[KS] The Mystery of the Breve
Frank Hoffmann
hoffmann at koreaweb.ws
Mon Sep 14 13:43:54 EDT 2009
You made your point clear. Thank you.
Regarding replacements or left-out of brèves,
both has been practiced heavily on this list when
using older email software -- leaving them out as
well as replacing them by ô, û (included in the
ASCII set). Other than what you try to
demonstrate with your place name example this did
certainly not lead to more confusion than the
usage of two or three romanization systems at the
same time (in publications, libraries, news
media, museums, etc.)! And I have not seen anyone
in Korean Studies who, as you claimed, would have
made the argument that replacing brèves with
circumflexes would be an unforgivable sin.
NORTH Korea: this is an entirely different topic, of course. You wrote:
>> As I said earlier, I would have suggested to simply allow
>> "eo" and "eu" (...), and to replace the apostrophe by 'h'.
>> (...) Is that true? I've never seen the spelling Phyongyang
>> anywhere.
(1) As you already pointed out yourself, "eo" and
"eu" are used instead of o and u + brève.
"Phyongyang" is therefore no valid example.
(2) The "h" is indeed used to replace the
apostrophe in McC-R for an aspirated t' or p'.
For example "thongil" instead of "t'ongil."
Regarding the "Phyeongyang" (not "Phyongyang" in
any case) example/case, "Seoul" is, according to
McC-R also an exception, and other such
exceptions have been added later, such as
"Syngman Rhee."
You refer to the Wikipedia -- probably to this page -- yes?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean
The following sentence there, whoever phrased it
this way, seems far to bold, is not correct this
way.
QUOTE: "North Korea continues to use a version of
the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization,
which was in official use in South Korea from
1984 to 2000."
For example, the South Korean modified version of
McC-R never used "j" as an initial -- North
Koreans write "Joson" or "Joseon" when referring
to their last dynasty or their present country
name. And the pro-North Korean group in Japan
becomes "Chongryon" -- it would begin with Ch'
according to McC-R or the modified South Korean
version of it. Furthermore, according to their
system it should be "Chongryeon" (eo), but in
various North Korean and Japanese publications
both variants are used seemingly arbitrarily. The
North Korean confusion of using their
romanization systems seems no different than it
is in South Korea.
Frank
--
--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws
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