[KS] Re: Road signs and more than we want to know

[kushibo]

Peter Mauro Schroepfer/Seo Banseok wrote:
> What is the difference between a linguist who hints that G. M. McCune and E.
> O. Reischauer were two yangnoms who didn¡¯t know anything about urimal and
> foreign types (including the Times and Herald) who spread equally unfounded
> lies about the National Academy of the Korean Language? They look pretty
> much the same to me.

I would have to say that it appears the two local English-language dailies
may have done a poor job of publicizing the "public hearings" ahead of time,
if what you write below is correct. Although I don't see where the actual
public, especially international residents whom would be most strongly
affected by the imposing of a new system, or international academics whose
support would be needed to bring consistency.

With the use of "eo" (apparently spawned from a misunderstanding of the
French spelling of Seoul for the capital city) and the capitalization of
each syllable (e.g., CheongRyangRi or JeongRyeongPo) with no space in
between, seems to indicate a lack of prowess for English letter usage on the
part of the creators of this "new" system (frankly, it reminds me of these
unwieldy pinyin creations you see on signs in China). Even in spite of what
you mention here, it appears that little effort was made in the planning
stages to include the people who would end up using this system the most.

> I happened to go to a press conference of the Ministry of Culture and
> Tourism on Tuesday at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club. (Two foreign
> journalists showed up, the same number that were in attendance when the
> Ministry of Culture and Tourism invited 250 foreign embassies and press
> organizations to a explanitory meeting in I think April.)

Was the general public invited? Was this announced ahead of time? I work for
a TV network that has a great deal of interest in this and no one there was
notified. And to clarify things, this meeting was to discuss the merits of
the new plan, or to promulgate the new plan?

> One official from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's Language Policy
> Division who was sitting to the side when one of the two journalists asked
> about the money issue had this to say:
>
> The reason the "Additional Provisions" at the end of the document that is
> the new system say that road signs are given until December 31, 2005 to be
> changed is because the Ministry of Construction and Transportation asked for
> this clause. Construction and Transportation says that the average life of
> the average road sign is five years, and so with exception to areas
> surrounding football stadiums that will be hosting World Cup events, most
> newly Romanized signs will be changed when they need replacing anyway, much
> like batteries.

The ubiquitous (and virtually universally M-R signs) road signs have been up
for a lot longer than five years and appear in no need of wear and tear
requiring replacement, which incidates some road signs last a lot longer
than five years yet they are now required to be replaced.

> Same goes for the textbooks. Additional Provision #3 says that government
> publications "such as textbooks" must follow the new system by February 28,
> 2002. Remember that Korean textbooks are printed on something close to
> newspaper, are cheap, and unlike many countries are bought by the students.
> Apparently most are printed every year, but the Ministry of Education asked
> that regulations allow it to use a few that there are too many of until that
> time.

I knew all that about the textbooks, so there was no concern about cost
there. The concern there is that some poor unwitting girl named ¼­ÇöÁ¤ is
going to have her name completely screwed up when she becomes Seo
HyeonJeong, thanks to the Min of Educ going along with this.

> Imagine that! That's two additional ministries in on this "conspiracy" to
> "impose" the new system on themselves, and while _trying_ to minimize the
> cost, too! Someone said all other ministries were invited to meetings where
> their opinions were asked as well, and that most came. So much for
> "secrecy."

There is still money being made from the signs, and there is a contract for
those signs. In a country where the number of neighborhood public works
projects are upped shortly before election time, it's not a stretch to
suspect that someone has a vested interest in this system going through.
There is no smoking gun, but there may be a connection. Just as possibly,
though, there may be no such connection, and the Culture Ministry's reason
for deciding to adopt this poorly thought-out system with little *prior*
input from the English-speaking community who are the major consumers of any
Romanization system may be just an example of foolish bureaucrats who think
they know better than everyone else.

> Here's the biggest peice of misinformation of all: Contrary to popular
> foreign belief, the idea to change the system did not originate with the
> NAKL. According to the them, it was both the HaengjOng Swaesin WiwOnhoe (I
> think this might now be the Kyuje KaehyOk WiwOnhoe, the Regulatory Reform
> Committee) and the Ministry of Construction and Transportation that most
> recently suggested this to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism (maybe then
> Culture and Sports) in 1995.

It may have been suggested by the transportation folks to the Culture folks?
I may have my smoking gun after all. :)

> I quite sure that the NAKL was more than happy
> to oblige, but they were not a bunch of nationalist nutheads who were out to
> get MR for lack of anything better to do. (They actually had plenty to do,
> for example on their new three volume dictionary.)

