[KS] RR romanization

[Charles Muller]

On 2013/07/14 12:28, Charles Muller wrote:

> On 2013/07/13 17:06, Sangoak Lee wrote:
>
>>   "Yi Songgye", should be rendered in RR as "I Seonggye".---No.
>> According to  RR 3(4)② Romanization of family names will be determined
>> separately, its correct appllication is still "(Not decided but later)
>> Seonggye."
>
> This begins to sound like the establishment of two standards: one for
> family names, and one for the rest of the language. Surely, this cannot
> be the case. I don't see how RR could possibly say that 이 would be
> romanized as "i" in all cases except for family names. This would be
> especially problematic in area of lexicography, as it would create
> chaos. I would certainly argue strongly against the creation of such a
> policy.

Furthermore, it is hard to imagine any kind of sound principle upon 
which such a decision could be based, without either (1) undermining the 
basic principles and rationales informing RR itself, or (2) appealing to 
subjectivity and emotionalism.

(1) For example: A decision to retain Yi because it was used for a long 
time in MR: in that case, why bother using RR for anything at all? Why 
not just retain MR for all other cases? Or,

(2) Using *Yi* because *I* "looks ugly"-- a commonly-seen argument 
against the usage of new romanization forms in various languages that 
cannot stand up to any scientific form of academic scrutiny. Let's face 
it, such a response indicates nothing more than an emotional expression 
of conditioned habit. (Which, to my mind, is actually 90% of what all 
arguments over romanization boil down to).

Having stated that, I should make my own reasons for my own perspective 
and high level of interest (and emotional attachment!) in this matter clear.

During the late 90's, when the scholars who were working on RR (then 
known as the Ministry of Education System) were in the midst of 
finalizing its principles, my online dictionaries were beginning to come 
to the attention of many academics around the world. I had occasion to 
meet some of these committee members at conferences during this period, 
and they strongly encouraged me to support it in my dictionaries.

I did so, and also adopted RR in my academic writing, perhaps becoming 
the first Western scholar to do so. So I've been writing in RR since 
1998 or so, and now my dictionaries contain almost 100,000 entries in 
total, where RR is used for the Korean. So obviously, I have a lot 
invested in it, and I'm very concerned about its future. I'm most 
concerned when I see arguments made for removal or destabilization of RR 
that have no sound principle behind them, and seem to be to be primarily 
based on foreign pressure, habit, or emotionalisms.

Thus, I don't see why the Korean government can't simply stick to the 
orthographic principles it has established when it comes to orthography, 
and when it comes to surnames and personal names, just acknowledge the 
fact that people are going to do whatever they like, no matter how they 
try to legislate it.

I'll be very interested to see what comes out of this.

Regards,

Chuck



---------------------------
A. Charles Muller

Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology
Faculty of Letters
University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongō, Bunkyō-ku
Tokyo 113-8654, Japan

Office Phone: 03-5841-3735

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