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The romanization of Korean (Korean: 로마자 표기법; RR: romaja pyogibeop) is the use of the Latin script to transcribe the Korean language.

There are multiple romanization systems in common use. The two most prominent systems are McCune–Reischauer (MR) and Revised Romanization (RR). MR is almost universally used in academic Korean studies, and a variant of it has been the official system of North Korea since 1992. RR is the official system of South Korea and has been in use since 2000.

The earliest romanization systems for Korean emerged around the mid-19th century. Due to a number of factors, including the properties of the Korean language and alphabet, as well as social and geopolitical issues, a single settled standard did not emerge. By 1934, there were 27 extant romanization systems, and by 1997, there were over 40.

Major systems

Korean writing systems
Hangul
Chosŏn'gŭl (in North Korea) New Korean Orthography
Hanja
Gukja (Yakja) Gugyeol Idu (Hyangchal)
Mixed script
Braille
Transcription
McCune–Reischauer Romanization of Korean (North) Revised Romanization (South) Bok Moon Kim romanization [ko] Kontsevich (Cyrillic) Kholodovich system [ru] (Cyrillic)
Transliteration
Yale (scholar) ISO/TR 11941
v t e

The following systems are currently the most widely used:

• McCune–Reischauer ("MR"; 1939): Basis for various romanization systems. Almost universally used by international academic journals on Korean studies. Modified version used for South Korea from 1984 to 2000.
  • Romanization of Korean (1992): The official romanization in North Korea, with some differences from standard MR.
  • 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.
• Revised Romanization of Korean ("RR"; 2000): South Korea's official romanization system.
• Yale romanization of Korean (1942): Standard for almost exclusively international linguists.

History

Possibly the earliest romanization system was an 1832 system by German doctor Philipp Franz von Siebold, who was living in Japan. Another early romanization system was an 1835 unnamed and unpublished system by missionary Walter Henry Medhurst that was used in his translation of a book on the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages. Medhurst's romanization scheme was otherwise not significantly used. In 1874, the Dallet system was introduced; it was based around French-language phonology. It was the first to use the digraphs eo and eu, and the first to use diacritics for Korean romanization; it used the grave and acute accents over the letter "e". The first system to see significant usage was the Ross system, named for John Ross, which was designed in 1882. It saw adoption by missionaries.

In 1897, James Scarth Gale introduced his system in his work A Korean-English Dictionary. This system went on to achieve some adoption; it was reportedly adopted by the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. In spite of this, some scholars found issues with these early systems. More systems by Westerners emerged, based on English, French, and German phonology. Japanese scholars also developed their own romanizations for Korean, many of which were built on the work of Siebold and Dallet. In 1933, the first romanization system developed by Koreans, which was appended to the Unified Han'gŭl Orthography System, was promulgated by the Korean Language Society. In 1935, Jeong In-seop [ko] published "The International Phonetic Transcription of Korean Speech Sounds".

Systems continued to be developed to address various perceived shortcomings in other systems. By 1934, according to Japanese linguist Shinpei Ogura's count, there were at least 27 extant systems. Whereas Hepburn romanization had already become the widely accepted standard for the romanization of Japanese by the 1930s, Korean continued to lack such a standard. This led to significant diversity and inconsistencies in romanizations, not only between scholars but reportedly even within the writings of individual authors.

Challenges for developing a standard romanization

The task of developing a standard romanization scheme for Korean was complicated by a number of factors.

Even into the 20th century, there were significant variations in pronunciation and spelling in the Korean language itself, often due to the dialects of Korean. Attempts were made to standardize the Korean language, but these efforts were made by multiple authorities. Two rivaling societies for standardizing Korean emerged: the Korean Language Society (조선어학회) and the Chŏson Ŏhak Yŏn'guhoe (조선어학연구회); they published separate guidances. Eventually, the Korean Language Society's standard became the basis for the standards of both North and South Korea. Other references for spelling included those used in Gale's dictionary, guidances from the Government-General of Chōsen, and a French dictionary.