For the record, I have never characterized this decision as nationalist. My
own guess is that there are people in the Korean govt who sincerely want a
simple system. But those same people fail to realize that the complex nature
of the sounds represented by Sejong's creation are too complex for a
one-to-one correspondence between Hangul and English letters. Thus a ¤¡ is
sometimes an unaspirted k, and sometimes a g. Thus, ¤Ã is sometimes
difficult to write in a clear way and requires the help of a diacritical. ^o
is a lot closer to the pronunciation than "eo"; if the problem is the lack
of the ^o on computers, well, I would submit that if the Macintosh can do it
(I have a Times- and Courier-based font with this) then the PCs can. The
solution is to fix the software problem (relatively easy) rather than change
the road signs and every bit of Romanization in Korea into something that is
intrinsically incorrect.

> The NAKL's dogribmun/jolla bug do/bij(=loan)/os(=clothes)  transliteration
> proposal of 1997 was in reponse to this. Dr. Kim Sejung of the NAKL (and
> member of this list)

Is this the same Dr Kim Sejung of Dankook University

>says that the outcry on the Korean-Studies List was
> part of what encouraged the NAKL to drop that awful proposal.

Cool.

> Even if it can
> be argued that the views of foreigners were ignored during other stages of
> this process, it simply wasn't true at this time.

Should we rejoice and give thanks because they included foreigners after any
of their protests would be a moot point?

> This List, for starters,
> was observed closely.  It was at this time that those  questionaires were
> circuclated. I alone received three, each at a different address and over a
> period of several months. I know of at least four other foreigners who
> received these questionaires as well, though none of them actually filled
> them out and returned them. I hadn't even asked to participate: someone at
> the NAKL was actively seeking out people who might care. On various
> occasions the NAKL has been accused by some in the foreign community of
> having circulated questionaries only to Koreans. This is at best
> "innacurate."

Well, I develop foreign language educational materials for Korea's principle
education radio and TV network. We are instrumental in promoting (or
undermining) any Romanization program, and we have tried hard to be
consistently M-R (including adapting our caption-generating equipment to
include diacriticals), but no one from our area was consulted with these
questionnaires. This doesn't sound like a very concerted effort to get
input.

> Things got quiet, as you might imagine, with the 1997 Presidential Election,
> and it took new leadership (wOnjang) in early 1999 to get the project moving
> again, and, acording to Mr. Kim Sejung, this time they began with two basic
> principles: (1) go with pronunciation instead of han'geul spelling,

I'm not sure what you mean, but the effort to impose a one-to-one
Hangul-to-Romanization system seems to indicate they want to go with simple
spelling, not accurate pronunciation.

>and (2)
> no diacriticals. This eventually led to what we see today.

What is wrong with diacriticals? They can be put in place on computers, and
there are only two, for criminy sake! It's very simple.

> Something else, something rather ironic, that I think many are also not
> aware of is that the NAKL is getting a lot of flak from those many would
> indeed agree are nationalist. Many of the so-called "vernacular dailies" are
> mentioning this as well: that the NAKL is criticized by some for "selling
> out" (my interpretation of "chinach'ige oegugin chungsim") to the foreigners
> in going with a pronunciation based system. I once heard a particularily
> amusing story about how the NAKL sometimes has to talk the more fanatical
> nationalists out of interesting but ultimately bad ideas such as trying to
> have tribes that still have no writing system to use han'geul before they
> discover romaja. I'm all for this, of course, when intelligent life is
> discovered on Mars.

Don't forget: Hangul is the most scientific alphabet ever invented.

> Those on this list who know me well know that I could go on forever but I
> think few care anymore so will spare people from these ramblings.

That's what the delete button is for. Personally, what you wrote is exactly
the kind of information I was hoping for. Thanks.

> I could
> even make arguement as to why I think the new system is actually worth
> giving a chance, whether we like it or not, but in the meantime I've been
> rather alarmed (dare I say embarrassed, too) at the demonization of the NAKL
> that has been taking place in some quarters, not because they're reasonable
> people but out of principle. When it comes to recent discussion on this
> list, I wonder if jokes about someone having a contract for road signs

That was not a joke. That was a sincere concern from a taxpaying resident of
Korea (me) who has witnessed other poorly-thought out but costly debacles.
It really did seem from the way the Korean- and English-language press
handled information on this that

> and
> implying that this may have influenced the government's decision aren't more
> appropriate for the Moogoonghwa List or at least highly unbecoming of the
> nature of this one, being "intended for the higher education community" as
> it is.

Well, I'm a newbie to this list, and I may have missed an earlier such
discussion, but that same post of mine was intended as a general discussion
on the whole Romanization issue which *is* related to the higher education
community. A couple weeks ago I sat through a graduate school lecture in
which the Korean-born Korean history professor about half an hour talking
about the importance of using the McCune-Reischauer system consistently.
There's been no name-calling or abuse, so a little light humor surrounding a
serious issue shouldn't be taken as unbecoming.

K U S H I B O


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