[KS] Translation query

T.N. Park tnpark at mac.com
Fri Mar 1 10:49:26 EST 2002


Kaliher, Kenneth L. wrote:
>  Excellent decision to go with the "Olympic" system for the LP phrasebook,
> I believe. 

Thank you for your support. The earlier edition of the phrasebook, in
addition to being so overly formal as to make the user sound awkward, the
Romanisation was such a mishmash of systems (mostly M-R, but some
idiosyncratic spellings as well) that it caused difficulties for many users.
We're hoping the new book will be much better received, as we are hoping to
work on other joint projects with Lonely Planet.

> Not only is the SHI variation from M-R's SI eminently sensible,
> it also has precedent in the already established M-R use of SH in SHWI.

According to what Boudewijn Walraven has written, the Olympic system is not
really a variant of M-R, but actual M-R.

> (Sorry I don't have Han'gul capability on this computer.)  And the SHI
> variant even has the bonus advantage of having little impact on
> alphabetization, at least among Romanized names/words.
>  You make one error, however, in reference to the double consonants.  The
> M-R rendering is not JJ as you showed, but TCH -- properly UN-voiced, and
> not as tongue-tying for the uninitiated as JJ would be, especially if
> they've heard of Tchaikovsky.

Enlighten me, then, please. I thought that ㅉ was Romanised 'jj' in an
initial position, but I couldn't recall seeing it in a middle position
(there are few place names that contain ㅉ, but most examples of M-R are in
road signs of place names). We thought we were being clever and innovative
by using 'tch' for ㅉ in the middle position.

TNP





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