A Little Linguistic Help

[ecosophia]

On the off chance any of my readers happens to be fluent in Korean, I'd like to ask for a little help here. The Korean dictionaries I've been able to find online give two words for "wolf" -- neugdae and ili (or, in one older dictionary, iri). Which of these is the correct word for the animal shown on the left -- and if both of them are, do they have different connotations, or are they used in different contexts?

In case you were wondering, this is for a fiction project, the current sequel to my just-published novel The Witch of Criswell. One of the continuing characters in the story is a young woman with a Korean mother and an American father; she's fluent in Korean as well as English; and she's taught main character Ariel Moravec a few useful words of Korean. (They're a couple of geek girls who are into old novels, old movies, and magic, so that sort of thing follows naturally.) Since wolves, and also werewolves, are a central theme in this novel, I figured I should get the word right!  Thank you in advance for your help.

(And yes, I know about the hairstyle called the Korean wolf cut. It may or may not feature in the story at some point.)

Comments

[sinners4diseasecontrol]

I'm sorry I can't help, but I've forwarded your question to a friend who might.

[ecosophia]

Thank you!

Korean wolf

[(Anonymous)]

From what I know, "ili" is wolf in general, wherever in the world it may be, but the neugdae is the Korean wolf native to the Korean peninsula. Please try and get a second or third opinion on this to confirm. Good luck with the novel!

Re: Korean wolf

[ecosophia]

Thank you for this. I've had one offlist commenter say the same thing, so the second opinion is already in.

[tunesmyth]

I am sure by the time I send this through, you'll have already gotten eight other correct answers-- but I'll just report that I was told via text message from a Korean friend of a Japanese waitress at the Italian restaurant I'm performing at tonight that the modern word for wolf is definitely "neugdae". When we asked her about "ili", she wrote back "What's that?" Apparently she'd never even heard the word before! She *is* just a 19 year old, though, so maybe older Koreans might be familiar with them both and the difference between them...

[ecosophia]

I get the impression that neugdae is the term commonly used these days -- it's the one that came up first in online dictionaries -- so ili may be an older term.

[booklover1973]

In the Korean dictionary, which I have, the word "iri" is glossed as "wolf", without any additional explanations. The common transliteration is "iri", not "ili". I didn't find the word "neungdae" (not "neugdae") there.

[ecosophia]

In the one Korean dictionary I have, a 1954 English-Korean dictionary published by Tuttle, and apparently issued to the US military right after the Korean war, "wolf" is translated as iri, and neither neugdae nor neungdae appear. The author does note, however, that at that time Korean spelling was very fluid and words might be spelled and Romanized in many different ways!

[booklover1973]

I meant to say that "neugdae" is probably a typo for "neungdae". So it seems that "iri" is the older word and "neungdae" the more modern word. But others would have to comment on this. The dictionary which I have is an Essence Korean-German dictionary from ca. 1979.
There are two main transcription systems: the MacCune-Reischauer system, which is the older system, the modern system introduced by the South Korean Ministry of Education (and, for a time, used in an earlier time). Other transcription systems are found in special literature about Korean linguistics. The North Koreans use a modified McCune-Reischauer system without the diacritics and the apostrophs. There are indeed many spelling variations due to confusion on the right usage of transcriptions and due to the somewhat complex phonology of Korean consonants and due to the existence of assimilations between adjacent syllables.

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Every source I've found that gives the more recent word gives it as neugdae, not neungdae. Here's one example of many:

https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the/korean-word-for-a3cb738850fa39be667c4d6428d72aee854b2cc7.html

[booklover1973]

Than it is the other way round; "neugdae" might be the correct form and "neungdae" might be an error.

[booklover1973]

In the Korean dictionary, which I have, I now found "neugdae", glossed as "wolf", without further elaboration.

[brendhelm]

The hangul that come up on Google Translate for "wolf" are 늑대, which is definitely "neugdae", not "neungdae" (if it were the latter, the first character would have an O-shape at the bottom).

[(Anonymous)]

My aunt, a native speaker, votes for “neugdae.”

—Princess Cutekitten