Japchae

[Benjamin Barrett]

This is a fascinating theory!

I have a vague impression that there is an increase in voiced English consonants, which I attribute to the adoption of the Revised Romanization of Korean in 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_romanization), but I have no real evidence of such a change.

In any case, this points to a point of origin for a spelling diffusion, which is surely a linguistic gem. It may cause an effect of pronunciation differentiation if Anglophones in the Beltway adopt a "ch" sound while those in other areas adopt a "j" sound.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Jan 10, 2012, at 7:15 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> 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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>> Sender:       American Dialect Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Benjamin Barrett<gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: Japchae
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> 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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