Korean Language, Food, Drama & Movies

Korean Romanisation - Hangul or Hangeul ?

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:05:50 +0900

Nov-Dec 2009 > Society > Koreana

Now, how do you pronounce Seoul?

After introducing four official systems of Romanization since independence, Korea looks set to create a fifth in her on-going quest to ensure foreigners pronounce the Korean language correctly

Pusan or Busan? Kimpo or Gimpo? Tokdo or Dokdo? Cheju or Jeju? The answer to these questions is confusing even for Koreans, not just for foreigners visiting or living in Korea. According to the Revised Romanization of Korean (RR) of July 2000 and the most recent official attempt to cast the Korean language in the Roman alphabet, it is the latter of each of the spellings that is correct. While seemingly an esoteric issue of interest only to linguists, how a language that does not traditionally use the Roman alphabet is Romanized has far-reaching consequences that affect the lives of ordinary people in both big and small ways.

The history of the Romanization of Korean can be broadly categorized into three different periods. The first began in the early 19th century when foreigners Romanized Korean to suit their needs. The second occurred during Japanese colonial rule (1910 to 1945) when Japanese and Korean scholars used a personal system of Romanization. The third period comprises the years following independence in 1945 when the nascent government first established an official system.

Beginning with the system created by German doctor Phillip Fritz von Siebold (who was an advisor to the Japanese government at the time) in 1832 until the early 1920s, some 27 different systems had been proposed by different persons. The process of Romanization became more systematic in the early 1880s with the release of Korean language books in French, English and German. French missionaries edited and published Dictionnaire Coréen-Franais(Korean-French Dictionary) in 1880 and Grammaire Coréenne(Korean Grammar) in the following year. In 1882, John Ross, a Scottish Protestant missionary, wrote Korean Speechand in 1890 published his Korean-English Dictionary.

Although popular sentiment in Korea during these times was to reject foreign contact, growing Japanese ambitions for Asia created further demand for translation and transliteration resources. A Catalogue of the Romanized Geographical Names of Koreawas released by a Tokyo University academic in 1903 while many Japanese scholars developed their own systems of Korean Romanization well into the 1930s. In 1933, Charles Haguenauer, a French scholar -- who later began teaching Korean at the Sorbonne in 1953 -- devised a French phonetic system to mark Korean.

Romanization efforts in these early years were largely the effort of non-Koreans, however. Then, in 1935, Korean scholar Jung In-Seop a member of the Joseon Eohakhoe (Korean Language Association), created a Romanization system that heavily influenced that launched by the Association in 1940. Jung's system subsequently influenced the official Romanization system released by the Korean government in 1959.

STRUGGLE FOR PERFECTION
However, among the many systems created around this time, the McCune-Reischauer (MR) system published in 1939 was the first to gain widespread acceptance. A modified version of this system was used from 1984 until the end of the century, when the Korean government released its Revised Romanization of Korean mentioned above. It was the most commonly used system of Romanization until RR came along.

George M. McCune was a Presbyterian missionary and president of the Union Christian College in Pyeongyang (downgraded to Soongsil Academy under the Japanese Rule in 1925 and later closed altogether in 1938). Edwin O. Reischauer was a renowned scholar of Japanese and East Asian history and culture. Reischauer received his master's degree from Harvard University in 1932 and was awarded a fellowship from Harvard-Yenching Institute of Oriental Studies to study in France, Japan and China between 1933 and 1938. While visiting Seoul in 1938, Reischauer, along with McCune, devised a phonetic system in just three months that successfully Romanized the Korean language.

Unlike other systems that merely matched the alphabet to Korean letters, the MR system attempted to represent Korean phonetically, making it friendlier for Western speakers. The MR and MR-based systems use breves (, , i) to mark certain vowels (, , ) and an apostrophe (k´, t´, p´, ch´) to show aspirated consonants ( , , , ). It also uses dieresis (¨) to indicate when separate syllables should be pronounced.

In contrast, another Romanization system developed by Samuel E. Martin in 1954 went beyond marking the pronunciation phonetically. Known as the "Yale" system, its major distinguishing factor compared to other systems is its emphasis on displaying a word's morphophonemic structure. This is why this system is preferred and widely used by linguists, as the morphophonemic elements accounting for a word's pronunciation are shown, not just the pronunciation of the worditself.

