Hybrid loans: a study of English loanwords transmitted to Korean via Japanese

In this paper we present the results of a study of Japanese-influenced English loanwords in Korean. We identify some 10 phonological indexes that identify the loan's Japanese provenance and examine their relative rate of retention in 287 loan forms that show a mixture of Japanese-style and direct-English-style phonological characteristics. Our chief finding is that certain traits of Japanese-style loanwords are more resistant to change to the direct English style of adaptation that is applied to contemporary loans. We consider two possible explanations for such a hierarchy. First, the resistance hierarchy reflects the relative perceptual saliency of the relevant features (cf. Steriade, 2001). Second, the resistance hierarchy reflects the degree of confidence Korean speakers have about the "correct" direct-English borrowing pattern.