Gyeonggi dialect
Gyeonggi | |
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Seoul | |
경기 방언/서울 사투리/서울말 | |
Native to | |
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Dialects |
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Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | seou1239 |
IETF | ko-u-sd-kr11 |
The Gyeonggi dialect (경기 방언) or Seoul dialect (서울 사투리/서울말) of the
More recently, Gyeonggi dialect has seen increased use in online contexts, in turn leading to the majority of young Koreans' use of the dialect, regardless of their regional affiliation. The prolific use of online communication channels is expected to lead to a wider adoption of Gyeonggi dialect, in lieu of distinct, regional dialects.
Pronunciation
The vowels for e and ae are merged for young speakers and vowel length is not distinguished consistently, if at all. Among young speakers or in informal contexts, the postpositions -do (-도, "also"), -ro (-로, "to") and -go (-고, "and then") and their derivatives tend to be pronounced with -du (-두), -ru (-루) and -gu (-구). The sentence-final verb ending -yo tends to be pronounced with a schwa, which is sometimes transcribed as -yeo (-여) on the Internet in informal contexts.
Samchon (삼촌, "uncle") is usually pronounced as samchun (삼춘), as are some other words spelt with 'ㅗ' in standard Korean (사돈-사둔, 정도-정두)
Young Seoul dialect speakers tend to end interrogative sentences (questions) with -nya? (-냐?). They also use unique intonations slightly different from those used by broadcast news readers. The informal ending -eo (-어) is also used quite commonly in both Seoul dialect questions and sentences.
A 2013 study by Kang Yoon-jung and Han Sung-woo, which compared voice recordings of Seoul speech from 1935 and 2005, found that in recent years,
Variations in accent
The Seoul accent can be divided into three variations: conservative, general, and modified. The conservative form is often found in those who have been born or have lived in Seoul before the industrialization in the 1970s (i.e. old natives of Seoul). To some people, this can slightly sound like a North Korean accent. Good examples can be found in speeches of a Seoul-born famous singer,
The general form can be found in speeches by nearly all broadcast news anchors these days. This variation may lie in between the conservative and the modified forms. This accent may be used for recordings of Korean language listening comprehension tests to high school students and is considered to be the standard/formal South Korean accent. Hence, news anchors and reporters who have mastered this dialect for their profession are considered to be South Korea's most grammatically/linguistically accurate, precise, and eloquent citizens.
The last variation is usually spoken by younger generations (including teenagers) and lower-class middle-aged people in the Seoul Metropolitan Area. Some middle and upper-class people in Seoul may speak with this accent due to lack of 'rigid' lingual education policies.[5]
This variation has emerged in public since the early 1990s. Even a few young broadcast news anchors may speak with some features of this accent nowadays, especially when they present in entertainment programs rather than radio news. The most notable characteristic of this form is that the pitch goes up at the end of a sentence, which many people who speak with Gyeongsang accents find offensive or irritating. The pitch-up feature is due to influence by migrants from the Jeolla region into Seoul during the industrialization.
Geographic subdivisions
Traditionally, there was some variation in the speech of Gyeonggi locals from north and south of the
However, one notable linguistic difference between northern and southern Gyeonggi that still exists today is the shortening of '거야' (geoya, a suffix used for emphasis or in a question), to '거' (geo). This colloquial feature, which is most commonly used in Southern Gyeonggi, particularly in and around Suwon, is likely one of the last regionalisms of the gyeonggi dialect that remains in common use.
See also
- Dialectology
- Dialects of Korean
- South Korean standard language
References
- .
- .
- ^ Cho, Sunghye (Jan 2017). "Development of pitch contrast and Seoul Korean intonation" (PDF). ResearchGate. University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on October 29, 2020.
- PMID 33091043.
- ^ Even some persons, living in Seoul or its suburbs, of those social classes (including South Korean high-rank officials or police commissioners, politicians, and so on) may have local accents, because there had been a huge domestic migration into Seoul throughout South Korean modern history. A good example can be found in former president Kim Young-sam, who stuck to his own Gyeongsang accent rather than converting to the Seoul accent.