Romanization of Korean

File:Specimen Personal Information Page South Korean Passport.jpg

A specimen of the identity information page of a South Korean passport, displaying the romanization of the bearer's name (Lee Suyeon) for international legibility.

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 Western 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

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.Template:Sfn
  • Romanization of Korean (1992): The official romanization in North Korea, with some differences from the original MR.
  • ALA-LC romanization for Korean, first published in 1997Template:Sfn and revised in 2009, is a modification of MR made for use in libraries. It was developed by the American Library Association (ALA) and Library of Congress (LC).Template:Sfn
• Revised Romanization of Korean ("RR"; 2000): South Korea's official romanization system.Template:Sfn
• Yale romanization of Korean (1942): Standard for almost exclusively international linguists.Template:Sfn

History

File:Nippon, by Philipp Franz von Siebold (15438351).jpg

Philipp Franz von Siebold's first romanization system for Korean, published 1832

Possibly the earliest romanization system for Korean was an 1832 system by the German doctor Philipp Franz von Siebold, who was living in Japan.Template:Sfn Another early romanization system was an 1835 unnamed and unpublished system by missionary Walter Henry Medhurst that was used in his translation of a book on the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese languages.Template:SfnTemplate:Efn Medhurst's romanization scheme was otherwise not significantly used.Template:Sfn 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,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn and the first to use diacritics for Korean romanization; it used the grave and acute accents over the letter "e".Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

In 1897, James Scarth Gale introduced his system in his work A Korean-English Dictionary.Template:Sfn 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn In 1935, Template:Ill published "The International Phonetic Transcription of Korean Speech Sounds".Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

Challenges for developing a standard romanization

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

Even into the 20th century, there were significant variations in the pronunciation and spelling of the Korean language and Hangul respectively, often due to the dialects of Korean.Template:Sfn 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 (Template:Category handler) and the Chŏson Ŏhak Yŏn'guhoe (Template:Category handler); they published separate guidances.Template:Sfn Eventually, the Korean Language Society's standard became the basis for the standards of both North and South Korea.Template:Sfn Other references for spelling included those used in Gale's dictionary, guidances from the Government-General of Chōsen, and a French dictionary.Template:Sfn

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 Template:Category handler) or by using diacritics.Template:Sfn 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 Template:Category handler (), but pronounced Template:Translit.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

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 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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, Template:Ill, and Template:Ill.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The system has proved controversial with especially native Korean speakers. It had been developed mainly for use in Western academia, and reflected pronunciation rules that many Koreans were not consciously aware of, as they are not reflected in Hangul.Template:Sfn Linguist Robert J. Fouser argued that another point of contention was related to nationalism; some disliked that the system had been developed by foreigners during the Japanese colonial period, and wanted a natively developed alternative.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn South Korea adopted MR in 1948.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to Reischauer, McCune "persuaded the American Army Map Service to adopt [the McCune–Reischauer system], and through the Korean War it became the foundation for most current Romanizations of Korean place names". Just after the 1950–1953 Korean War, romanization was seen as a minor concern, compared to improving domestic literacy in Hangul.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, romanization systems continued to emerge; by 1997, there were more than 40 romanization systems.Template:Sfn

In 1956, North Korea became the first of the two Koreas to design a new official romanization system. This system combines features of the Dallet and 1933 Unified systems. It was revised in 1986.Template:Sfn

In 1959, the Template:Ill published a romanization system, which has since been dubbed the Ministry of Education system (MOE).Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The system received immediate backlash, mainly from foreigners. 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, such as Dogribmun (Template:Korean/auto), which superficially evokes the ribs of dogs.Template:Sfn The Ministry of Education met in 1978 and 1979 and drafted several alterations to the system, although these did not come to pass allegedly because of political turmoil around that time.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Eventually, the South Korean government began considering whether to use a more foreigner-friendly system in anticipation of the 1988 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Seoul.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Various attempts were made to measure objective and subjective metrics of the various systems, for example how frequently systems deviated from expected pronunciationTemplate:Sfn or which systems produced the most accurate pronunciations by foreigners.Template:Sfn In 1984, a slightly revised version of McCune–Reischauer was adopted,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn to pushback from Koreans.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn

Computer age

With the spread of computers and the Internet by the 1980s and 1990s, complaints about MR grew.Template:Sfn The breves used in MR are 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.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

Some created new systems and others proposed reverting to previous systems.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In 1991, the South Korean National Academy of the Korean Language (NAKL; Template:Category handler) proposed its own new system. Concurrently, Bok Moon Kim produced Template:Ill.Template:Sfn Despite Kim's advocacy for his system, it never saw widespread adoption; some of the romanizations it produced (e.g. "Dongnipmoon") were mocked in the press for seeming humorous. In 1997, the South Korean government began moving to revise or switch romanization systems. The topic was hotly debated in South Korean press and foreigner communities. One point of concern was on the estimated expenses needed to repaint all road signs with new romanizations.Template:Sfn

In 1997, the National Academy of the Korean Language System was proposed.Template:Sfn It was jointly proposed by the National Commission of Romanization of Korean and the Academy of Korean Language. The system is transliteral in nature; journalist Choe Yong-shik of The Korea Times alleged that the system was designed without the input of non-Koreans and mostly meant for ease of use for Koreans. Under that system, Tongnimmun is rendered Dogribmun.

