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In the year 2000, Korea changed Pusan to Busan (부산) because Pusan (푸산) sounds awful to Korean ears. Also, Inchon (인촌) became Incheon (인천). When Pusan became Busan, I said to myself, “Finally, somebody has the sense to make it sound right. These changes occurred because the Korean government changed the rules regarding the writing Korean words using the English alphabet, called Romanization.
These changes pretty much sum up the differences between the two main Korean Romanization systems: MR (McCune-Reischauer) in 1939 and RR (Revised Romanization) in 2000. The spellings Pusan and Inchon conform to the current MR system which disregards breves and apostrophes (or diacritics, collectively) that the original MR required (e.g., Inch’ŏn). Busan and Incheon conform to RR, which uses only the English alphabet without diacritics, so as to use the QWERTY keyboard, which is the standard for English computers in Korea and throughout the world.
MR became unacceptable because the Romanized words using MR not only deviated from proper Korean sounds but also changed Korean words to either different words or just plain gibberish. For example, Sogang University is near the north end of the Seogang Bridge across the Han River in Seoul. Sŏgang (서강) in original MR with a breve over the letter would mean a “Western River, which was the name of the region west of Mapo alongside the Han River from ancient times. Nobody likes to use the breve, and few even know that this used to be requirement. So, Sŏgang became Sogang which would now mean a “Small River.” A “Western River University” became a “Small River University." This is no small matter. (Seogang in RR is equivalent to Sŏgang in MR.)
The differences in Korean sounds between words are very important to Koreans. Apparently, however, they are not cause for concern for non-Koreans, particularly those outside Korea. They do not seem to care or know if MR distorts Korean sounds or renders them meaningless when the diacritics are dropped because this is done by most English speakers who use the standard QWERTY keyboard. This is the main reason why the Korean government had to modify MR and presented RR in July 2000.
So, actually, RR is a son of MR, having naturally evolved from the same “DNA” as the times changed. Though having a lot of similarities, RR is as distinct from MR as a son would be from his parent. This difference is in the use of five Korean consonants (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅈ) and two vowels (ㅓ and ㅡ), and using no diacritical marks. In some sense, RR is simpler than MR. That’s all.
The rest of MR remained the same as RR, including the euphonic sound changes. Since both MR and RR are based on standard Korean pronunciations rather than on orthographic Hangeul spellings and the Korean language is notorious in euphonic and other sound changes when written words are spoken; MR is just as difficult as RR in Romanizing Korean words.
The consonant changes from k, t, p, s or sh, ch in MR to g, d, b, s, j in RR and ŏ and ǔ in MR to eo and eu in RR are very simple to master or learn to read them in five minutes. But, several sound change rules must follow the current standard pronunciation of Korean whether MR or RR is used.
When Korean words that are two or more syllables are spoken, they may sound differently from the sounds of individual syllables one at a time. For example, hallyu comes from han-ryu in Hangeul spelling, silla from sin-ra, Mt. Halla in Jejudo from han-ra, japyeo from jap-hyeo (be caught), etc. These changes are very common and sometimes confusing even to native Koreans like me (a graduate of Seoul National University). Both MR and RR must follow the same sound change rules.
So, it is a fallacy to think that going back from RR to MR or to any MR-like systems (unified or whatever) would suddenly make Korean Romanization simpler and “friendlier?to English speakers. The degree of difficulty of one system over another is very subjective. For me and probably for other Koreans as well as non-Koreans well versed in Korean, RR is easier than MR because RR renders Romanized Korean words that make sense when read aloud.
China experienced the same problems in Romanizing their consonants and vowels. The Wade-Giles Romanization system for Chinese was developed by two British scholars from 1867 to 1912, and remained the most widely used Romanization system of Chinese for most of the 20th century because MR was used for Korean from 1940-2000 and even now outside Korea. In Taiwan, Wade-Giles was the “de facto standard for decades.
The Chinese government published Pinyin (spelling sound) as the Chinese Romanization system in 1958. After several revisions, in 1979, China declared Pinyin as their official Romanization system of Chinese (Mandarin). Peking changed to Beijing, Tsingtao to Qingdao, Sian to Xian, etc.
Now most Chinese use Pinyin when texting and or using computers. Pinyin has successfully displaced Wade-Giles simply because the former works better than the latter for them, not because the Chinese wanted to promote Pinyin as their national brand.
It is interesting to see that the most noticeable changes from Wade-Giles to Pinyin involved some of the same initial consonants as those involved when Korea changed from MR to RR.
China had to adopt Pinyin because the Chinese words when Romanized according to the Wade-Giles rules just did not sound like Chinese to the Chinese people. One critic of Wade-Giles went as far as to say that Wade-Giles was a “travesty worse than you can imagine because it was confusing to Chinese people when unvoiced consonants were pronounced as voiced English consonants.?
China dropped Wade-Giles not because it was “invented and owned?" by the British as a national brand but because it just did not work for the Chinese people. It was not a question of “ownership" of the Romanization system that made China abandon Wade-Giles. It did its contribution for a long time, but just outlived its usefulness.
The same is true with MR vs. RR in Korea. RR can work as well as any other MR-like Romanization systems for the Korean language ― for both Koreans and non-Koreans alike. Korea needs to stay the course with RR, refine it, promote it by teaching it, and enforce its use. Now is not the time for Korea to experiment more with yet another new system as advocated by Professor Fouser of Seoul National University in his article, “Unified System of Romanization" in The Korea Times on July 16, 2012.
Yun Chung is retired engineer living in California. He may be reached at yunchung2@comcast.net.
