Romanization of Korean refers to systems for representing the Korean language in the Latin script. Korea's alphabetic script, called Hangul, has historically been used in conjunction with Hanja (Chinese characters), though such practice has become infrequent.
Romaja literally means Roman letters in Korean, and refers to the Latin script. "Romaja" is not to be confused with "romanization". The former can be applied to any use of the Latin script in Korean text—whether for Korean or non-Korean words or names—while the latter refers to writing Korean words using the Latin script: either romanizing individual words in a Korean text, or writing an entire Korean text in the Latin script.
Revised Romanization of Korean (RR, also called South Korean or Ministry of Culture (MC) 2000): This is the most commonly used and widely accepted system of romanization for Korean. It 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$500–600 million.[1] Almost 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 (e.g. Hyundai) has been left untouched; the government encourages using the new system for given names and new companies.
RR is 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 seemed to make use of this option until recently. Hyphenation on street and address signs is used to separate proper names and numbers from their assigned function. As of 2014, under mandate from the Roadname Address Act, Korea Post officially changed the older address system from lot-based district subdivisions to a street-based system that regularly utilizes hyphenation in order to disambiguate.[2] The Ministry of the Interior also provided the public with various service announcements and websites forewarning of the change toward a clear and complete signage system classifying all streets and individual addresses with romanization (of which hyphenation is a systematic part).[3]
McCune–Reischauer (MR; 1937?): the first transcription to gain some acceptance. A slightly modified 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. MR uses breves, apostrophes and diereses, the latter two indicating orthographic syllable boundaries in cases that would otherwise be ambiguous.
Several variants of MR, often also called "McCune's and Reischauer's", differ from the original mostly in whether word endings are separated from the stem by a space, by a hyphen or 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 variants 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 based on but deviates from MR. Unlike in MR, it addresses word division in seven pages of detail. 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. ALA-LC also distinguishes between ‘ and ’.[4]
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. This system also indicates consonants that have disappeared from a word's South Korean orthography and standard pronunciation.
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:
Lukoff romanization, developed 1945–47 for Fred Lukoff’s Spoken Korean coursebooks[5]
McCune–Reischauer-based transcriptions and the Revised Romanization differ from each other mainly in the choice of how to represent certain hangul letters. Both attempt to match a word's spelling to how it would be written if it were an English word, so that an English speaker would come as close as possible to its Korean pronunciation by pronouncing it naturally. Hence, the same hangul letter may be represented by different Roman letters, depending on its pronunciation in context. The Yale system, on the other hand, represents each Korean letter by always the same Roman letter(s) context-independently, thus not indicating the hangul letters' context-specific pronunciation.
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, a considerable list even without such aberrations.
In addition to these systems, many people spell names or other words in an ad hoc manner, producing more variations (e.g. 이/리 (李), which is variously romanized as Lee, Yi, I, or Rhee). For more details, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean).
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 Dubeolsik layout (e.g. 위키백과 → dnlzlqorrhk). This can often be seen on the internet, for example in usernames.
In the 1920s-1930s various languages of the Soviet Union were forcibly switched to the Latin alphabet and it was planned that the language of Koreans of the Far East would be one of them.[8][9] Hanja was deemed too hard to learn, while Hangul was claimed to be inconvenient for typesetting and handwriting. Since removing of Hanja would result in much ambiguity, it was proposed that Chinese words would be replaced by words of Korean origin (compare linguistic purism in Korean). The new alphabet, made by famous Koreanist Aleksandr Kholodovich [ru], who would later make a system of transcribing Korean words into Russian [ru], looked like this:
a ʙ d e æ g h i y k kh l r m n ng o ө ə p ph s t th u z
Lowecase ʙ was commonly used in Soviet Roman-derived alphabets due to some alphabets having a letter similar to b with a different purpose. The usage of only lowercase letters was also not unusual, as it was the Latin alphabet of Adyghe language, for example.
Some words written in the Soviet Latin alphabet: gu lli, nongdhion haggio, nong ʙ, zængsan, gugga diaʙondiyi.
The alphabet saw criticism from Koreans and was never put into use.
^ abNoma, Hideki (2005). "Korean". In Strazny, Philipp (ed.). Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. pp. 579–584. ISBN978-1-57958-450-4.
^ ab"Updates to the Report on the Current Status of UN Romanization Systems for Geographic Names" (PDF). United Nations. 2004. pp. 20–22. Retrieved 30 September 2019.
^"Ким Герман.Рассказы о родном языке.Рассказ 4.Неудавшаяся революция в корейской письменности".
