Last night I was reading about how Koreans mispronounce "담임" (擔任) when referring to the "homeroom teachers" of their kids in primary and secondary schools. The entry in the book I was reading said that instead of pronouncing the word as "다밈," the correct pronunciation, Koreans tend to say "다님" because they do not like pronouncing the same consonant sounds (밈) that close together. It said that in linguistics the phenomenon is referred to as 이화 (異化), which translates as "dissimilation."
Anyway, when talking about dissimilation, it gave an example of a pure Korean word that was originally written with two consonant sounds close together but has since changed over time. The example was the pure Korean word for "turtle," 거북, originally written as "거붑." Can you imagine saying "거부비" (거붑이) or "거부불" (거붑을) instead of "거부기" (거북이) or "거부글" (거북을)?
So, instead of saying "poop" or "boop" (붑), Koreans apparently over time starting pronouncing the second ㅂ as ㄱ, resulting in 거북.
Here is the book I was reading:
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