[KS] Would you sell your apartment/flat to promote your Romanization?
sangoak at snu.ac.kr
sangoak at snu.ac.kr
Mon Sep 26 10:53:03 EDT 2005
Dear KS list members:
As
I said earlier, I have more messages which will help people to understand the
situation in pre-2000 Rominization. I mentioned a
behind-the-scene
story
that the change would
have been motivated, even in part, by one man's career ambitions.
Here is another story of personal
factors at play in the development of the 2000 Romanization.
One of the original
instigators who gave rise to review of virtual MR system used since 1984 was
Prof. Kim Bok-mun [or Pongmun]. He claims he sold his apartment to support his
research and publications on Romanization. His version of Romanization is (more
or less phonetically-oriented transliteration) based on English spelling: a >
ah
,
? > ur,
o > oh,
u> oo,
? > uh,
i > ee,
e > eh,
?i > ui,
k >
g/k
(initial & intervocalic/final),
t >
d/t
,
p >
b/p
,
ch > j/t,
k’ > k,
t’ > t,
p’ > p,
ch’ > ch/t,
ss > ts/t,
tch > tj, etc. Thus his name in his
version is
Geem Bokmoon
but he added
a special provision for his family name to keep
Kim
while changing many others’ family
names:
Kang
>
Gahng, Kuk
>
Gook
(not
Cook
but GI slang!), etc.
He has achieved only
three changes of k>
g/k
(initial
& intervocalic/final),
t >
d/t
,
and p >
b/p
in
2000
Rominization although he instigated it by many petitions to the Blue House and
Korean Assembly. In this process of fighting he earned about $8,000 by
impeaching a poor young officer in the National Academy of Korean Language. I
heard this amount of penalty was sentenced because that young scholar posted a
false charge on his website just for a couple of days. A wrong accusation
related to Romanization cost a lot. Can you imagine any other country like this
besides
Korea
where some
people (not the whole public, fortunately--we have too many linguists
considering our size of population) are very keen to linguistic affairs and
where IT is highly developed?
During
the days AKSE was held in last July, I heard some good responses to my earlier
posting [please see attachment], in particular Dr. Bouchez commented the
following. “Neither in schools nor in the society, Koreans did not teach and
study MR system. This was a part of reason to weaken MR system.” D’accord (I
agree). Many Koreans had regarded MR system was for foreigners whereas they
believe 2000 Romanization is more accessible to Koreans.
Sang-Oak
Lee
Seoul
National Univ.
--- Original Message ---
>From :
"sangoak at snu.ac.kr"<sangoak at snu.ac.kr>
To :
"Korean Studies Discussion List"<Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date :
2005/07/06 수요일 오전 6:18:04
Subject :
Re: [KS] The Romanization Discussion
Dear KS list members:
My apologies for not replying sooner although Professor Ledyard encouraged us
more talks. Since last June 30, I have traveled from Manchester, through
Bradford, Leeds, York, Hull, Nottingham and now settled down in Sheffield where
AKSE is held for this whole week.
Indeed I have more messages which will help people to understand the
situation in pre-2000 Rominization. However, the access to computers here is not
convenient, and it is better to write them after returning back to Seoul in
early August because my travel will be extended to six more countries in the
Balkan Peninsula.
Before closing, I am grateful that Professor Ledyard (and others) still
remember my efforts to encourage the Romanization discussions of 1999 to move in
desirable directions. I also have to express my gratitude to many foreign Korean
scholars who have been quite indulgent(?) to the story of personal factors at
play in the development of the 2000 Romanization. I do not want to cause any
belated fuss other than better understranding that nationalistic movement was
not really intended.
Sang-Oak Lee
--- Original Message ---
>From :
"Stefan Ewing"<sa_ewing at hotmail.com>
To :
"Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws"<Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Date :
2005/07/04 月曜日 午前 4:42:09
Subject :
Re: [KS] The Romanization Discussion
Dear KS list members:
My apologies for not replying sooner. We have now successfully moved to our
new home, all the boxes are unpacked, and I can now once again devote my
attention to indulgences such as this discussion list.
My sincerest apologies to Dr. Ledyard for any misunderstanding I may have
caused. I certainly did not feel in any way personally snubbed by him, and
did not stop writing on the subject because of him. Early on in my
participation here, a sympathetic commenter pointed out off-list that
romanization is a subject that many participants are understandably tired of
discussing. It was right and politic of Dr. Ledyard to throw a nod to such
participants in one or two of his earlier posts. His comments gave me an
"out," and I was referring in my last post to the the sentiments he was
sensibly respecting, not to his own views on the subject _per se_.
I do thank Messrs./Drs. Lee, Ledyard, Ramsey, King, Driscoll, et al. for
their fascinating comments. The anecdotes in particular--regarding the
history of Yale Romanization; Rhee Syngman's failed attempts at Hangul
orthographic reform; and the personal factors at play in the development of
the 2000 Revised Romanization of Korean--have been quite intriguing. I do
at least hope that many subscribers who are otherwise uninterested in the
topic of romanization have enjoyed reading these anecdotes as much as I
have.
Yours sincerely,
Stefan Ewing
>From: gkl1 at columbia.edu
>Reply-To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>To: Korean Studies Discussion List <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
>Subject: Re: [KS] The Romanization Discussion
>Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 23:54:06 -0400
>
>As a long-time list veteran who has been through many discussions on
>romanization that ended nowhere, I expressed myself tired of the subject in
>a posting a few weeks ago. Stefan Ewing, who obviously has a genuine,
>sincere, and informed interest in this topic, seems to have taken my
>message as a damper, and may have stopped talking about it before he really
>wanted to. I'm grateful for Mr McGuire giving him an opportunity to get
>into it again. I deeply regret it if something that I wrote has dissuaded
>anybody from saying anything they want to say on this list. I have no wish
>to do so, ever.
>I was surprised that Sang Oak's message-- which really was a very
>significant comment on the subject, elicited no responses. As a friend of
>Sang Oak and one familiar with his many efforts to
>encourage the official Korean romanization discussions of 1999 to move in
>open and flexible directions, when his own position between his Korean
>colleagues and his foreign friends made things somewhat tight for him, I
>have always thought he deserved and deserves the gratitude of all of us.
>His conclusion that Korea needs three romanization systems is a pragmatic
>and sensible recognition of reality, and I am sure that that is the way it
>will play out in the future. Here's to you, Sang Oak! And let no one
>hesitate to talk about what they want to talk about, no matter what some
>old crank
might think!
Gari Ledyard
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