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)
romanization, korean, official, system, romanization, north, korea, north, refers, systems, representing, korean, language, latin, script, korea, alphabetic, script, called, hangul, historically, been, used, conjunction, with, hanja, chinese, characters, thoug. For the official system of romanization in North Korea see Romanization of Korean North Romanization of Korean refers to systems for representing the Korean language in the Latin script Korea s alphabetic script called Hangul has historically been used in conjunction with Hanja Chinese characters though such practice has become infrequent RomanizationHangul로마자Hanja로마字Revised RomanizationRomajaMcCune ReischauerRomachaRomaja literally means Roman letters in Korean and refers to the Latin script Romaja is not to be confused with romanization The former can be applied to any use of the Latin script in Korean text whether for Korean or non Korean words or names while the latter refers to writing Korean words using the Latin script either romanizing individual words in a Korean text or writing an entire Korean text in the Latin script Contents 1 Systems 2 Examples 3 As a new writing system for Korean 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksSystems EditMany romanization schemes are in common use Revised Romanization of Korean RR also called South Korean or Ministry of Culture MC 2000 This is the most commonly used and widely accepted system of romanization for Korean It 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 500 600 million 1 Almost 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 e g Hyundai has been left untouched the government encourages using the new system for given names and new companies RR is 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 seemed to make use of this option until recently Hyphenation on street and address signs is used to separate proper names and numbers from their assigned function As of 2014 under mandate from the Roadname Address Act Korea Post officially changed the older address system from lot based district subdivisions to a street based system that regularly utilizes hyphenation in order to disambiguate 2 The Ministry of the Interior also provided the public with various service announcements and websites forewarning of the change toward a clear and complete signage system classifying all streets and individual addresses with romanization of which hyphenation is a systematic part 3 McCune Reischauer MR 1937 the first transcription to gain some acceptance A slightly modified 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 MR uses breves apostrophes and diereses the latter two indicating orthographic syllable boundaries in cases that would otherwise be ambiguous Several variants of MR often also called McCune s and Reischauer s differ from the original mostly in whether word endings are separated from the stem by a space by a hyphen or 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 variants 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 based on but deviates from MR Unlike in MR it addresses word division in seven pages of detail 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 ALA LC also distinguishes between and 4 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 This system also indicates consonants that have disappeared from a word s South Korean orthography and standard pronunciation 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 1 Lukoff romanization developed 1945 47 for Fred Lukoff s Spoken Korean coursebooks 5 Romanization of Korean 1992 the official romanization in North Korea McCune Reischauer based transcriptions and the Revised Romanization differ from each other mainly in the choice of how to represent certain hangul letters Both attempt to match a word s spelling to how it would be written if it were an English word so that an English speaker would come as close as possible to its Korean pronunciation by pronouncing it naturally Hence the same hangul letter may be represented by different Roman letters depending on its pronunciation in context The Yale system on the other hand represents each Korean letter by always the same Roman letter s context independently thus not indicating the hangul letters context specific pronunciation 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 a considerable list even without such aberrations In addition to these systems many people spell names or other words in an ad hoc manner producing more variations e g 이 리 李 which is variously romanized as Lee Yi I or Rhee For more details see Wikipedia Naming conventions Korean 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 Dubeolsik layout e g 위키백과 dnlzlqorrhk This can often be seen on the internet for example in usernames Comparison of romanization of consonants 6 7 Hangul IPA Yale MR DPRK