살 and 쌀 are the same word
But English is measure of all things?
You still seem to think that allophone is when they sound the same. That’s not even part of the definition. In my last comment I elaborated about allophones that sound quite distinct for native speakers. Let me now explain what allophone really is:
One straightforward definition (that has its flaws) is that allophone is when there are no minimal pairs. You literally gave a minimal pair.
You can even have two identical phones belonging to different phonemes. German devoices final consonants so /d/ has the allophones [d] and [th]. In effect, “Rat” and “Rad” both have final [th] while being allophones of /t/ and /d/ respectively.
I gave a minimal pair in Korean because they are not allophones in Korean. Your first instinct, “They’re the same picture” was spot on. To an English speaker, they’re the same sound. There are no minimal pairs in English. So… ah forget it. If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.
I just wish people spent more time trying to understand what others mean instead of more time on why they think others are wrong. Isn’t that why we love linguistics to begin with??