Yet none of these systems appeared satisfactory in the way they combined ease of use and phonetic accuracy. In fact, the Korean government has declared four different "official" systems since independence in 1945. The first official system was introduced in 1948, followed quickly by a second system in 1959 that was not MR-based at all, while the third in 1984 switched back to a MR-based system, and the fourth in 2000 that did away with the MR-system once again.

If one wonders why there was such a need to revise the Romanization system so many times, the answer is quite simple. Just as no Romanization system for any language can be perfect, Romanizing Korean has proven to be more difficult in comparison to other East Asian languages such as Chinese or Japanese. The struggle to "perfect" a Romanization system for Korean reflects the importance that a good system plays in the fortunes of a country or people.

TRANSCRIBE OR TRANSLITERATE?
When Hanyu Pinyin, the official Romanization system of Mandarin Chinese, was introduced fifty years ago (1958) in the People's Republic of China, neither the creator nor the government that called for its creation realized the importance and impact it would later have on Chinese culture in the Information Age. Despite their pride in the long history of their ideographic language, pinyin has been so successful that the Chinese use it to enter Chinese characters in SMS messages on cell phones and type on computers. The same is true for the counterpart Japanese system known as romaji, which works extremely well for entering katakana, hiraganaand kanjicharacters. Although first developed by a foreigner, romaji has become an inseparable part of the Japanese language and culture that it is now taught in schools. Korean, on the other hand, due to its phonetic alphabet system called Hangeul, can be entered directly -- and efficiently -- from a QWERT-style keyboard using Korean characters.

However, unlike Chinese or Japanese, where one character represents one syllable, Korean combines consonants and vowels to form syllables. Thus, there are many sound changes in Korean when certain consonants and vowels meet at the end and the beginning of a syllable. This may not seem like a big issue, but in reality, this is the primary reasons why the search for a single "perfect" system of Romanization has been so elusive.

For example, before considering a Romanization system for Korean, one must decide whether it will be a transcription or transliteration system. The former represents pronunciation of Korean in Roman letters while the latter represents its spelling in the same. The problem of transcribing Korean is that although it is better for pronunciation for foreigners, it is difficult to know the spelling of the actual word in Korean. On the other hand, transliterating does not necessarily make it easy for an ordinary English speaker to say a word correctly, but it is easy to write what the Romanized word is in Korean.

Take for example the word (Silla). When transcribed it would be written as [Silla] because in Korean when "" ("n" sound in English) meets " " ("l" sound in English) the combination is pronounced simply as "" When transliterated, would be written as [Shinla]. For the purpose of pronunciation, transcribing would be more effective, but when converting back from English to Korean, one would write, confusingly, . Conversely, when transliterated, one can write the exact spelling of the word in Korean from reading its Romanized form but would end up being pronounced in a far different manner from the actual pronunciation.

Confused? Even more confusion occurs when transcribing homophones. For instance and (the first word meaning "together" and the second "value") has the same pronunciation so both would be written as [gachi] when transcribed. When transliterated, the words would be Romanized as [gati] and [gachi] respectively. Clearly, transliteration shows the two words to be composed of different syllabic units, but show an English speaker [gati] and [gachi] and you would get completely different pronunciations for each word (even though they should be pronounced the same way).

INFORMATION AGE CONFLICT
Thus, Romanizing Korean at a basic level is a vexing problem. A second problem is that Korean has twenty-one vowel sounds, many of them very similar to one another. Perhaps this is more problematic than the issue of transcription or transliteration. When one does not know Korean, it is quite difficult to distinguish between similar sounds, and a slight mispronunciation can produce two completely different meanings. Take, for example, two subway station names in Seoul, Shinchon () and Shincheon (). Many foreigners have less difficulty reading pinyin or romaji -- even without any knowledge of Chinese or Japanese -- because there are far fewer vowels in both languages (only five vowels in Japanese, for example).

