New Hangul Romanization System Proposed

From Ryu Jin of the Korea Times:

Calls for a revision of the current Romanization system for the Korean alphabet, Hangul, are gaining more ground as confusion continues on the roads, signboards and government documents after the introduction of the current form in July 2000.

The language used by Kim Bok-moon, professor emeritus of Chungbuk National University suggests that there is a dire need for reform:

“Disasters that many critics expected have already begun. We can easily find serious confusion here and there,’’ Kim told The Korea Times. “We have to correct the mistake without delay before it is too late, and adopt a proper system.’’

I’m not certain that yet another romanization system will avert further disaster, but this I know: There will never be a perfect system. Pick a good one and stick with it. People will still complain, but they won’t be confused.

Posted by kangmi on September 26, 2006 at 10:56 AM3 comments

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Leftsider
01 Oct, 2006
01:41 PM
I think it would be advantageous for the group assigned this responsibility to work more closely with native English speakers.

I feel that any English-speaking person who has a reasonable understanding of Hangul ultimately find joon-jeon a more discernable interpretation of 준/전 than jun-jeon.

As an English-speaking American, the phonetic markings originally used are very little help at all and limit correct pronunciation to readers of a certain academic level. If the purpose of the romanization is to make speaking Korean words more friendly, I find this counterintuitive.
강미
01 Oct, 2006
06:29 PM
MSN: kangmi
But what about the other beneficiaries of romanization? It's not just the English speakers--it's the French, and the Spanish, and the Germans, and all the rest. Why focus on English speakers?
Leftsider
02 Oct, 2006
02:34 AM
I guess I'm at fault for deferring to European proclivity to pronunciation; I think that English speakers are the ones that need the most assistance.

I think that French, Spanish and German would feel quite comfortable with the phonetically annotated version of romanization, as that can be found in many words of their languages. But let's be realistic; romanization is translating foreign sounds into alphabet--and the language most subscribed to that uses the alphabet is English. Even if a German uses the alphabet, he'd look at this sign as an interpretation into English, not into German. English is the lowest common denominator.

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