# Transliteration of final T sound



## idialegre

I'm wondering why English names that end with a "t" sound are so often transliterated into Korean with a final "ᄉ". For example, in a newspaper article about the demonstrations in Charlotte, North Carolina, it's rendered as 샬럿. Of course I understand that the final ᄉ is pronounced like "t", so that this does indeed come out sounding like "Charlotte," but then it gives rise to combinations like 샬럿에서, which at least _looks_ as if the ᄉ might actually be pronounced as an "s" sound, as it's followed by a vowel. It seems to me that it would be less confusing to write 샬렅, and I'm curious why this isn't done. Does anyone know the reason?

Thanks a lot!


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## mink-shin

Hi, Idialegre.

Nice to meet you.



idialegre said:


> I'm wondering why English names that end with a "t" sound are so often transliterated into Korean with a final "ᄉ".


Very good question I think it is. It seems a simple question, but it isn't. I doubt it myself whether I could tell you about it 100%. So just take my opinion as your information.

Firstly, I've heard many English people say our language has precise enunciations. I think it's because we Korean, basically, pronounce each letters of phonemes separately. Note that I did say neither just only 'each letters' nor 'each alphabets'.

e.g. 할아버지는 간이 좋지 않아서 간염에 걸리셨어요.
If we pronounced each letters, we would pronounce [할][아][버][지][는] [간][이] [좋][지] [않][아][서] [간][염][에] [걸][리][*셨*][어][요], which, of course, we do not.
We pronounce each letters of phonemes like [하][라][버][지][는] [가][니] [조][치] [아][나][서] [가][녀][메] [걸][리][*셛*][서][요].
It would take too much time to explain the whole process of changing from alphabets to phonemes. So I won't. Please understand me. 

Anyway, in this process, if the final consonant of a letter is either 'ㅅ', 'ㅆ', 'ㅈ', 'ㅊ' or 'ㅌ', we pronounce them as 'ㄷ'. It's because there is no pronunciation of themselves in Korean. (Note that I did say '*final consonant of a letter*') So we pronounce '샬럿' as '샬럳'.

Maybe, somebody would ask me, as you did, "if so, can I write 'Charlotte' as either '샬럿', '샬렀', '샬렂', '샬렃', '샬렅' or '샬럳'?"
Then I would answer, "No".

We pronounce all of them as [샬럳]. But if we wrote one word in 6 ways, there would arise some problems or confusions. So our government made some rules of writing English word in Korean in case any confusion would arise, which are called '로마자 표기법'.

Thank you.

I hope it helps.

MinK.


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## mink-shin

idialegre said:


> but then it gives rise to combinations like 샬럿에서, which at least _looks_ as if the ᄉ might actually be pronounced as an "s" sound, as it's followed by a vowel


You're right, Idialegre. We actually pronounce '샬럿에서' as '샬러세서'. But it's not because '샬럿''s followed by a vowel. It's because '에서' is a post-position. We would pronounce '샬럿 옆에' as '샬러 뎌페', because '옆' is a noun not a post-position. It could seem nonsense to foreigners that the final 'ㅅ' in '샬럿' could be pronounced either 'ㄷ' or 'ㅅ'. I would understand if you thought it's illogical. But, unfortunately, I think we don't always use our language logically.

I hope it helps. 

Thank you for your interest in my language.


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## Rance

mink-shin said:


> We pronounce all of them as [샬럳]. But if we wrote one word in 6 ways, there would arise some problems or confusions. So our government made some rules of writing English word in Korean in case any confusion would arise, which are called '로마자 표기법'.



It should be 외래어 표기법(English -> Korean) and not 로마자 표기법(Korean -> English).
They are different set of rules.
Among those 6 consonants (ㄷ, ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅌ) which makes sound of ㄷ as 받침, only ㅅ is allowed to used as 받침 according to 외래어 표기법 제1장 제3항.
The main reason is that like idealegre said, as they all make same sound after all, it's just simple and less confusing to simply choose one and stick to it.

Now the question arises when it comes to different 연음현상, or linking sounds, by using different 받침.
When linking happens, 받침 sound gets carried over to next syllable, making itself quite distinguishable.
Let's compare 연음현상 of 'ㅅ' vs 'ㅌ'.
Charlotte이 => 샬로시 vs 샬로티
Charlotte은 => 샬로슨 vs 샬로튼
At least to my ears, former cases sound better than the latter.
This is perhaps because pronunciation of 받침 is relatively weak, less distinctive, in English than Korean.
ㅅ is 마찰음(fricative sound) compared to ㄷ,ㅌ which are 파열음(plosive sound).
Fricative sounds are generally less intense than plosive sounds which, I believe, is the reason for choosing ㅅ over others.



mink-shin said:


> But it's not because '샬럿''s followed by a vowel. It's because '에서' is a post-position. We would pronounce '샬럿 옆에' as '샬러 뎌페', because '옆' is a noun not a post-position.



As example is composed of two words, it won't have just a single way to pronounce.
샬럳 여페 or 샬런녀페 are also fine.


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## mink-shin

Rance said:


> It should be 외래어 표기법(English -> Korean) and not 로마자 표기법(Korean -> English).
> They are different set of rules.



Thanks.


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