[KS] Revised Romanization Detailed Guidelines?

[Frank Hoffmann]

In response to CedarBough Saeji's note below:

A good portion of this argument is about politics. But the US was not 
the colonial power in Korea during the first half of the last century, 
and McCune and Reischauer were not part of a colonial system. (Also, 
James Grayson's suggestion to rename McC-R to reflect the parts played 
by Ch'oe Hyŏn-bae, Chŏng In-sŏp, and Kim Sŏn-gi is a great one.)

Sure, everything is political, no doubt. Yet, in this case such a 
political interpretation of a romanization system -- how you depict it, 
a system chosen by the South Korean people -- created a huge 
disservice, quite some mess, also because its implementation came at 
the exact time (after all the East European states had turned 
capitalist and McC-R had been accepted there in libraries, in East 
Asian studies and by the press etc. as well) when pretty much everyone 
finally used McC-R. But from how I observe the system is used by 
non-scholars (or non-Asian studies scholars) in Korea itself, it has 
been a failure, as it is more often than not only used in 50% of cases 
... quite the opposite to e.g. how Pinyin is used by the Chinese, or 
Hepburn by the Japanese. 

Then and now, around the year 2000 and now, hardly anyone preferred one 
system over another. The *main* issue (aside from minor technical 
problems), as I see it, has always been and still is the existence of 
several systems side by side. *If* there had not been any widely 
accepted system in place in 2000, only few scholars would have had an 
issue with the introduction of the new system by the Korean government. 
Please consider the gravity, the extent of work necessary to e.g. 
change such a system in the library system. That's not done with a push 
of a button. And, other than what you state, the South Korean agencies 
who handle this are changing things around ... I mentioned a few 
changes earlier, while not even documenting these changes appropriately 
(by publishing updated guides), AND that system is missing some rules 
that a library cataloger or scholar would need to have, without 
inventing his/her own ones. These are issues of professionalism and 
practicability, not political issues whatsoever. You cannot reduce this 
by saying something to the extend that non-Koreans say bad things of 
how this is handled in Korea. 

Postscriptum:
The political view you represent is questionable, isn't it?

> 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. 

Please think this over. You are saying that the North (using McC-R with 
minor alterations) and the South are not on even terms with each other 
BECAUSE the North has a smaller population. So, if you push that issue 
onto a political stage then that sure is a highly questionable 
approach. 

Regards,
Frank


On Fri, 9 Dec 2016 14:11:18 -0800, CedarBough T. Saeji  wrote:
> 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
>> 
>> 
>> 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
> 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).
>  
> Apt. 116  / 3655 Wesbrook Mall / Vancouver BC / V6S 0G6 / CANADA
> 
> 

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