Korean romanization
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Systems
Although romanizations that do not seem to follow any system might be the most common, there are three commonly used romanization schemes available, namely:
- McCune-Reischauer (MR; 1937?), the first transcription to gain some acceptance. A slightly changed version of MR was the official system for Korean in South Korea from 1984 to 2000, and yet a different modification is still the official system in North Korea. Uses breves, apostrophes and diereses, the latter two indicating orthographic syllable boundaries in cases that would otherwise be ambiguous.
What is called MR may in many cases be any of a number of systems that differ from each other and from the original MR mostly in whether word endings are separated from the stem by a space, a hyphen or – according to McCune's and Reischauer's system – not at all; and if a hyphen or space is used, whether sound change is reflected in a stem's last and an ending's first consonant letter (e.g. pur-i vs. pul-i). Although mostly irrelevant when transcribing uninflected words, these aberrations are so widespread that any mention of "McCune-Reischauer romanization" may not necessarily refer to the original system as published in the 1930s. MR-based romanizations have been common in popular literature until 2000. - * The ALA-LC / U.S. Library of Congress system is an example of these systems that are based on MR, from which it deviates it in some aspects. Word division is addressed in detail, with generous use of spaces to separate word endings from stems that is not seen in MR. Syllables of given names are always separated with a hyphen, which is expressly never done by MR. Sound changes are ignored more often than in MR. Distinguishes between ‘ and ’. [link]
- Yale (1942): This system has become the established standard romanization for Korean among linguists. Vowel length in old or dialectal pronunciation is indicated by a macron. In cases that would otherwise be ambiguous, orthographic syllable boundaries are indicated with a period. Indicates disappearance of consonants.
- Revised Romanization of Korean (RR, also called South Korean or Ministry of Culture (MC) 2000): Includes rules both for transcription and for transliteration. South Korea now officially uses this system which was approved in 2000. Road signs and textbooks were required to follow these rules as soon as possible, at a cost estimated by the government to be at least US$20 million. All road signs, names of railway and subway stations on line maps and signs etc. have been changed. Romanization of surnames and existing companies' names has been left untouched; the government encourages using the new system for given names and new companies.
Basically similar to MR, but uses neither diacritics nor apostrophes, which has helped it to gain widespread acceptance on the internet. In cases of ambiguity, orthographic syllable boundaries may be indicated with a hyphen, although state institutions never seem to make use of this option e.g. on street signs or linemaps. - ISO/TR 11941 (1996): This actually is two different standards under one name: one for North Korea (DPRK) and the other for South Korea (ROK). The initial submission to the ISO was based heavily on Yale and was a joint effort between both states, but they could not agree on the final draft. A superficial comparison between the two is available here: [link]
- Lukoff romanization, developed 1945-47 for his Spoken Korean coursebooks [link]
- Chosŏn Kwahagwon (조선민주주의인민공화국 과학원) romanization
It should be noted that even in texts that claim to follow one of the above, aberrations are a common occurrence and a major obstacle e.g. when conducting an automated search on the internet, as the searcher must check all possible spelling variants whereof there are more than enough even without aberrations.
In addition to these, many people spell names or other words in an ad hoc manner, irrespective of any system such as the three listed above. For more details, see [Naming conventions].
SKATS is a transliteration system that does not attempt to use letters of a similar function in Western languages. A similar approach is to transliterate by hitting the keys that would produce a Korean word on a keyboard with 2[du]-beolsik layout. This can often be seen on the internet, for example in usernames.
Examples
| English | Hangul (Hanja) | RR (RR trans- literation in brackets) | McC-Rsr | Yale | SKATS | 2-beolsik (set to Latin letters) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| “wall” | byeok (byeog) | pyŏk | pyek | wsl | qur | |
| “on the wall” | byeoge (byeog-e) | pyŏge | pyek ey | wsl ktu | qurdp | |
| “outside” (uninflected) | bak (bakk) | pak | pakk | well | qkR | |
| “outside” | bakke (bakk-e) | pakke | pakk ey | well ktu | qkRdp | |
| “kitchen” | bueok (bueok) | puŏk | puekh | wh ktx | qndjz | |
| “to the kitchen” | Pronounced /부어게/ (Yale: puekey) in the Seoul dialect. | bueoke (bueok-e) | puŏk'e | puekh ey | wh ktx ktu | qndjzdp |
| “Wikipedia” | wikibaekgwa (wikibaeggwa) | wikibaekkwa | wikhi payk.kwa | khu xu weul lae | dnlzlqorrhk | |
| “Hangul” | hangeul or han-geul (hangeul) | han'gŭl | hānkul | gksrmf | ||
| “character, letter” | geulja (geulja) | kŭlcha | kulqca | rmfwk | ||
| “(an) easy” (+ noun) | swiun … (swiun …) | shwiun … | swīwun … | tnldns | ||
| “Japan has four distinct seasons.” | Ilboneun sagyejeori tturyeothada. (Ilbon-eun sagyejeol-i ttulyeoshada.) | Ilbonŭn sagyejŏri tturyŏthada. | Ilpon un sākyeycel i ttwulyes hata. | dlfqhsdms tkrPwjfdl Enfutgkek. | ||
| “Just check the line colour and width you want.” | Wonhasineun seon saekkkalgwa gulkgie chekeuhasimyeon doemnida. (Wonhasineun seon saegkkalgwa gulggie chekeuhasimyeon doebnida.) | Wŏnhasinŭn sŏn saekkalgwa kulkie ch'ek'ŭhasimyŏn toemnida. | Wēn hasinun sen sayk.kkal kwa kwulk.ki ey cheykhu hasimyen toyp.nita. | dnjsgktlsms tjs torRkfrhk rnfrrldp cpzmgktlaus ehlqslek. | ||
Notes
See also
External links
- Comparison tables of the different systems:
- * [Comparison table of ISO TR/11941, North Korean national system (1992), Revised Romanization, McCune-Reischauer, Yale] (PDF file from UN Group of Experts on Geographical Names Working Group on Romanization Systems)
- * [Comparison table of IPA, Yale, McCune-Reischauer, Lukoff, South Korea Ministry of Education, Joseon Gwahagwon, Revised Romanization] (PDF file from Glossika Inc.)
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