Yet, in a world that is connected economically and culturally, developing a good Romanization system is deemed a critical and worthwhile goal to remain "competitive." This is a prime reason the Korean government revised the official Romanization system in 2000. It was felt Romanization would be easier to use without the diacritics such as the breves and apostrophes in the previous MR-based system.

Don't know what a diacritic is? You're not the only one. The bottom line is that diacritics were not practical for the Information Age. While the apostrophe can be easily entered from any keyboard, the breve, or the crescent-shaped mark, cannot, making it difficult to type Romanized Korean words from the MR system on the Internet. Thus, diacritics were omitted when writing on-line, creating confusion. Moreover, Koreans and foreigners alike were not really aware of how the diacritics changed the pronunciation, which made things more confusing because of inaccuracy. Eliminating the diacritics would not only make it more convenient to type on computers but aid in distinguishing pronunciation as well.

So how did the official (RR) system change? Here is a quick look at some of the major changes from the modified MR system that entered into use in 1984. By substituting with "eo" (just like the "schwa" sound // in English), with "eu" (similar to the final sound in "league" without the /g/ sound) and i with "ui" (pronounced like "eu" but in a dipthong with a /I/ sound), the new system eliminated the use of breves.

The next time you see "eo" and instinctively wonder whether it should be pronounced as an /i/ sound as in "people" or as two separate syllables as in "neon" or "Leo," think of "Seoul." Contrary to how "Seoul" is generally pronounced (as the monosyllabic "soul"), the name of the Korean capital should actually be pronounced as a two-syllable word: "suh-ool." This is why the RR released in 2000 used "eo" to represent in Korean because the accepted spelling of Seoul would produce the required two-syllable sound. It is interesting to note that the Romanization of derives from the French spelling of Séoul, which was pronounced through the syllables [Sé] and [oul]. However, the Korean government grouped [Seo] and [ul] to create the digraph "eo" to represent .

PRONUNCIATION HAS PRIORITY
The next major change is that instead of "k´, t´, p´, ch´," the consonants " , , , " are now marked as "g, d, b, j." Thus Kimpo became Gimpo; Taegu, Daegu; Pusan, Busan; and Cholla, Jeolla. Also, the corresponding aspirated consonants that used to be marked as " k´, t´, p´, ch´" for " , , , " are now marked as "k, t, p, ch" without the apostrophes. This was to remove confusion that existed since these consonants were written without the apostrophes in the previous Romanization system. Moreover, the old system tried to differentiate these voiced and voiceless sounds as different phonemes (i.e., a phonetic sound that is perceived to be a single distinctive sound) when they are merely allophones (one of two or more variants of the same phoneme). Thus, when ", and " is followed by a consonant or at the end of a word, they are written as "k, t and p." For example, [gokshik] and [Hanguk].

The last major change is that "" is now always written as "s" unlike before, when it was written as "sh" or "s" depending on the context. Simply remembering these three rules will enable one to become accustomed quickly to the "new" system of Romanization. All the other principles are much the same as those of the old system in that words are Romanized according to sound. Pronunciation had priority over Korean orthography in order to serve the needs of the foreigners in correctly pronouncing place names that appear on road signs.

After all this, the reader will be surprised to learn that moves are afoot to dislodge the 2000 RR system. Citing "confusion" that has occurred among foreigners and the RR was difficult to use, Kang Man-Soo, chairman of the Presidential Committee on National Competitiveness (PCNC) said in August of this year that the official system had to change "before it is too late." While the PCNC nor the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism had not yet come to a decision on what new form of Romanization should be adopted Chairman Kang intimidated that the administration of Lee Myung-Bak looked more toward the MR system.

At this point, the reader might question the importance of continual revision of the official Romanization. A story about the Korean cities of Cheongju (then spelt "Ch´ung-ju," , and pronounced "Chung Joo") and Chung-ju (, pronounced "Choong Joo"), both in Chungcheongbuk-do (North Chungcheong Province), might shed some light. During the Korean War, an American pilot was ordered to bomb a position located near the city of Ch´ung-ju (i.e., "Chung Joo"). As he received his orders over the radio, the pilot began searching for the city on his map. In North Chungcheong Province he located a city whose name was printed "Chung-ju" (but pronounced "Choong Joo"), located a troop formation close by and released his bombs -- accidentally killing both South Korean and American soldiers. Many allied servicemen therefore met an unfortunate and tragic death because the Romanization system in use at the time made it impossible for an American to distinguish between "Ch´ung-ju" and "Chung-ju."

