[KS] Revised Romanization Detailed Guidelines?

CedarBough T. Saeji umyang at gmail.com
Fri Dec 9 17:11:18 EST 2016


For the record, I never resisted RR, it's not perfect, but my students are
never going to use the diacritics in MR (or CCK, thank you Dr.
Grayson) when these days they try to write their papers on tablets and
phones as well as computers.  I have long told my students in regards to
names (and this is reflected in the PDF RR guideline document) that while
family names may be Romanized in the way that that family has (in order to
keep the 'same' surname in Roman letters in the eyes of non-Korean speakers
like immigration officials in foreign countries), given names are supposed
to be Romanized according to RR rules. In addition, although a few modern
era people like Rhee Syngman had idiosyncratic spelling that we more or
less need to use to maintain consistency, when we're talking about
historical individuals from before the modern era we should be Romanizing
their names using perfect RR, not family names like Lee, Park, or Woo.

I am not surprised that the Korea Journal tried to come up with their own
approach-- the special snowflake approach to spelling of names seems to be
only getting worse in Korea as people (stars) try to bring letters into
their names like Z. The only way to stop the special snowflake spelling, or
to achieve any consistency is for Koreans to understand why Romanization
exists, and why standardizing spelling is advantageous (and as someone who
has taught Koreans in Korea, I guarantee most people enter college not
understanding why Romanization is important, just look at the still too
common choice to spell 혜 Hea, if you don't know what I mean).

In the meantime, don't you think it's time for the Western scholars to
admit that
1) the Korean government is -not- changing Romanization schemes all the
time-- the reasons they established RR still stand and are unlikely to
disappear (I'm sick of hearing people say "it changes each time there is a
new president" because it obviously doesn't), and
2) that we should allow the ROK government (which does represent the
majority of Koreans since the DPRK has a much smaller population) to
determine how Korean is going to be Romanized rather than clinging to MR.

Either solve the technical issue of diacritics (on phones, too) so that the
diacritics require no difficulty at all, or just admit that MR is a
dinosaur in the digital age--the reasons you like it more (if you do) don't
actually matter when no one can figure out a graceful way to use it across
platforms. Tell your journals to switch to RR, write your books in RR, and
stop thinking that Western academia gets to dictate Romanization issues,
that's just more of the same special snowflake thinking.

As for Dennis's original question, I have always just used the 4 page long
Wikipedia explanation on RR with my students and had no problems. Yes, I
did arbitrarily tell them to include 은/는/이/가/에 etc. within the word without
a space (jipe instead of jip e), figuring that worked just fine, and
instructing them to include a - if there may be difficulty without it.

As for Frank's problem with a PDF-- there is a rotate function in PDF
viewers, it works. Yes, they should have rotated before uploading, but no
yoga is needed.

And before I sign off, I have found it very productive to teach
freshmen/women how to use BOTH MR and RR, and given them exercises
requiring them to practice Romanization to make them more familiar with the
differences and challenges. I begin with exercises just with common words
(place names, historical figures, etc.) MR/RR into RR/MR and 한글, and then I
give them whole passages in 한글 (selected to include tricky Romanization)
that they need to Romanize (both systems) to give them a chance to ask the
questions that emerge when you're actually trying to do it, instead of just
being told how to do it. By starting with this at the start of a semester
with freshmen/women I find that I have few problems later on (the next
years, too!) as peers can help correct the students who need help, and
everyone knows it is important. By doing these exercises they can read
materials using both RR and MR without getting confused.

CedarBough Saeji



On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 12:30 PM, Richard McBride <rick_mcbride17 at hotmail.com
> wrote:

> Dear Prof. Tanter and Colleagues
>
>
> One of the curious and/or frustrating decisions of the Revised
> Romanization System is that no standardized rules apply when it comes to
> names.  The way a living or historical person, such as Park Chung Hee or
> Syngman Rhee, spelled his or her name is the appropriate way to romanize it
> using the RR system.  This works okay for some people, or perhaps many
> people in the modern era.  A greater problem arises when trying to romanize
> names of historical Koreans.  How do you romanize their surnames
> systematically?
>
>
> I published a paper in the *Korea Journal* back in 2005 and had to use
> the RR system.  The editors of the journal at that time said that although
> there were no standardized rules, they wanted to do the following with
> certain surnames. "Pak" 박 was to be "Park" (not "Bak"), "Kim" 김 was to be
> "Kim" (not "Gim"), and "Yi" 이 was to be "Lee" (not "I").  They did not have
> a position on other surnames to my remembrance.  However, because many
> Koreans surnamed "U" 우 romanize it as "Woo," I understand that reasoning.
> Now, having the opportunity to evaluate many manuscripts each year, I see
> no standardized or systematic way surnames are organized.  I have seen
> Park, Bak, Bark, and Pak for 박, and I have seen Kim and Gim for 김, and I
> have seen Lee, Yi, I, and Rhee for 이, although I can understand and
> appreciate Ri 리 for a contemporary person from North Korea.
>
>
> My point is that the creators/promoters of the RR system, the Ministry of
> Culture and Tourism, never decided on such issues.  This being so, we will
> continue to see wide variation in the use of the RR system.  It will be
> continue to be frustrating.
>
>
> Best
>
> Rick McBride
>
>
> Richard D. McBride II, Ph.D.
>
> Associate Professor and Chair of History
>
> Brigham Young University–Hawaii #1970
>
> 55-220 Kulanui Street
>
> Lā‘ie, HI 96762-1294
> Phone:  808-675-3593 <(808)%20675-3593>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Koreanstudies <koreanstudies-bounces at koreanstudies.com> on behalf
> of Tanter, Dr. Marcy <TANTER at tarleton.edu>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 8, 2016 6:52 PM
> *To:* Korean Studies Discussion List
> *Subject:* Re: [KS] Revised Romanization Detailed Guidelines?
>
>
> As someone who has not studied this at all, I'm wondering who decided and
> agreed on romanization? For example, why is "Pak" translated as "Park"? why
> is "Oo" "Woo"? I'm learning Hangeul very slowly and on my own, so sometimes
> I get confused.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Professor  Marcy L. Tanter Chair, Speaker Symposium Committee Professor
> of English Department of English and Languages Box T0300 Tarleton State
> University Stephenville, TX 76402*
> ------------------------------
>
>


-- 

CedarBough T. Saeji  ∞ Profile on Academia.edu
<https://ubc.academia.edu/CedarBoughSaeji>

Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia
Department of Asian Studies



"Preserving intangible culture as static performances in the hope of
sustaining cultural diversity may do very little to foster the processes of
change and regeneration that are needed to ensure cultural vitality and
heterogeneity" (Pietrobruno 2009: 240).



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