Ssssibilant or Shhhhibilant: Dialect variation in North and South Korean
Both theoretical and impressionistic studies have documented differences in the articulation of sibilants in dialects of North Korean (NK) and South Korean (SK). In SK dialects, two types of sibilants differ with respect to place of articulation: alveolar (/s/, /s’/) and post-alveolar (/tɕ/, /tɕ’/, /tɕʰ/) (Lee 1996; Shin & Cha 2003). In contrast, in NK dialects, all of the sibilants are typically classified as alveolar sounds (/s/, /s’/, /ts/, /ts’/, /tsʰ/) (Choi 1992; Kwak 2003; Kang 2005); however, little acoustic evidence has been presented to support this difference. This research investigates whether the lenis sibilants /s/ and /tɕ/ show dialectal variation in spectral measures indicating place and when conditioned by social factors. Audio data were taken from YouTube videos. Results indicate that South and North Korean show different acoustic features for the two sibilants depending on lengths of residence in South Korea and gender.