RR Dubeolsikㅁ m m m m m aㅂ p p p b p b p a qㅃ p pp pp pp pp Qㅍ pʰ ph p ph p vㄴ n n n n n sㄷ t t t d t d t a eㄸ t tt tt tt tt Eㅌ tʰ th t th t xㄹ l l ɾ l r l r r l a fㅅ s s s s s tㅆ s ss ss ss ss Tㅈ t ɕ t s c ch j ts j wㅉ t ɕ t s cc tch tss jj Wㅊ t ɕʰ t sʰ ch ch tsh ch cㄱ k k k g k g k a rㄲ k kk kk kk kk Rㅋ kʰ kh k kh k zㅎ h h h h h gㅇ silent ŋ b ng b ng b ng b ng b dNotes a b c d The first alternative is used before a vowel the second is used elsewhere a b c d e Nothing in syllable initial position ng syllable finally Comparison of romanization of vowels 6 7 Hangul IPA Yale MR DPRK RR Dubeolsikㅏ a a a a a kㅓ ʌ e ŏ ŏ eo jㅗ o w o o o o hㅜ u wu u u u nㅡ ɯ ɯ ɨ u ŭ ŭ eu mㅣ i i i i i lㅐ ɛ ay ae ae ae oㅔ e ey e e e pㅑ ja ya ya ya ya iㅕ jʌ ye yŏ yŏ yeo uㅛ jo yo yo yo yo yㅠ ju yu yu yu yu bㅒ jɛ yay yae yae yae Oㅖ je yey ye ye ye Pㅘ wa wa wa wa wa hkㅚ o o we w oy oe oe oe hlㅙ wɛ way wae wae wae hoㅝ wʌ we wŏ wŏ wo njㅟ y y ɥi wi wi we wi nlㅞ we wey we we we npㅢ ɰi ɰi ɨ i i uy ŭi ŭi ui mlExamples EditEnglish Hangul IPA RR RR transliteration in brackets McC Rsr Yale SKATS Dubeolsikwall 벽 pjʌk byeok byeog pyŏk pyek wsl quron the wall 벽에 pjʌ ɡe byeoge byeog e pyŏge pyek ey wsl ktu qurdpoutside uninflected 밖 pak bak bakk pak pakk well qkRoutside 밖에 pa k e bakke bakk e pakke pakk ey well ktu qkRdpkitchen 부엌 pu ʌk bueok bueok puŏk puekh wh ktx qndjzto in the kitchen 부엌에 pu ʌ kʰe bueoke bueok e puŏk e puekh ey wh ktx ktu qndjzdpWikipedia 위키백과 yk ci be k k wa wikibaekgwa wikibaeggwa wikibaekkwa wikhi payk kwa khu xu weul lae dnlzlqorrhkHangul 한글 han ɡɯl hangeul or han geul hangeul han gŭl hankul jef ldv gksrmfcharacter letter 글자 kɯl t ɕa geulja geulja kŭlcha kulqca ldv pe rmfwk an easy noun 쉬운 ɕɥi un swiun swiun shwiun swiwun ghu khf tnldnsKorea has four distinct seasons 한국은 네 계절이 뚜렷하다 han ɡu ɡɯn ne kje dʑʌ ɾi t u ɾjʌ tʰa da Hangugeun ne gyejeori tturyeotada Hangug eun ne gyejeol i ttulyeoshada Hangugŭn ne kyejŏri tturyŏthada Hankuk un ney kyeycel i ttwulyes hata jef lhl kdf ftu lsu ptv ku bbh vsg je be gksrnrdms sp rPwjfdl Enfutgkek Just check the line color and width you want 원하시는 선 색깔과 굵기에 체크하시면 됩니다 wʌn ɦa ɕi nɯn sʌn sɛ k k al ɡwa kul k i e tɕʰe k xɯ ɦa ɕi mjʌn twe m ɲi da Wonhasineun seon saekkkalgwa gulkkie chekeuhasimyeon doemnida Wonhasineun seon saegkkalgwa gulggie chekeuhasimyeon doebnida Wŏnhasinŭn sŏn saekkalgwa kulkie ch ek ŭhasimyŏn toemnida Wen hasinun sen sayk kkal kwa kwulk ki ey cheykhu hasimyen toypnita khtf je gu fdf gtf geul llev lae lhvl lu ktu ctu xd je gu msf bauw fu be dnjsgktlsms tjs torRkfrhk rnfrrldp cpzmgktlaus ehlqslek As a new writing system for Korean EditIn the 1920s 1930s various languages of the Soviet Union were forcibly switched to the Latin alphabet and it was planned that the language of Koreans of the Far East would be one of them 8 9 Hanja was deemed too hard to learn while Hangul was claimed to be inconvenient for typesetting and handwriting Since removing of Hanja would result in much ambiguity it was proposed that Chinese words would be replaced by words of Korean origin compare linguistic purism in Korean The new alphabet made by famous Koreanist Aleksandr Kholodovich ru who would later make a system of transcribing Korean words into Russian ru looked like this a ʙ d e ae g h i y k kh l r m n ng o o e p ph s t th u z Lowecase ʙ was commonly used in Soviet Roman derived alphabets due to some alphabets having a letter similar to b with a different purpose The usage of only lowercase letters was also not unusual as it was the Latin alphabet of Adyghe language for example Some words written in the Soviet Latin alphabet gu lli nongdhion haggio nong ʙ zaengsan gugga diaʙondiyi The alphabet saw criticism from Koreans and was never put into use See also EditCyrillization of Korean McCune Reischauer Yale Romanization of Korean Revised RomanizationReferences Edit 2005년까지 연차적으로 도로표지판을 바꾸는 데 5000억 6000억원이 들고 Monthly Chosun ilbo 2000 09 01 Retrieved 2019 05 22 메세지 페이지 www koreapost go kr Road Name Address www juso go kr ALA LC Romanization Tables PDF Library of Congress Korean Romanization Reference a b Noma Hideki 2005 Korean In Strazny Philipp ed Encyclopedia of Linguistics Vol 1 Taylor amp Francis pp 579 584 ISBN 978 1 57958 450 4 a b Updates to the Report on the Current Status of UN Romanization Systems for Geographic Names PDF United Nations 2004 pp 20 22 Retrieved 30 September 2019 Sovetskoe yazykoznanie t 1 L 1935 Kim German Rasskazy o rodnom yazyke Rasskaz 4 Neudavshayasya revolyuciya v korejskoj pismennosti External links EditComparison 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 Lukoff s system simple table Gangmun Romanization Online Roman to Korean transliteration Another online Roman to Korean transliteration Portal Language Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Romanization of Korean amp oldid 1129463018, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
