling here. And by
"here" I mean Boston, NYC and DC. I've seen a few initial j's, however,
but not a lot of vowel alterations. There may be external reasons for
this, however, as a number of Boston Korean restaurants had been started
by "graduates" of two restaurants in Cambridge--I've talked to several
who had been waiters, kitchen staff or even cleaning staff there. But
this is changing, as the number of Korean restaurant in the area expands
(my "survey" was done between 1999 and 2005 and there have been several
new ones opened more recently).

     VS-)

On 1/9/2012 1:54 PM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
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> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett<gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Japchae
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> On Jan 9, 2012, at 10:43 AM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>
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>> Subject:      Re: Japchae
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>> On 1/9/2012 5:01 AM, Benjamin Barrett wrote:
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>>> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett<gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>>> Subject:      Japchae
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>>>
>>> The other day, I saw "jap chay" written on the window of one of those teriyaki joints so often run by Korean immigrants. While that's a sensible way to spell it to assist with pronunciation, it increases the number of spellings of the dish.
>>>
>>> Wikipedia has three spellings: japchae, jabchae and chapchae. The first two have -y alternates on Google, bringing the total to at least seven spellings. ("Chabchay" does not seem to be in use.) This can be doubled by using a space between the two syllables.
>> --
>>
>> I've also (many times) seen the first syllable written "chop", which may
>> be about right for many US English-speakers.
>>
>> As for pronunciation ....
>>
>> To my Anglophone ear the pronunciation by Koreans (and those familiar
>> with Korean) is /tSap tSE/ ... this would be my own pronunciation ...
>> some may hear /dZap tSE/.
>>
>> First syllable seems like "chop" or "chahp" (some may hear
>> "jop"/"jahp"), second like "cheh" (something like "chay"). I guess most
>> Anglophones pronounce "Hyundai" (which has the same final vowel) as
>> rhyming with "Sunday", so I guess the same final "-ay" /ej/ sound should
>> be [just as] OK in the current word too.
>>
>> Any expert, please feel fee to correct me; I am near-totally ignorant of
>> Korean myself. I note that there are various Romanizations, with
>> imperfect standardization. I note also that restaurateurs and cooks and
>> waiters are usually not language teachers or linguists.
>>
>> It seems to me that something like "japchae" is reasonable as a
>> Romanization of the Korean word, while something like "chopchay" would
>> furnish a reasonable US pronunciation, while "jap chay" fails both ways.
>>
>> Here is a presumably Korean person saying the word in Korean (at 0:30 etc.):
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2vjlXbytTI
>>
>> Here is a person of Korean origin saying the word while speaking English
>> (at 0:08 etc.):
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795_t6UY9is
>>
>> Here is a person of presumably North American origin saying it carefully
>> (at 1:16):
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHd_HpHkyDE
> In the Korean, an important distinction is that the second syllable starts with an aspirated consonant, but the first does not. For that reason, I prefer a "j" at the start. How about "jahp chay"?
>
> Benjamin Barrett
> Seattle, WA
>
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