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"These suffice to let the speaker know how exactly to say the word unlike in English where it has to be learned case by case based on whatever is popular or acc

"These suffice to let the speaker know how exactly to say the word unlike in English where it has to be learned case by case based on whatever is popular or acceptable pronunciation." This is more due to how widespread English is, and how vowels/pronunciation have shifted over time. For example, The Great Vowel Shift. [0] Korean has exactly the same issues, albeit to a smaller degree. There are plenty of words that aren't pronounced like how they're spelled, due to grammatical rules. 종로 as an example. Or cases where words sound exactly the same and you just need to know the context/spelling- 쫗다, 쫒다, 쫃다, 쫏다, 쫓다. Then there's regional slang/pronunciation/dialect. Busan dialect is fairly different from 표준어, or the "official" standard language. This phenomenon is not unique to English in any way. Any language scaled up will develop these issues over time. At least you can try to pronounce "cough" or "종로", instead of not being able to pronounce "願" at all because you don't already know the pronunciation. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> This is more due to how widespread English is, and how vowels/pronunciation have shifted over time. I'd go so far as to say that english is now spoken by so many people in so many different regions, all of whom can now be heard by each other on a reasonably frequent basis, that it has forced english speakers to become so adept at vowel-reconstruction that one could pronounce words with completely arbitrary vowels and still be understood.
- andrewzah 6y ago
  "it has forced english speakers to become so adept at vowel-reconstruction that one could pronounce words with completely arbitrary vowels and still be understood." This was still occurring before people were able to widely hear other regions' speakers, though. However things like cough, plough, although, thorough, etc having different, -correct- pronunciations are due to English taking in words from other languages.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> This is more due to how widespread English is, and how vowels/pronunciation have shifted over time. I'd go so far as to say that english is now spoken by so many people in so many different regions, all of whom can now be heard by each other on a reasonably frequent basis, that it has forced english speakers to become so adept at vowel-reconstruction that one could pronounce words with completely arbitrary vowels and still be understood.

andrewzah 6y ago
"it has forced english speakers to become so adept at vowel-reconstruction that one could pronounce words with completely arbitrary vowels and still be understood." This was still occurring before people were able to widely hear other regions' speakers, though. However things like cough, plough, although, thorough, etc having different, -correct- pronunciations are due to English taking in words from other languages.