[KS] Romanization systems survey

[Charles Muller]

Dear Brother Anthony,

Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to give our input on 
this matter of the future of the RR romanization system.

Since you seem to be directly involved in the meetings with the 
Competitiveness Committee, I would like to communicate one or two 
points to you directly.

Mainly, regardless of the feelings of emotional attachment that anyone 
might have regarding one system or another, there seems to be a 
picture being painted on the part of McC-R advocates that virtually no 
one in the West has adopted the RR system. I would like to point out 
that this view is inaccurate.

First, my online dictionaries--most importantly the Digital Dictionary 
of Buddhism [DDB], which, with almost 50,000 entries, is now a primary 
reference work in the field of Buddhist Studies (subscribed to by over 
25 major university libraries)--has been using the RR system since its 
implementation in 2000.

My decision to use RR in the DDB was based on having received a strong 
request from a number of Korean scholars at SNU and the Academy of 
Korean Studies who supported the new system to use it in my reference 
works. Thus, there are a lot of young scholars in the field of East 
Asian studies who have grown accustomed to RR, and use it regularly.

Furthermore, the RR system was also embedded as the standard 
romanization of Korean in all software, as it became part of the 
government standard for computing. Thus any computer program that 
generates Korean readings (such as the the Korean readings generated 
in commercial translation packages, and web software such as Google), 
has also been using RR for almost a decade.

If the Korean government suddenly abandons RR, it is going end up 
being a huge embarrassment for all of us who have supported it for 
these past ten years. It is also going to be a huge amount of work to 
retool and convert all web sources to.... to what?

If RR is withdrawn today, and McR is made to be the standard, how do 
we know that this policy will not be reversed again in five years?

Frankly, if the government makes this change at this point, I 
certainly will not be leaping to return to McCune-Reischauer. Because 
the real problem here, as it has always been, is the lack of any 
consistency in adhering to and supporting any kind of system.

In fact, there is no doubt that the main reason so many scholars were 
reluctant to accept RR to begin with is not that it was inherently 
flawed, but because, based on their prior observations of the behavior 
of the Korean government, they had no confidence that the system would 
be firmly adhered to. Those who had such fears have seen their 
concerns materialized.

Thus, regardless of the technical merits or demerits of any given 
system, a flip-flop on this matter at this point is certain to 
obliterate the confidence of another full generation of scholars in 
any official academic decisions that are made. No one will ever take 
the gamble to follow a new romanization, no matter how 
well-constructed it might be.

I hope that you will convey these sentiments to the appropriate 
committee members.

Sincerely,

Charles Muller

-------------------

A. Charles Muller

University of Tokyo
Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters
Center for Evolving Humanities
Akamon kenkyū tō #722
7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

Web Site: Resources for East Asian Language and Thought
http://www.acmuller.net

<acmuller[at]jj.em-net.ne.jp>

Mobile Phone: 090-9310-1787