[KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer

[Werner Sasse]

Hi,

trying to be pragmatic: if McR tries to write the pronunciation, there should be 1) [n], 2.[zero], 3. [l]
1. [n] if none of the following rules 2. and 3. is the case (육년 yungnyŏn, 독신녀 toksinnyŏ)
2. [zero] at the beginning of a word in S-Kor Korean, when the initial n is deleted like before yota. (여자 yŏja). 
The problem with  년 is that in most usages it more resembles a dependent/bound noun, cf. 삼년 samnyŏn, not sam yŏn, 육년 yungnyŏn, not yuk yŏn, 2014년 ... And (because of frequency of bound 년 ?) in normal talk many Koreans pronounce the n- in nyŏn even when initial, while only very few say nyŏja for 여자. 
(NO deletion in N-Kor official speak, but to my experience still used even there by many in casual conversation when a "non-political" vocabulary item is used...)
3. [l] after l/r (말년 mallyŏn)
Note that this problem arises only in sino-kor words.

Rules are one thing, applications are another. And, of course, standards should be followed strictly, but adapting the romanisation systems to particular needs and/or documentation media seems to be a problem among researchers and librarians which - seen from the outside - resembles religion wars. I mean: fighting for and about the "best" solution, while there is no best solution looks like fighting for truth where the opposite of truth is only another truth... Pragmatical approach seems to be asked for. And, anyway, no system will be good for speakers of any language or for any application.

And, by the way, the biggest problem I see in all of the different romanisation systems is the lack of hyphenisation rules. Here no solution will be found before those, who are creating official standardized romanisation rules (up to now 4 different systems in my lifetime...) will understand, that the system should not be made to please Korean eyes. Hyphens or spacing are sine-qua-non for Western eyes, even when Koreans do not seem to need them.
Last footnote at the side: The beauty of McC rather than the current system comes from the fact that foreigners made it for foreigners. (Footnote: interesting that Korean colleagues often say that McC is bad because it was made by foreigners. Look at Hepburn for Japanese... ) And we have to give up the ridiculous idea that a writing system needs to be logical, scientific, or what not. It should simply be standardized and be used by everyone, no matter how stupid it may look. (therefore it should also be taught in Korean schools!) 
And Pusan/Busan, Kwangju/Gwangju, etc. still lingering on ...,  but here comes a different story)

Best wishes
perŭnŏ sase

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2014 14:07:50 -0800
From: hoffmann at koreanstudies.com
To: koreanstudies at koreanstudies.com
Subject: Re: [KS] Variable Romanization of 년(年) in McCune-Reischauer

Hi Dennis:
 
Good question. Never saw that before you mentioned it here ... but yes, 
the Library of Congress version of the McC-R rules does indeed list 
such examples as 
  1996 년  =  1996-yŏn
  62 年 事業  =  62-yŏn saŏp
on age 32, just as you say.
 
Am also a little confused here. Maybe some linguist can explain that?
 
I just wanted to say ne thing though: there are lots if rules in this 
very *detailed* ruleset by the Library of Congress. And it seems that 
for most there are too many rules, so many that non-bibliographers are 
unwilling to follow them, also because they make our life harder and 
not easier. FOR EXAMPLE (from my memory, without having reconfirmed 
with the guide), when you look up the book title "한글　타자" in the 
online Library of Congress catalog you will find this:
  Hanʼgŭl tʻaja
Not sure if your email program shows this correctly when my message 
arrives on your computer ... so here is an IMAGE of it:
  

Do you see the variations there in the quotes -- between curved closing 
single quote and curved opening single quote? That is one of those LC 
rules that hardly anyone follows, one thought to be a stop to separate 
syllables, so Hanʼgŭl is not misread as Hangʼŭl, in the other case just 
representing the tiut (ㅌ). That's very Prussian, I'd say, except that 
it comes from Washington. Not even first rate university presses follow 
such rules.

The same page of the LG guide you referred to also has this example:
  천구백구십육년  =  Ch’ŏn-kubaek-kusip-yungnyŏn 
Apart from that "-yŏn" which same as you I do not understand (yet), it 
does make sense to transcribe a year in e.g. a book title *if* it is 
given there in hanʼgŭl (not numerals), just as in the example above. It 
also makes sense to leave it in numerals *if* it is given in numerals 
in the original (e.g. 1962 년). But I see that a number of writers then 
also transcribe it into full words if the original is in numerals. The 
only reason this happens is because there are just too many rules in 
the ALA-LC guidelines for researchers to follow. You just can't have a 
life in the real world and parallel to that follow ALA-LC rules. Enough 
is enough.

Best,
Frank



On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 04:56:16 +0900, Dennis Lee wrote:
> Dear List Members:
> 
> I apologize in advance if this has already been answered on the list. 
> However, my search came up nothing about this. 
> 
> This is something about the McR romanization for 년(年) that has 
> bothered me for years, but I haven't yet found a satisfactory answer.
> 
> On page 32 of the ALA-LC guidelines, it gives several examples of 
> romanizing 년, but in some cases it will romanize it nyŏn while in 
> others it will be yŏn. Logically, I think it should be nyŏn all the 
> time.  At first, I thought the use of yŏn was some arbitrary rule for 
> years written in Indo-Arabic numerals, but I have seen it used both 
> ways in various publications. 
> 
> Does anybody know what the exact rule is for choosing yŏn over nyŏn, 
> and more importantly, why? Also, does this apply to the Revised 
> Romanization system as well?
> 
> Here are the examples given:
> 
> 천구백구십육년  Ch'ŏn-kubaek-kusip-yungnyŏn
> 1996년 1996-yŏn
> 
> 六十二年 事業 計劃 Yuksip-inyŏn saŏp kyehoek
> 62 年 事業 計劃 62-yŏn saŏp kyehoek
> 
> 
> Thank you,
> Dennis Lee
> 
>  
> 
> 

--------------------------------------
Frank Hoffmann
http://koreanstudies.com 		 	   		  
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