The ultimately, Romanization is merely a bridge from one language to another. To truly master and appreciate another language (and by extension, the culture that springs from it), one must eventually cross that bridge and leave it behind. The search for a perfect Romanization system is not the final destination, but just the first step in a journey of rewarding discovery.

ROMANIZATION ROUND UP
For a detailed chart of major Romanization systems of Korean please go to:
http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/Korpin.pdf

For an RR pronunciation chart, please check the Web version of Koreana at www.ikjournal.com

By Choi Sung-Un sungunchoi@yahoo.com

Korean Poetry : A Smaller Person 더 작은 사람

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Korean Poetry : A Slug 민달팽이

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Korean Poetry : The Wind's Private Life 바람의 사생활

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Korean Poetry : The Depth of a Landscape by Kim Sa-in 김사인의 풍경의 깊이

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:44:41 +0900

Finally this blog won a prize

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:20:54 +0900

I have won prizes on three earlier occasions for posts uploaded at other Korean blog hosts but this is the first time I won a prize for this blog at Yahoo Korea. The prize was a 2GB Sky Blue iRiver Mickey MP3 player. The ears are dials for adjusting volume and changing tracks, very cute !

The contest was jointly organised by KNTO and www.prkorea.com (VANK)

http://www.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/FU/FU_EN_15.jsp?cid=799366
http://www.prkorea.com/metablogen/event/result.html

Arirang Song Of Korea

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 18:39:22 +0900

Korean-American professor publishes book on 'Arirang'

By Lee Haye-Ah
SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Yonhap) -- Melancholy yet powerful, the tune of the folk song "Arirang" carries the sorrows and struggles of the Korean people across generations and borders.

   Perhaps no one　 feels this more acutely than 85-year-old author Lee Chung-Myun, whose new book "Arirang: Song of Korea," introduces the origins, characteristics and dissemination of Arirang across the globe.

   In an interview with Yonhap News Agency on Monday, the professor emeritus, whose nostalgia for his homeland persisted during 50 years abroad in Malaysia, Japan and the United States, said he was moved to write the book because he was ashamed of his lack of knowledge about the most popular Korean folk song in the face of foreigners' interest.

"This may be the first book ever that introduces Arirang systematically in English," said Lee, who went to the U.S. to teach geography at California State University in Fresno in 1970 and moved to the University of Utah in 1972. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1979.

   The professor-turned-musicologist said Arirang originated 600 years ago in Jeongseon County of Gangwon Province, and spread throughout the peninsula in hundreds of variations.

   To study the song in detail, Lee retired five years ago and visited several Korean locations, including Jindo Island and the cities of Jeongsun and Milyang -- the homes of three of the most well-known versions.

   Although the song is ancient, it was not until the late 19th century that the Bonjo Arirang, today's most popular version, rose as a national symbol out Korea's turbulent modern history, which includes the 1910-1945 colonization of the peninsula by Japan.

   Lee's ambition to document the song's history was stretched even further after watching a TV broadcast showing the New York Philharmonic's performance of Arirang in Pyongyang in February last year.

   "The spirit of Arirang will play a pivotal role in the reunification of Korea and the movement towards world peace, as has been demonstrated throughout Korean history," Lee writes in the preface.

   "I feel that it is to be regretted deeply that I could not include the study of the song of Arirang in North Korea due to the political difficulties between South and North. However, I do hope we will be able to go to North Korea freely to study Arirang songs there in the near future," he added.

   Lee said he hopes Arirang's role as a source of vitality for Koreans living abroad and its potential to touch the hearts of global citizens will be widely recognized upon the publication of the book Tuesday.