Other challenges were fundamental to properties of the Korean language and script, which make the language not easily mappable onto the Latin script. McCune and Reischauer claimed in 1939 that there are eight to ten vowels in Korean (this topic was still debated by that point). As there are only five vowels in the Latin script, the other vowel sounds had to be rendered either using multiple letters in the form of digraphs (e.g. eo for ㅓ) or by using diacritics. Also, in many cases, pronunciation does not exactly match what is written in Hangul; similar phenomena occurs with all other major scripts as well. For example, due to linguistic assimilation, the state Silla is written in Korean as 신라 (sin-la), but pronounced sil-la.

Some challenges were social and geopolitical. Reportedly, early scholars often wrote about Korea from Sinocentric or Japanese perspectives; Korean place names were often rendered using pronunciations from the Chinese or Japanese languages. Furthermore, after Korea went under Japanese rule, the "official" names of many places were considered to be those in the Japanese language. In addition, the Japanese colonial government implemented various restrictions on the use of the Korean language around the mid-1930s; the Korean Language Society was also persecuted in one incident.

Regardless of romanization systems, many Koreans chose and continue to choose to spell their names in Latin script in an ad hoc manner. For example, 이/리 (李) is variously romanized as Lee, Yi, I, or Rhee. In some cases, single families romanized their surnames differently on South Korean passports. For example, within a single 심 family, a father's surname was rendered as "Shim" and the son's as "Sim".

McCune–Reischauer

McCune–Reischauer (MR) is a system that was first introduced in 1939, in the journal Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch. It is named for George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer; the two developed the system together in consultation with Korean linguists Choe Hyeon-bae, Jeong In-seop [ko], and Kim Seon-gi [ko].

After the liberation and division of Korea

With 1945 came the liberation of Korea, as well as its division. Both Koreas began to develop separate language standards. Just after the 1950–1953 Korean War, romanization was reportedly seen as a minor concern, compared to improving domestic literacy in Hangul. Meanwhile, romanization systems continued to emerge; by 1997, there were more than 40 romanization systems.

In 1956, North Korea became the first of the two Koreas to promulgate an official romanization system. This system combines features of the Dallet and 1933 Unified systems. It was revised in 1986.

In 1959, the South Korean Ministry of Education [ko] published a romanization system, which has since been dubbed the Ministry of Education system (MOE). It reportedly quickly proved to be controversial, especially amongst non-Koreans. Fouser evaluated the system as prioritizing use for Koreans; it had a one-to-one correspondence from Hangul to Latin script, and did not account for the pronunciation changes that Hangul itself did not reflect. The system also tended to produce romanizations that bore superficial resemblance to words in English, some of which were seen as odd or humorous.

Eventually, the South Korean government began reevaluating the use of the system in anticipation of the 1988 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Seoul. In 1984, a slightly revised version of McCune–Reischauer was adopted. Some South Koreans reportedly had negative reactions to the system, which they viewed as confusing and overly beholden to pronunciation.

In 1968, Samuel E. Martin introduced a system that has since been dubbed the Yale system. The system became widely adopted by the international academic linguistics community, although few others adopted it. Fouser argues that while the system allowed for reversibility, it is "unsightly", is suited to those who already know Hangul, and does not adequately communicate pronunciation, even in comparison to the MOE system.

Computer age

With the spread of computers and the Internet by the 1980s and 1990s, complaints about MR reportedly grew. The breves used in MR were not easily accessible on a standard keyboard. Some took to replacing the breve with alternate characters or simply omitting it altogether; the diversity of practice and ambiguity if breves were not used led to confusion. In 1986, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) requested both North and South Korea to work together on developing a standard romanization. The two countries held a series of meetings, during which they failed to reach a consensus.

In 1991, the South Korean National Academy of the Korean Language (NAKL; 국립국어연구원) proposed its own new system. Concurrently, Bok Moon Kim produced his own romanization system [ko]. A large debate reportedly emerged, with more systems being proposed and some proposing reverting to previous systems.

Revised Romanization of Korean

On July 7, 2000, the NAKL and Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced that South Korea would adopt a new system: Revised Romanization (RR). 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.