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).Template:Sfn 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.

In a 2020 book, linguists Sungdai Cho and John Whitman argued that RR's lack of diacritics has "helped it gain widespread acceptance on the Internet".Template:Sfn

Romanization systems of the Soviet Union

Around the late 1920s to 1930s, the Soviet Latinization movement, which sought to standardize use of variants of the Latin script across the Soviet Union, unsuccessfully attempted to supplant Hangul as the primary script for Korean.Template:Sfn Koreans publicly debated whether to Latinize (i.e. use a romanization system in place of Hangul), with some publishing articles in the newspaper Sŏnbong.Template:Sfn According to a 1931 article by B. K. Pashkov, a 1930 meeting by Korean members of the Communist Party and Komsomol in Vladivostok concluded with a resolution to Latinize as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Russian scholars and bureaucrats also began proposing the same.Template:Sfn

The below plans were debated, with alternatives proposed, including ones by Kim Naksŏn () and Pak Yŏngbin ().Template:Sfn Overall, such proposals were never widely adopted, and were often received coldly by Koreans. Around 1934, the overall Soviet Latinization movement began to decline.Template:Sfn

Primorsky Committee romanization

The first Soviet romanization scheme was the Primorsky (Maritime) Committee romanization scheme, which published in November 1931 by the Primorsky Committee based in Khabarovsk. Its Korean name was given as Template:Korean/auto.Template:Sfn

Latin	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	ng	o	p	r	s	t	u	j	v	w	x	y	z	ch	kh	th	ph
Hangul

J and w are semivowels used before vowels to make diphthongs (e.g. ja for and wy for ). Y is a short vowel used after vowels to make diphthongs (e.g. oy for and йy for ). An apostrophe (') is used to prevent occurrences of ng that aren't meant to represent from being read this way, for example chenTemplate:'ge for (without the apostrophe, ambiguous with ).Template:Sfn

Moscow romanization

The Moscow romanization scheme was published around the same time as the Maritime Committee scheme in 1931.Template:Sfn

Latin	A	ə	B	C	Ch	D	E	ь	G	H	I	J	K	Kh	L	M	N	O	Ø	P	Ph	R	S	Sh	T	Th	U	W	Y	Z	n
Hangul

While some diphthongs are represened by single symbols (e.g. Ø for ), others are represented by joining the semi-vowels j and w to other vowels (e.g. jь for and wj for ).Template:Sfn

O Sŏngmuk romanization

Koryo-saram O Sŏngmuk (; Template:Category handler) devised his own romanization system, which is attested to in a surviving 1932 publication entitled First Steps in Latinized Korean (Template:Category handler; Latinizirovannyi Koreiskii Bukvar’). The system used two letters from Cyrillic.Template:Sfn

Vowels: a , e , ə , i , o , ø , u , y , Ь

Semi-vowels: j, w

Consonants: b , c , d , g , h , k , l , m , n , ŋ , p , r , s , t , z , з .

For example, was rendered as On zege proletaridyryn danhab hara! and was rendered as SӘ GRCA ЗЬNDOŊMӘŊ ZUŊAŊWIWЬNHØ BARHӘŊ.Template:Sfn

O's proposal was approved and published by the All-Union Central Committee for the New Alphabet in Moscow. However, it was likely rejected at some point afterwards.Template:Sfn

Kholodovich romanization

Template:Ill proposed the following romanization scheme in 1935:Template:Sfn

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

List of romanization systems

• Siebold romanization (1832)Template:Sfn
• Medhurst romanization (1835)Template:Sfn
• Dallet system (1874)Template:Sfn
• Template:Ill dictionary (1880)
• Ross system (1882)Template:Sfn
• Gale system (1897)Template:Sfn
• Eckardt system (1923)Template:Sfn
• Primorsky (Maritime) Committee romanization (1931)Template:Sfn
• Moscow romanization (1931)Template:Sfn
• O Sŏngmuk romanization (1932)Template:Sfn
• Unified Han'gŭl Orthography System appendix (1933)Template:Sfn
• Ogura system (1934)Template:Sfn
• Jung romanization (1935Template:Sfn or 1936)Template:Sfn
• Kholodovich romanizationTemplate:Sfn
• McCune–Reischauer (1939)Template:Sfn
  • ALA-LC romanization
  • Ministry of Education system ("MOE-1984"; 1984)Template:Sfn
• Lukoff romanization (1945), developed by Fred LukoffTemplate:Sfn
• Ministry of Education system ("MOE-1959"; 1959)Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
• The Shibu Shohei System (1961)
• Yale romanization of Korean (1968)Template:Sfn
• Korean Language Society ("KLS-1984"; 1984)Template:Sfn
• Korean Romanization for Data Application (1992)
• You Mahn-gun's System (1992)Template:Sfn
• Korean romanization of INALCO (1992)
• Lee Hyun Bok's Computer-Communication System (1994)Template:Sfn
• Template:Ill (1996)
• HanSe System (1996)Template:Sfn
• 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).Template:Sfn 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. Linguists Sungdai Cho and John Whitman claimed the system was never adopted by any organization or state and never saw significant use.Template:Sfn
• National Academy of the Korean Language System (1997)Template:Sfn
• Revised Romanization of Korean (2000)Template:Sfn

