[KS] The Mystery of the Breve

[Frank Hoffmann]

>>  The circumflexes _are_ diacritics, and _not_ included in
>>  the ASCII set (which is a 7-bit character set).


The "standard" ASCII set from 1963 was limited to 
128 characters. But there is an "Extended ASCII" 
set -- and the *extended* ASCII set is 8-bit and 
allows another 128 characters (it includes the 
earlier standard set).
--> http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/E/extended_ASCII.html
This was introduced when, in the early 1970s? In 
any case, I can certainly NOT remember to ever 
have seen any computer in the 1980s that would 
not use the *extended* ASCII set. And I am sure, 
as a programmer, you are perfectly well aware of 
this -- so why bringing up this such strange 
argument then?
ô, û, Ô, and Û are included in the extended ASCII 
set; they were on all the PCs I've ever seen. 
That is exactly why e.g. Japan specialists have 
used them as replacement for the macrons in the 
Hepburn system.


>>  North Korea uses a modified version of McC-R that does not need
>>  diacritics at all (except for hyphens to separate syllables, if
>>  necessary).   But apparently the North Korean system was not
>>  considered as a contender for the new South Korean romanization (...)

I am not really sure, but the introduction of the 
North Korean system probably happened at about 
the same time that South Korea dropped McC-R. 
Maybe someone else can shed some light on this? 
But even if it was out there earlier, McC-R. 
seems to have mostly been abandoned for political 
and nationalistic reasons (American system), and 
I have some doubts that a system created in North 
Korea would have been introduced -- or if so, if 
it would have survived more than one presidency. 
That, of course, is just my own assessment.


Frank

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Frank Hoffmann
http://koreaweb.ws