[KS] Revised Romanization Detailed Guidelines?

[Dennis Lee]

Dear Frank,

Unfortunately, my observations on the state of Revised Romanization are
similar to yours. I tried contacting the National Institute of the Korean
Language as well but was told to check the website. Nobody seemed to really
know (or possibly care). I may be speaking to the wrong people there, but
it was a bit discouraging.

It looks like I will have to develop my own guide in the interim. I highly
doubt the Korean language police will be showing up at my classroom door
anytime soon.

Thank you all for your replies!

Best,
Dennis Lee
Assistant Professor
Underwood International College
Yonsei University



On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 1:49 PM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreanstudies.com>
wrote:

> Dear Dennis, and All:
>
> My *impression* is that we are in a downward spiral. My *impression* is
> further that after the initial publication of the RR 2000 system hardly
> anyone seriously cares, EXCEPT those scholars in Asian studies outside
> of Korea who are pushed to adopt that system (e.g. as they or their
> institution receive funding from Korean government associated
> organization, or because they publish in Korea itself). Hyoungbae Lee
> just posted the link to the scanned version of the English language
> booklet _The Revised Romanization of Korean_, the scanned version of it
> at the National Institute of Korean Language website. This is a Korean
> government website, and as we see they do not even deem it necessary to
> put up a text one can actually read without performing some Yoga
> exercise (the document is turned 45 degrees to the right). That seems
> no coincidence. It continues. In terms of content there are other
> "quality" and scholarship issues. Not to repeat a discussion already
> completed in 1999/2000, but my point is, things have not improved ...
> we still see that old text up there, that has never been updated with
> any really complete romanization guide. On page 7 (PDF pagination) of
> that old guide we thus see such claims as: "(...) Kumkang and Hankuk,
> for 금강 and 한국 instead of Kŭmgang and Han-guk, as would have been
> correct according to the old system." "Han-guk," of course, is not the
> correct transcription according to McCune-Reischauer. And how many
> scholars in Korea do indeed follow the RR 2000 guide? While McC-R has
> been abolished in Korea, as before, everyone, including scholars, is
> now still using their personal rule of thumb guide instead of the new
> system -- that is, a mix between the new system and freehand
> interpretations of signs in the cloudy autumn sky. How professionally
> has the not-anymoe-so-new system been implemented? A Korean studies
> librarian at Princeton University wondering where to find an actual,
> up-to-date ruleset of this system, 16 years after it was implemented,
> is a good measure to get to a conclusion here. One side effect of the
> results of the implementation is that students no longer appropriately
> learn the "old" McC-R system, and that most, if not all (from what I
> see all) major Asian studies journals have by now gotten rather "loose"
> in terms of editing out transcription errors. THAT again distinguishes
> Korean studies publications from studies about Japan and China in
> rather unfortunate terms, making KS look like a field in its infancy --
> a stage it had already overcome at the exact time the new RR system was
> introduced.
>
> Not too long ago I stumbled over an article from, I think it was 2009
> or 2014 (cannot give you the reference now), that pointed out how the
> rules for romanizing personal names were again revised. I recall some
> examples from classical literature, e.g. how to romanize 심쳥전 -- with
> that female given name together or as two separate names, etc. All I
> recall now is that there were changes applied to the official system.
>
>
> Regards,
> Frank
>
>
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreanstudies.com
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