List

• Siebold romanization (1832)
• Medhurst romanization (1835)
• Dallet system (1874)
• Félix-Clair Ridel [fr] dictionary (1880)
• Ross system (1882)
• Gale system (1897)
• Eckardt system (1923)
• Unified Han'gŭl Orthography System appendix (1933)
• Ogura system (1934)
• Jung romanization (1936)
• McCune–Reischauer (1939)
• Lukoff romanization (1945), developed by Fred Lukoff
• Ministry of Education system (1959)
• The Shibu Shohei System (1961)
• Yale romanization of Korean (1968)
• Korean Romanization for Data Application (1992)
• You Mahn-gun's System (1992)
• Lee Hyun Bok's Computer-Communication System (1994)
• Bok Moon Kim romanization [ko] (1996)
• HanSe System (1996)
• 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:
• National Academy of the Korean Language System (1997)
• Revised Romanization of Korean (2000)

Kholodovich romanization

In the 1920s and 1930s various languages of the Soviet Union were switched to the Latin alphabet and it was planned that the language of Koreans of the Far East would be one of them. Hanja was deemed too hard to learn, while Hangul was claimed to be inconvenient for typesetting and handwriting. Since removal 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, looked like this:

Soviet Korean orthography

Latin script	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
Hangul	ㅏ	ㅂ	ㄷ	ㅔ	ㅐ	ㄱ	ㅎ	ㅣ	ㅡ	ㄲ	ㅋ	ᄙ	ㄹ	ㅁ	ㄴ	ㅇ	ㅗ	ㅚ	ㅓ	ㅃ	ㅍ	ㅆ	ㄸ	ㅌ	ㅜ	ㅅ

Lowercase 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 faced criticism from Koreans and was never put into use.

Comparison of various systems

Examples

See also

• Cyrillization of Korean

Notes

1. English title of work was Translation of a comparative Vocabulary of the Chinese, Corean and Japanese, to Which is Added the thousand Character Classic, in Chinese and Corean, the Whole Accompanied by Copious Indexes of All the Chinese and English Words Occurring in the Work. It was a translation of an 18th century text by the Joseon government agency Bureau of Interpreters. Holstein claims this is the first romanization system, but Fouser provides an earlier example.
2. ^ The first alternative is used before a vowel; the second is used elsewhere.
3. ^ Nothing in syllable-initial position, ng syllable-finally.

