[KS] romanization '99

[Mark Mueller]

I think there's something to be said for creating a single system of
one-to-one correspondance without diacritical marks.  There's the
objection that such a system would make words difficult to pronounce for
all not familiar with it, but the same problem exists with Pinyin (or
the other romanization systems for Chinese).  Even with the present
system, the average person without some linguistic knowledge or training
would not even come close to the Korean pronunciation.  

Someone suggested using diacritical marks since they can be made using
the different computer systems, but there's still the problem of
converting documents.  I have hundreds of pages of documents that I made
using the IBM codes for the diacritical marks and these all become
gibberish when read using Korean Windows 95 as an operating system. 
Even if Mr. Gates finally gets all these problems straightened out,
there will still be technical problems when converting between systems
(i.e. Windows to Mac).  

As for the "h" used to show aspiration, I don't see any advantage over
the present system except that this might bring Korean romanization
closer to other systems (e.g., Arabic?).  

At any rate, a single system should be agreed upon once and for all. 
Each time romanization is changed, many reference books, indices, etc.
end up in the rubbish bin.


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%