On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, Nicholas Bodley wrote:

> I've been distressed by advertising dialogue that makes this
> well-know name rhyme with "Sunday".
> I finally had the opportunity to ask a Korean-born professor at a
> local college (Bentley) about this, and after a brief bit of
> thought, he said what could be spelled "Shoon-deh". I was both
> happy, to learn, and surprised, at the discrepancy between the
> transliterated form and the correct sound. Vowel-rhyming with
> "moon-deck" is fairly close.
> I haven't seen the corresponding Hangul, but wouldn't be
> surprised if some of the jamo(?) are doubled in the first
> syllable.

It's U+D604 U+B300, "hyeondae" in one transliteration system that seems
common in some circles online. The more familiar McCune-Reischauer system
would transcribe the first syllable as "hyon" with a breve over the "o",
and the second as "tae". See the hangul at:
http://www.hyundai-motor.com/main.html , e.g., under the "News" section.
(Curiously, the Han character U+8ECA 'cart' is there in the second and
third lines; the first has hangul syllable "cha".)

From a reading of the phonology chapter (specifically, pp. 64-65) of Iksop
Lee and S. Robert Ramsey's _The Korean Language_ (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 2000), U+3153 ("eo"), which is the dipththong U+3155
("yeo") less the semi-vowel, is prescribed as a schwa, but in actuality,
in older speakers varies between the allophones which are in IPA an
upside-down "v" and a barred "i", but in younger speakers more like IPA's
"c" rotated 180 degrees.

This would seem to support English "Sun" (w/ upside-down "v") of "Sunday",
at least for the vowel. I'm not sure what sound you are transcribing with
"shoon-deh" or "moon-deck"--[u] or the rotated "c"?

The particular semi-vowel after [h] seems to be difficult to eke out of
English speakers, cf., the Japanese-named comet Hyakutake, so there might
be a concession there. But I don't know where your informant gets "sh"
(of "shoon") from, although I note the analogue of this word in Mandarin
Chinese, 'modern', would be is xian4dai4 (Wade-Giles "hsien4-tai4").

Regarding the second syllable, with U+3150 ("ae"), IPA's epsilon, Lee and
Ramsey say that its distinction from the higher U+3154 ("e"), IPA [e], is
a feature of Seoul speech of the old and the distinction lost throughout
south of the city, but that speakers know the theoretical distinction from
the orthography; the production by those who don't make the distinction is
said to be [e].

That would seem to support somewhat the "day" of "Sunday", or your
informant's "deh" or "de" of "deck"--I think you are indicating your
informant said epsilon, per the standard, but "Sunday" points to [e].
(I've only heard U+3150 pronounced like [e] among the speakers I've met.)


Thomas Chan
tc31@...