Revised Romanization of Korean
The
Revised Romanization of Korean, released by South Korean authorities in
2000 to
romanize the
Korean language, is the
South Korean official replacement for the
1984 McCune-Reischauer-based
Romanization system. The Revised Romanization System of 2000 has no non-alphabetic symbols except very limited, often optional, use of the
hyphen.
It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language starting in
1995 and was released to the public on
July 4,
2000, by South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which explains the reason for the reduction of special characters was to eliminate difficulty of entering, or rather the ease of ignoring,
diacritics on
computers.
Despite the South Korean government's intentions to simplify Romanization of Korean words and place names, the release of the revised system met with considerable opposition among international residents in Korea, many of whom found the revised system seriously flawed and felt disgruntled that the government failed to consult with them beforehand, since they are the primary consumers of Romanized Korean inside South Korea.
Notable features of the revised Romanization system are:\n* 어 and 으 are written with two
vowel letters:
eo and
eu, respectively.\n* Aspirated consonants (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ) have no
apostrophe (
k, t, p, and
ch) like McCune-Reischauer. Their unaspirated counterparts (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ) are written with letters that are
voiced in English (
g, d, b, and
j). However, the unaspirated consonants are also written as
k, t, and
p when at the end of a word or when followed by a consonant, when they are pronounced as such in reality.\n* ㅅ is always written as
s, and never also as
sh.\n* ㄹ is
r before a vowel,
l before a consonant or at the end of a word. Double ㄹ is always
ll
In addition, there are Special Provisions for regular phonological rules that makes exceptions to transliteration. (See Korean language#Phonology)
Other rules and recommendations include:
- The optional hyphen is used to disambiguate syllables, e.g., jeong-eum versus jeon-geum\n* Use of the hyphen is not necessary, but permitted, in between syllables of given namess\n* Phonological exceptions don't apply to given names, transliterate them as they are written in Hangul\n* Syllables of Korean administrative units (such as do) are separated from the placename with a hyphen\n* However, names for geographic features and artificial structures are connected to the placename\n* Capitalize proper nouns
The Revised Romanization is not expected to be adopted as the official romanization of
Korean family namess. For example, the common family name, Lee (이), would be
I (
Yi in strict McCune-Reischauer) in this new system.
Given namess and
commercial names are encouraged to change, but not necessary. All Korean textbooks were required to comply with the new system by
February 28,
2002. English-language newspapers in South Korea initially resisted the new system, citing its flaws, though some later gave in to government pressure. The
Korea Herald currently follows the revised system, while the
Korea Times follows the McCune-Reischauer system, but without breves.
North Korea continues to use a version of the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization, which was in official use in South Korea from 1984 to 2002. Specialists in Korean studies, both in and out of South Korea, tend to use McCune-Reischauer, although a system developed at Yale University is often used by linguists.
Critics of the Revised Romanization System\nsay that the one-to-one correpondence of Korean characters to Roman letters (e.g., usually representing ㄱ as
g) that is the hallmark of the new system is overly simplistic and fails to represent sound changes that occur naturally when the position of a consonant changes (e.g., at the beginning of a word, ㄱ is pronounced like an unaspirated
k rather than as
g).
Critics also complain that people unfamiliar with Hangul pronunciation may be confused by what 'eo' and 'eu' are intended to represent in the revised system. With common English words or names such as 'geography,' 'Leonardo,' and 'neon' representing a two-syllable sound for
eo, a neophyte to Korean words may fail to recognize that
eo is supposed to represent the vowel sound of 's
on' or 'f
un.' Indeed, a frequent complaint of many foreign residents and visitors to South Korea is that the revised Romanization system hinders their ability to even come close to an accurate and comprehensible rendering of Korean pronunciation.
Finally, with the McCune-Reischauer Romanization system having been a consistently and widely used standard in Korean studies for many decades, there is little chance that large numbers of Korean Studies specialists will change to another system. Such a move, they say, would cause confusion and bring an end to consistency in academia.
It is also worth noting that South Korea is not the sole authority on matters of rendering Korean words in Roman script: North Korea continues to use McCune-Reischauer, and this is also true of organizations outside of South Korea, including many mapmakers and other related groups. History textbooks around the world, for example, teach about a "Pusan Perimeter" (see "
Korean War") which is an important part of US, UK, and UN history. The United States military has a vessel called the
USS Inchon. There is little likelihood that such groups not under South Korean jurisdiction would go through the trouble and expense to change such references to "Busan Perimeter" or the "
USS Incheon."
External links
\n* Official introductions\n**
Mirror site from Office of the President\n*
List of syllables and Romanization:
Wikisource
See also
\n* Romaja