The romanization of Korean 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.
The following systems are currently the most widely used:
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 Another early romanization system was an 1835 unnamed and unpublished system by missionary Walter Henry Medhurst that was used in his translation of a book on the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.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, 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.
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 and the Chŏson Ŏhak Yŏn'guhoe ; 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) 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, but pronounced .
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 Korean: 심 family, a father's surname was rendered as "Shim" and the son's as "Sim".[3]
See main article: article and 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,, and .
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 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.
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;) proposed its own new system. Concurrently, Bok Moon Kim produced . A large debate reportedly emerged, with more systems being proposed and some proposing reverting to previous systems.
See main article: article and 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.[4]
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.[11] [12] 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, who would later make a system of transcribing Korean words into Russian, looked like this:
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.
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
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.
| Hangul | IPA | RR | MR | Yale | DPRK | USSR | KORDA | Shibu | Han | Lukoff | Mahngun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㅁ | pronounced as //m// | m | m | m | m | m | m | m | m | m | m | |
| ㅂ | pronounced as //p// | b/p | p/b | p | p | b | b | b | b | p | b | |
| ㅃ | pronounced as //p͈// | pp | pp | pp | pp | p | bb | bb | bb | pp | p | |
| ㅍ | pronounced as //pʰ// | p | p' | ph | ph | ph | p | p | p | ph | ph | |
| ㄴ | pronounced as //n// | n | n | n | n | n | n | n | n | n | n | |
| ㄷ | pronounced as //t// | d/t | t/d | t | t | d | d | d | d | t | d | |
| ㄸ | pronounced as //t͈// | tt | tt | tt | tt | t | dd | dd | dd | tt | t | |
| ㅌ | pronounced as //tʰ// | t | t' | th | th | th | t | t | t | th | th | |
| ㄹ | pronounced as //l/ [l]~[ɾ]/ | r/l | r/l | l | r | r | r/l | r | l | l | l/r | |
| ㅅ | pronounced as //s// | s | s | s | s | z | s | s | s | s | s | |
| ㅆ | pronounced as //s͈// | ss | ss | ss | ss | s | ss | ss | ss | ss | ss | |
| ㅈ | pronounced as //t͡ɕ/~/t͡s// | j | ch/j | c | ts | з | j | j | z | j | j | |
| ㅉ | pronounced as //t͈͡ɕ/~/t͈͡s// | jj | tch | cc | tss | c | jj | jj | zz | jj | cz | |
| ㅊ | pronounced as //t͡ɕʰ/~/t͡sʰ// | ch | ch' | ch | tsh | ch | ch | c | c | jh | ch | |
| ㄱ | pronounced as //k// | g/k | k/g | k | k | g | g | g | g | k | g | |
| ㄲ | pronounced as //k͈// | kk | kk | kk | kk | k | gg | gg | gg | kk | k | |
| ㅋ | pronounced as //kʰ// | k | k' | kh | kh | kh | k | k | k | kh | kh | |
| ㅎ | pronounced as //h// | h | h | h | h | h | h | h | h | h | h | |
| ㅇ | silent / pronounced as //ŋ// | -/ng | -/ng | -/ng | -/ng | ŋ | -/ng | '/q | g | ng | ng |
