Sociolinguistic Artifacts

This Instagram video talks about a trend found in Seoul Korean, where younger generations are beginning to merge the plain (b, d, g, etc.) and the aspirated (p, t, k, etc.) consonants. To compensate for this merge, words that are the same except for this consonant difference are beginning to see an introduction of a tone into the vowel following the consonant, with plain consonants being followed with a lower pitched vowel. Kang, Y., & Han, S. (2013). Tonogenesis in early Contemporary Seoul Korean: A longitudinal study. Lingua, 134, 62-74. [Published on 02-13-2026]