linguisticsnerd:

stumpyjoepete:

study-korean:

Enemy cabbages
적양배추 = Red cabbage

Both are Sino-Korean morphemes (pronounced /tɕʌk/ in Korean):

赤 (red) – chì in Mandarin; “tsyhek” in Middle Chinese*.  The Mandarin makes sense based on that: tsyh- usually goes to ch-, -k gets dropped and results in who knows what.  The Korean makes enough sense too, but I’m confused as to why it’s ㅈ instead of ㅊ (i.e., why its not aspirated).

敵 (enemy) – dí in Mandarin; “dek” in Middle Chinese*. Same deal in mandarin: d- usually goes to d- (except in 平声, where we expect t- and second tone), and the final -k fucks off and messes up the vowels on its way out. The Korean, again, sort of makes sense, but I’m not sure why the d- gets affricated.

Anyone with knowledge of historical Korean phonology want to help me out with those questions? 

* Baxter’s notation

I’m not an expert but I do know that for words with [t] ㄷ and semivowel [j] placed together, the [tj] cluster changed into [tɕ] ㅈ at some point in Korean (after the creation of Hangul). So 中 used to be written as 듕 [tjuŋ] in Middle Korean but is pronounced as 중 [tɕuŋ] today. I’m guessing the same sound change applies?