| Hangul | IPA | RR | MR | Yale | DPRK | USSR | KORDA | Shibu | Han | Lukoff | Mahngun | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㅏ | pronounced as //a// | a | a | a | a | a | a | a | a | a | a | |
| ㅓ | pronounced as //ʌ// | eo | ŏ | e | ŏ | ь | u | e | e | ø | au | |
| ㅗ | pronounced as //o// | o | o | (w)o | o | o | o | o | o | o | o | |
| ㅜ | pronounced as //u// | u | u | wu | u | u | oo | u | u | u | ou | |
| ㅡ | pronounced as //ɯ/ [ɯ]~[ɨ]/ | eu | ŭ | u | ŭ | y | eu | y | w | ʉ | u | |
| ㅣ | pronounced as //i// | i | i | i | i | i | i | i | i | i | i/y | |
| ㅐ | pronounced as //ɛ// | ae | ae | ay | ae | ə | ae | ai | ae | ä | ai | |
| ㅔ | pronounced as //e// | e | e | ey | e | e | e | ei | é | e | e | |
| ㅚ | pronounced as //ø/ [ø]~[we]/ | oe | oe | (w)oy | oe | ø | oe | oi | ó | ö | we | |
| ㅟ | pronounced as //y/ [y]~[ɥi]/ | wi | wi | wi | we | ui | wi | ui | uj | wi | wi | |
| ㅢ | pronounced as //ɰi/ [ɰi]~[ɨ̯i]~[i]/ | ui | ŭi | uy | ŭi | yi | ui | yi | wj | ʉ | ui | |
| ㅑ | pronounced as //ja// | ya | ya | ya | ya | ja | ya | ia | ja | ya | ya | |
| ㅕ | pronounced as //jʌ// | yeo | yŏ | ye | yŏ | jь | yu | ie | je | yø | yau | |
| ㅛ | pronounced as //jo// | yo | yo | yo | yo | jo | yo | io | jo | yo | yo | |
| ㅠ | pronounced as //ju// | yu | yu | yu | yu | ju | yoo | iu | ju | yu | you | |
| ㅒ | pronounced as //jɛ// | yae | yae | yay | yae | jə | yae | iai | jae | yä | yai | |
| ㅖ | pronounced as //je// | ye | ye | yey | ye | je | ye | iei | jé | ye | ye | |
| ㅘ | pronounced as //wa// | wa | wa | wa | wa | wa | wa | oa | ōa | wa | wa | |
| ㅝ | pronounced as //wʌ// | wo | wŏ | we | wŏ | wь | wo | ue | ōe | wø | wau | |
| ㅙ | pronounced as //wɛ// | wae | wae | way | wae | wə | wae | oai | óae | wä | wai | |
| ㅞ | pronounced as //we// | we | we | wey | we | we | we | uei | ōé | we | we |
| English | Hangul | IPA | RR (RR transliteration in brackets) | MR | Yale | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Korean: 벽 | pronounced as /[pjʌk̚]/ | byeok (byeog) | pyŏk | pyek | ||
| on the wall | Korean: 벽에 | pronounced as /[pjʌ.ɡe̞]/ | byeoge (byeog-e) | pyŏge | pyek ey | |
| outside (uninflected) | Korean: 밖 | pronounced as /[pak̚]/ | bak (bakk) | pak | pakk | |
| outside | Korean: 밖에 | pronounced as /[pa.k͈e̞]/ | bakke (bakk-e) | pakke | pakk ey | |
| kitchen | Korean: 부엌 | pronounced as /[pu.ʌk̚]/ | bueok (bueok) | puŏk | puekh | |
| to/in the kitchen | Korean: 부엌에 | pronounced as /[pu.ʌ.kʰe̞]/ | bueoke (bueok-e) | puŏk'e | puekh ey | |
| Korean: 위키백과 | pronounced as /[yk.çi.be̞k̚.k͈wa̠] / | wikibaekgwa (wikibaeggwa) | wikibaekkwa | wikhi payk.kwa | ||
| Korean: 한글 | pronounced as /[han.ɡɯl]/ | hangeul or han-geul (hangeul) | han'gŭl | hānkul | ||
| Korean: 글자 | pronounced as /[kɯl.t͈ɕa]/ | geulja (geulja) | kŭlcha | kulqca | ||
| (an) easy (+ noun) | Korean: 쉬운 | pronounced as /[ɕɥi.un]/ | swiun (swiun) | shwiun | swīwun | |
| Korea has four distinct seasons. | Korean: 한국은 네 계절이 뚜렷하다. | pronounced as /[han.ɡu.ɡɯn ne̞ kje̞.dʑʌ.ɾi t͈u.ɾjʌ.tʰa.da]/ | Hangugeun ne gyejeori tturyeotada. (Hangug-eun ne gyejeol-i ttulyeoshada.) | Han'gugŭn ne kyejŏri tturyŏthada. | Hānkwuk un nēy kyēycel i ttwulyes hata. | |
| Just check the line color and width you want. | Korean: 원하시는 선 색깔과 굵기에 체크하시면 됩니다. | pronounced as /[wʌn.ɦa.ɕi.nɯn sʌn sɛ̝k̚.k͈al.ɡwa kul.k͈i.e̞ tɕʰe̞.k͡xɯ.ɦa.ɕi.mjʌn twe̞m.ɲi.da]/ | Wonhasineun seon saekkkalgwa gulkkie 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 toypnita. |