References

1. Huh, Sun (August 16, 2017). "How to romanize Korean characters in international journals". Science Editing. 4 (2): 81. doi:10.6087/kcse.100. ISSN 2288-8063.
2. "ALA-LC Romanization Tables" (PDF). Library of Congress.
3. ^ Lee 2001, p. 246, 255.
4. ^ Fouser 1999, pp. 164–165.
5. ^ Fouser 1999, p. 159.
6. ^ Holstein 1999, p. 3.
7. Holstein 1999, pp. 12–13.
8. ^ Holstein 1999, pp. 1–3.
9. Fouser 1999, pp. 159–160.
10. Fouser 1999, p. 160.
11. ^ McCune & Reischauer 1939, pp. 2–3.
12. Fouser 1999, pp. 160–161.
13. ^ Fouser 1999, p. 161.
14. McCune & Reischauer 1939, p. 2.
15. ^ McCune & Reischauer 1939, p. 1.
16. McCune & Reischauer 1939, pp. 4–5.
17. McCune & Reischauer 1939, pp. 5–6.
18. Fouser 1999, p. 157.
19. McCune & Reischauer 1939, p. 7.
20. McCune & Reischauer 1939, pp. 9–12.
21. McCune & Reischauer 1939, pp. 20–21, 23.
22. 김용 (July 12, 2023). 아버지 성은 'SHIM', 아들은 'SIM'...'헤라클래스' 부자에 무슨 사연이? [Father's surname is Shim, son's is Sim... What is the story behind the "Hercules" father and son?] (in Korean). Sports Chosun. 심정수는 이주 과정에서 여권 신청서를 작성할 때 실수로 아들들의 성을 'SIM'으로 적었다고 한다. 뒤늦게 실수를 알았지만, 다시 이름을 바꾸기는 어려웠다. [When Shim Jeong-soo was applying for his sons' passports to go abroad, he mistakenly wrote their surname as "SIM". He later realized his mistake, but it was too late to change.]
23. ^ Holstein 1999, p. 2.
24. McCune & Reischauer 1939.
25. ^ Fouser 1999, p. 162.
26. Holstein 1999, pp. 1–2.
27. Holstein 1999, pp. 4–5.
28. Fouser 1999, pp. 162–163.
29. Fouser 1999, pp. 163–164.
30. ^ Fouser 1999, pp. 165–166.
31. Doll 2017, p. 8.
32. Fouser 1999, p. 166.
33. Fouser 1999, pp. 167–169.
34. 2005년까지 연차적으로 도로표지판을 바꾸는 데 5000억~6000억원이 들고. Monthly Chosun. September 1, 2000. Retrieved May 22, 2019.
35. "Charles Dallet, Histoire". anthony.sogang.ac.kr. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
36. Société des missions étrangères. Dictionnaire coréen-français.
37. Société asiatique (Paris, France) (1864). "Aperçu de la langue coréenne". Journal asiatique: 287–325.
38. ^ Lee 2001, p. 249.
39. "Korean Romanization Reference". Archived from the original on September 26, 2009.
40. "Shibu Shohei System of Korean Romanisation". www.tufs.ac.jp. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
41. "KORDA" (PDF).
42. Fouser 1999, p. 172.
43. Fouser 1999, p. 171.
44. Fouser 1999, pp. 170–171.
45. Fouser 1999, pp. 169–170.
46. Lee 2001, p. 246.
47. Советское языкознание, т.1. Л., 1935
48. "Ким Герман.Рассказы о родном языке.Рассказ 4.Неудавшаяся революция в корейской письменности".
49. ^ Noma, Hideki (2005). "Korean". In Strazny, Philipp (ed.). Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Vol. 1. Taylor & Francis. pp. 579–584. ISBN 978-1-57958-450-4.
50. ^ "Updates to the Report on the Current Status of UN Romanization Systems for Geographic Names" (PDF). United Nations. 2004. pp. 20–22. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
51. ^ "Argument for horizontal writing of Hangul" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on March 7, 2014.
52. King, Ross (January 1, 2024). "Another language that failed? The beginnings of 'Soviet' Korean in the Russian Far East, 1922-1937". Korean Linguistics.
53. King, Ross (January 1, 2024). "Another language that failed? The beginnings of 'Soviet' Korean in the Russian Far East, 1922-1937". Korean Linguistics.

Sources

• Doll, Chris (October 1, 2017). "Korean Rŏmaniz'atiŏn: Is It Finally Time for The Library Of Congress to Stop Promoting Mccune-Reischauer and Adopt the Revised Romanization Scheme?". Journal of East Asian Libraries. 2017 (165). ISSN 1087-5093.
• Holstein, John (1999). "The McCune-Reischauer Korean Romanization System". Transactions. 74. Royal Asiatic Society: 1–22.
• Klein, Edward F. (August 1982). "Romanization of Korean: Do Armchair Linguists Have the Answer?". Korea Journal. 22 (8): 16–23. ISSN 0023-3900 – via DBpia.
• Lee, Sang-Oak (March 2001). "The Present State of Korean Romanization System in Y2K : Case of Fugitive G: Why to K? :Case of Fugitive G: Why to K?". Korea Journal. 41 (1): 246–267. ISSN 0023-3900 – via DBpia.
• McCune, George M.; Reischauer, Edwin O. (1939). "The Romanization of the Korean Language Based on Its Phonetic Structure". Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch. 29. Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch: 1–55.
• Fouser, Robert J. (1999). "Nationalism and Globalism in Transliteration Systems: Romanization Debates in Korea" (PDF). Language Research 어학연구. 35 (1/4). Seoul National University Language Education Institute 서울대학교 언어교육원.

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.)
• Lukoff's system (simple table)
• Gangmun Romanization
• Online Roman to Korean transliteration
• Another online Roman to Korean transliteration

• Language

• Korean writing system
• Romanization of Korean