   "I plan to sell this book at the U.S. bookstores and through amazon.com in a bid to promote this song internationally," he said.

   ecuedy@yna.co.kr
(END)

Source : http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/Features/2009/09/07/28/0801000000AEN20090907005600315F.HTML

Office Hierarchy

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:13:53 +0900

화장님
사장님
대표이사님
전무이사님
상무이사님
이사님
부장
차장
과장
대리
주임
사원

위에 이어진 순서는 맞아요?
팀이 있어요?

겹받침 Ending Consonant

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:17:42 +0900

Above picture extracted from page 99 of Basic book for foreign women married to Korean men.

Rules of double ending consonants as defined by Yahoo Korea Dictionary.
받침규칙의 뜻인다.
[―規則] <명사> ≪언어학≫ 우리말의 받침 소리가/ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅇ, ㄴ, ㅁ, ㄹ/의 일곱 자음으로 되는 현상. 따라서 그 밖의 받침이 홀로 발음되거나/ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ/따위 자음의 형태소 앞에 놓일 때는 앞의 일곱 소리 가운데 하나로 바뀐다.
⑴/ㅅ, ㅆ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅌ/은 /ㄷ/으로 바뀐다. ¶ 옷(과)→옫. 있고→읻꼬. 젖(과)→젇. 낯(과)→낟. 밭(과)→받.
⑵/ㅍ/은 /ㅂ/으로 바뀐다. ¶ 잎(도)→입.
⑶/ㅋ, ㄲ/은 /ㄱ/으로 바뀐다. ¶ 부엌(도)→부억. 밖(도)→박.
⑷겹받침은 그중 하나가 줄어진다. ㉠/ㅄ, ㄳ, 라, ㄾ, ㄵ/은 첫 자음이 남고 나중 자음이 줄어진다. ¶ 값(도)→갑. 넋(도)→넉. 곬(도)→골. 핥고→할꼬. 앉다→안따. ㉡/ㄻ, ㄿ/은 첫 자음이 준다. ¶ 젊다→점따. 읊다→읖다→읍다. ㉢/ㄺ,ㄼ/은 불규칙하다. ¶ 닭(도)→닥. 읽고→일꼬. 읽다→익따. 밟다→밥따. 짧다→짤따. 얇다→얄따.
⑸앞 형태소의 끝 자음에 모음으로 시작되는 의미소가 이어질 때도 일곱 끝소리의 하나로 바뀐다. ¶ 옷 안→오단. 젖어미→저더미. 부엌 안→부어간. 꽃 아래→꼬다래. 옻 오르다→오도르다. 홑옷→호돋. 무릎 아래→무르바래. 값없다→가법따. <동의어> 말음법칙.

Royal Tombs Listed As Korea's 9th UNESCO World Heritage Site

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:28:09 +0900

40 Royal Tombs Listed as World Heritage Site
A stone statue of military officer in Seolleung, the royal tomb of King Seongjong, the ninth monarch of the Chosun Dynasty, in Samseong-dong, Seoul A stone statue of military officer in Seolleung, the royal tomb of King Seongjong, the ninth monarch of the Chosun Dynasty, in Samseong-dong, Seoul

Forty royal tombs from the Chosun Dynasty have been newly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, Korea's ninth. The 33rd session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Seville, Spain last Friday decided to accept Korea's application for listing the group of tombs.

The committee said it recognized the value of the tombs with their unique construction method and landscaping under the Confucian principles and inspired by geomancy. The tombs deserve being listed because historical tradition has been passed down through intangible heritage including ceremonial rituals and all the tombs have been carefully preserved and managed, it added.

The Chosun tombs are those of 27 Chosun kings and their wives, and posthumous honorary kings and their wives.

Other UNESCO World Heritage sites in Korean are the Seokguram Grotto and Bulguksa Temple site, the Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon -- the Depositories for the Tripitaka Koreana Woodblocks -- and the Jongmyo Shrine, listed in 1995; Changdeok Palace and the Suwon Hwaseong Fortress, designated in 1997; the Gyeongju Historical Areas and the Gochang, Hwasun and Ganghwa Dolmen sites, listed in 2000; and the Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes, listed in 2007.
Forty royal tombs newly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site /Yonhap Forty royal tombs newly listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site /Yonhap

url: http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/06/29/2009062900394.html

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