[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 Phyo˜ngyang
>>  anywhere.

(1) As you already pointed out yourself, "eo" and 
"eu" are used instead of o and u + brève. 
"Phyo˜ngyang" 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 "Phyo˜ngyang" 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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