[KS] -열 / -렬 (question to linguists & Korean native speakers)

[Kay Richards Gmail]

Dear Frank;

You were asking "There are no orthographic rules then?"

The answer is "yes, there are."

According to the 한글 맞춤법 해설 published by the 국어 연구소 in 1988 as a bulletin of the then Ministry of Education, there are rules for properly transcribing Sino-Korean characters that have the underlying representation of initial [r/l] and [n] in Hangeul.    

To address the specific issues of personal names such as the case of 김창렬 or 김정렬, the correct orthographic convention calls for the spelling of "렬" as in 김창렬.   

However, native speakers of Korean in South Korea would not likely say these names as they are spelled.  They will automatically apply a phonetic (or a pronunciation) rule to say the last syllable of the name 김창렬 something close to either a [nyeol] or a [yeol] or even something in between.  So, the choice would be between choosing to transcribe the names as they are pronounced or to simply transcribe the correct Hangeul spelling.

I think there might have been personal preferences or even random uses of either form prior to the revised orthographic conventions.  But at least the official version of the convention that I am aware of had this particular issue addressed in their Article 11 (of the 1988 해설.)  

I hope this helps.

Kay Richards  



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Frank Hoffmann" <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>
To: <koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Thursday, December 01, 2011 8:18 AM
Subject: Re: [KS] -열 / -렬 (question to linguists & Korean native speakers)


Thanks for your time. However, *my* question is still open.

1. The North/South difference was not the issue ... I tried to expain that.
2. Transcription into the Latin alpahbet was not the issue either.
3. 金昌烈 was just an example (although a good one, and one where this  
just came up again).

Let me try again -- and let me say sorry to not have been explicit enough:
Is there any sort of orthographic rule in SOUTH Korea of how to  
transcribe Hanja that can have initials ㄹ or ㅇ (e.g. 烈) when those  
appear in personal names? I apologize if I am not using the correct  
terminology. Therefore again my EXAMPLE (just an example):
The painter 金昌烈 seems to prefer writing his own name as 김창열 -- that is  
at least how it appears on his home page at  
http://www.kimtschang-yeul.com/html/profile.html Yet, many websites  
and also books I have refer to him as 김창렬 -- see for example, another  
entry on his very own home page  
http://www.kimtschang-yeul.com/html/board/read.asp?id=243&read=8779  
suddenly changes this to "김창렬".
Or see here:
http://www.chungjark.com/artists-kimchangryul.htm
It seems 50:50.
The same is true for other people with an identical name ... and also  
for others with other Hanja parts of their name were these  
alternatives are possible.

There are no orthographic rules then?
And as a 2nd add-on questions: if there are no such rules, there are  
as a consequence none for how to handle that when we mention such  
names in our writings in English, French, German ..., yes? (Fine with  
me, just wanted to make sure I am not missing anything I should know.)

Best,
Frank


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