[KS] behind-the-scene stories of Romanization

[sangoak at snu.ac.kr]

Dear list members:


 


Here are some behind-the-scene stories of 
Romanization
 although belated. Unlike 
the western hemisphere, we here in 
Korea
 still wrap 
up the last chores of the spring semester till the end of June. I have read 
through the long thread of 
Romanization
 at once only in this 
weekend and find some areas where I have to comment since I happen to be the 
only one participant in two committees both in 1984 and 2000. I hesitatingly 
reveal these stories which might help to understand the background of recent 
development and resolve some misconceptions in the thread of 
Romanization
.


 


1) 
First of all, I have been an advocate of MR system or equivalent. In 1984 I was 
lucky enough to keep this position although I was the only one against two other 
senior scholars who favored 1959 MoE system. (In the Blue House, Dr. Sohn, 
Presidential Aide in education strongly influenced the committee under the 
Academy of Science to 
internationalize 
[=take foreigners
’
 favorite system] 
Romanization before the 1986 Asian 
Games.)


After the decision to take almost all skeleton from MR system, Prof. Kim 
Wanjin, my mentor, 
in return
 proposed 
a modification of 
‘
s
’
 into 
‘
sh
’
 before 
‘
i
’
 (without mentioning the subsequent possible changes 
before 
‘
y
’
). It could be a sort of saving his face in front of 
the former student but I do not think that it was a necessary modification. 
There was also another unnecessary, trivial modification of using 
hyphens.


 


2) 
Because of continuous appeal to critical weakness in MR system, that is, 
diacritical marks, the National Academy of the Korean Language (NAKL) organized 
committees two times in 1997 and 1999. The first project was dismissed without 
any result due to strong oppositions including an issue against the choice of 

‘
e
’
 for 
ㅓ
. 


I 
was invited from the second series of ten meetings as one of three scholars. 
Their opinions are diversified in the first several meetings but it was very 
decisive that the government wanted to get rid of diacritics. Although I again 
tried to save basic skeleton of MR system, NAKL was destined to change the 1984 
system very visibly. (In the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Mr. Oh who became 
the Deputy Minister later was very eager to obtain some new achievement to be 
promoted. I later heard this story which was unlucky to advocates of MR system! 
However, I would like to point out that there was not any 
‘
nationalistic
’
 intent to expel MR on purpose as Prof. McCann 
suspected.)


 




Fellow list members, however, please do not get angry 
with this silly story. I myself was quite upset but in the last tenth meeting I 
proposed to include 
“
rule 3.8: transliteration
”
 in the 2000 NAKL system. The following table is 
presented to understand the merit of my proposal which was a great salvage out 
of otherwise another meaningless re-change from 
almost 
MR (1984) to 
quasi-
MoE (2000). 


 


                 
     
|sound-graph cor.| 
’
pronounceability
’
 |no 
diacritics                    
 
   
|_
transliteration__
|_transcription__|_computerization


1954 Yale system |
             

O
            

|
          

X
      
   
|
       
 
O


________________|________________|____________|_______________


1959 MoE system |
             

O
            

|
          

X
       
  
|
        

O


________________|________________|____________|_______________


1984 AoS [=MR]
   
|
             

X
             

|
          

O
        

|
        

X


________________|________________|____________|_______________


2000 NAKL system|
             

O
            

|
           

?
        

|
        

O


 


This table shows the evaluation of the NAKL system is not too bad, 
mainly because the provision of transliteration is included by me. I realize 
this effect more clearly while I draw this 
tableau
.


 


Originally I wanted to use the MR system instead of introducing a new 
system. I always believe the Yale system should be used for linguistic 
transliteration but it has its defect of awkward spelling even to the Westerners 
to be used for ordinary purposes. If any new system would be invented like the 
2000 NAKL, it must be the third one (besides Yale and MR) that makes the 
situation too crowded. That was my reason to oppose to the draft of the 2000 
NAKL system prepared by the ninth meeting.


Along the meetings we had discussed how to write names on the passport. 
Unlike totalitarian China we decided to respect the individual writing of their 

old
 names as used so far especially 
for those who had published articles and books. (In line with this treatment 
many companies like Samsung, Hyundai, & Daewoo may keep their brand value in 
the capitalistic world.) We knew 
Korea
 is not the same as 
China
 also in 
her enforcing power to the world even in the case of introducing a new 
Romanization system. I easily predict the future of using at least three 
systems: Yale in linguistics, MR in Koreanology (
at a minimum
 of usage to decipher the 
previous writings) or more, NAKL in all others. I do not see any wrongdoing in 
this situation since we are in the free world but un-unified country. Only the 
problem is one has to be clever enough to shift from one system to another 
depending on the context.


 


Sang-Oak Lee


Dep
’
t of Korean


Seoul National Univ.




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