Comparison of various systems

Comparison of romanization of consonantsTemplate:Sfn

Hangul	IPA	RR	MR	Yale	DPRK	USSR	KORDA	Shibu	Han	Lukoff	Mahngun
ㅁ		m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m	m
ㅂ		b/pTemplate:Efn	p/b	p	p	b	b	b	b	p	b
ㅃ		pp	pp	pp	pp	p	bb	bb	bb	pp	p
ㅍ		p	p'	ph	ph	ph	p	p	p	ph	ph
ㄴ		n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n	n
ㄷ		d/tTemplate:Efn	t/d	t	t	d	d	d	d	t	d
ㄸ		tt	tt	tt	tt	t	dd	dd	dd	tt	t
ㅌ		t	t'	th	th	th	t	t	t	th	th
ㄹ		r/lTemplate:Efn	r/l	l	r	r	r/l	r	l	l	l/r
ㅅ		s	s	s	s	z	s	s	s	s	s
ㅆ		ss	ss	ss	ss	s	ss	ss	ss	ss	ss
ㅈ		j	ch/j	c	ts	з	j	j	z	j	j
ㅉ		jj	tch	cc	tss	c	jj	jj	zz	jj	cz
ㅊ		ch	ch'	ch	tsh	ch	ch	c	c	jh	ch
ㄱ		g/kTemplate:Efn	k/g	k	k	g	g	g	g	k	g
ㄲ		kk	kk	kk	kk	k	gg	gg	gg	kk	k
ㅋ		k	k'	kh	kh	kh	k	k	k	kh	kh
ㅎ		h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h	h
ㅇ	silent / Template:Efn	-/ngTemplate:Efn	-/ngTemplate:Efn	-/ngTemplate:Efn	-/ngTemplate:Efn	ŋ	-/ngTemplate:Efn	'/q	g	ng	ng

Comparison of romanization of vowelsTemplate:Sfn

Hangul	IPA	RR	MR	Yale	DPRK	USSR	KORDA	Shibu	Han	Lukoff	Mahngun
ㅏ		a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a	a
ㅓ		eo	ŏ	e	ŏ	ь	u	e	e	ø	au
ㅗ		o	o	(w)o	o	o	o	o	o	o	o
ㅜ		u	u	wu	u	u	oo	u	u	u	ou
ㅡ		eu	ŭ	u	ŭ	y	eu	y	w	ʉ	u
ㅣ		i	i	i	i	i	i	i	i	i	i/y
ㅐ		ae	ae	ay	ae	ə	ae	ai	ae	ä	ai
ㅔ		e	e	ey	e	e	e	ei	é	e	e
ㅚ		oe	oe	(w)oy	oe	ø	oe	oi	ó	ö	we
ㅟ		wi	wi	wi	we	ui	wi	ui	uj	wi	wi
ㅢ		ui	ŭi	uy	ŭi	yi	ui	yi	wj	ʉ	ui
ㅑ		ya	ya	ya	ya	ja	ya	ia	ja	ya	ya
ㅕ		yeo	yŏ	ye	yŏ	jь	yu	ie	je	yø	yau
ㅛ		yo	yo	yo	yo	jo	yo	io	jo	yo	yo
ㅠ		yu	yu	yu	yu	ju	yoo	iu	ju	yu	you
ㅒ		yae	yae	yay	yae	jə	yae	iai	jae	yä	yai
ㅖ		ye	ye	yey	ye	je	ye	iei	jé	ye	ye
ㅘ		wa	wa	wa	wa	wa	wa	oa	ōa	wa	wa
ㅝ		wo	wŏ	we	wŏ	wь	wo	ue	ōe	wø	wau
ㅙ		wae	wae	way	wae	wə	wae	oai	óae	wä	wai
ㅞ		we	we	wey	we	we	we	uei	ōé	we	we

Examples

English	Hangul	IPA	RR (RR transliteration in brackets)	MR	Yale
wall			byeok (byeog)	pyŏk	pyek
on the wall			byeoge (byeog-e)	pyŏge	pyek ey
outside (uninflected)			bak (bakk)	pak	pakk
outside			bakke (bakk-e)	pakke	pakk ey
kitchen			bueok (bueok)	puŏk	puekh
to/in the kitchen			bueoke (bueok-e)	puŏk'e	puekh ey
Wikipedia			wikibaekgwa (wikibaeggwa)	wikibaekkwa	wikhi payk.kwa
Hangul			hangeul or han-geul (hangeul)	han'gŭl	hānkul
character, letter			geulja (geulja)	kŭlcha	kulqca
(an) easy (+ noun)			swiun (swiun)	shwiun	swīwun
Korea has four distinct seasons.			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.			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.

See also

• Cyrillization of Korean

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.)

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