[KS] romanization-Why to K?

[sangoak]

Dear List,

The Korean Government has not decided a change in romanization but is
preaching for their new proposal in large cities in 'South'(i.e. Pusan,
Kwangju, etc.) Korea at the moment.
In the meantime why not reading the following comment by me in order to
commemorate Y2K?


    Why (not change to Gim but stick) to K(im)?: a case of fugitive g

       --Mr. Gim got gimchi at Gimpo (airport) in Gyeonggi-do
         and flew to Gimhae (airport) in Gyeongsangnam-do.--

                                    Sang-Oak Lee
                                Department of Korean
                                 Seoul National Univ.

In Korean linguistics and orthography, romanization of the Korean
language
is such a great problem that all available wisdom should be used in
solving
very intricate issues. Since King Sejong the Great already experimented
two
types of orthography, both phonemic and morphophonemic transcriptions
are still the two extreme poles to represent the Korean language into
the
Roman alphabet.

Out of the many problem areas in romanizing Korea, the predilection to
"k"
over "g," is remarkable even among non-linguists. According to a survey
on romanizing Korean personal names and names of public institutions
conducted by the National Academy of the Korean Language in 1996,
public attitudes were as follows (cf. Sang-Oak Lee 1998:66):

(1) in case of the family name: (initial) "k" 167 vs. "g" 1  (final) "k"
57
vs. "g" 0
(2) in case of the first name: (initial) "k" 172 vs. "g" 21  (final) "k"
152
vs. "g" 1, "ck" 13
(3) in case of the name of company, university, bank, and others:
(initial)
"k" 126 vs. "g" 20  (final) "k" 50 vs. "g" 1, "ck" 6

What can we say from this natural tendency? Here the phonetic reason for

that phenomenon is presented and consequently the choice of "k" over "g"

is advocated.

As the first argument, let us look at Thai. Thai has voiced, voiceless
unaspirated, and aspirated stops as shown in the following table. (Grave

marks on some accented a's are replaced by ' for e-mail.)

                                    Stops in Thai.

Voiced                       b'aa   shoulder  dam  black
(                   )
Voiceless unaspirated   p'aa   forest      tam   to pound   k'at   to
bite
Aspirated stops           ph'aa  to split    tham  to do       kh'at  to
interrupt

We find that we can make it last longer during [b] than during [d] or
[g]
because in [b] there is a fairly large space above the glottis.

"Air from the lungs can flow through the glottis for a relatively longer
period
of time before the pressure above the glottis begins to approach that of

the air in the lungs. The vocal cords can be kept vibrating throughout
this
period. But in [g] there is only a small space above the glottis into
which
air can flow, so that the voicing can be maintained only briefly.
Languages
often fail to have fully voiced velar stops.  Note that Thai does not
have a
voiced stop contrasting with a voiceless unaspirated stop at this place
of
articulation." (Ladefoged 1975. 126-7, rev.1982.133-134)

Based on the above phonetic grounds, it seems quite natural that
ordinary
Koreans choose Kia (the name of Korean car manufacturer without any
relationship with "kill in accident") over Gia.

As the second argument, note that Ito and Mester (1998) applied the idea

of OT (optimality theory) in explaining a Japanese case of choosing "k"
over "g": i.e. [bakku], not [baggu] for pronouncing a foreign word
"hand-
bag" as follows.

(22) UNASSIMILATED FOREIGN: --> beddo  "bed"  (violation of NO-DD)
    ASSIMILATED FOREIGN: --> (hando)bakku  "handbag" (no violation
                                  of NO-DD, violation of
FAITH/ASSIM-FOREIGN)

Table 1. Data from Ito and Mester (1998)
------------------------------------------------------
                     Faith/U-f   NO-DD    Faith/A-f   NO-P   NO-NT
------------------------------------------------------
/beddo/   [beddo]                 *
Unass-F  [betto]   *!(Id-F)
/baggu/   [baggu]                *!
Ass-F     [bakku]                          *(Id-F)
/pabbu/   [pabbu]                *!                     *
Assimilat  [pabu]                           *(Id-F)
ed-        [habu]                          **(Id-F,??)
Foreign   [habbu]                          *(Id-F)
------------------------------------------------------

We may conclude that "k" is more preferred to "g" in many languages.
However, the National Academy of Korean Language wants to propose
"Mr. Gim got gimchi at Gimpo (airport) in Gyeonggi-do and flew to
Gimhae (airport) in Gyeongsangnam-do."

However, since the NAKL will not allow "k" in the 'place' names but only

in  the 'personal' names, "Mr. Gim" will be replaced by "Mr. Kim' in the

above sentence. In this ad hoc way the prestigious family name in North
Korea "Kim" can be saved without possible clash with DPRK.

References

Ito, Junko and Armin Mester (1998) The Phonological Lexicon. In
Tsujimura,
Natsuko ed. A Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ladefoged, Peter (1975) A Course in Phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, inc. rev. ed. (1982)

Lee, Sang-Oak (1998) The Necessity of Dual Romanization Systems of
Korean. Occasional Papers 1. Romanization of Korean, Lingua Koreana
Society. 39-70.

(Your comments are welcome.)





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