Often found at theaters and museums, Kwon Mee-yoo has covered a wide range of cultural fields from K-pop and dramas to theater and fine art for over a decade. Now as K-Culture Desk editor, she tries to connect Korean culture with global readers through fresh perspectives.
Korea advised to use Ukrainian transliteration of city names
Messages of support for Ukraine are placed in front of the Embassy of Ukraine in Yongsan District, Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
By Kwon Mee-yoo
By Kwon Mee-yoo
In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, attention to the Eastern European country has grown sharply in Korea followed by increased coverage of the nation. Discovering that some Korean media outlets are using a Russian style of romanizing the name of the capital, the Embassy of Ukraine in Seoul has officially asked the Korean media and Koreans to refer to their cities in the Ukrainian style.
For instance, the Ukrainian capital is written "Kyiv" in the Ukrainian style of romanization, but "Kiev" in the Russian one. In Korea, the names of Ukrainian cities were commonly written to reflect Russian-language pronunciation, despite the country having gained independence from the Soviet Union over two decades ago.
The Ukrainian Embassy here shared the Ukrainian style of transliterating city names on its Facebook page, encouraging Koreans to use the Ukrainian versions for pronunciation and spelling.
"In view of the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, we asked Korean society to refrain from usage of the names of Ukrainian cities transliterated from Russian language," the embassy told The Korea Times, Wednesday.
"It has an occupational meaning to us. Russia is willing to destroy us as a nation which is why it is also targeting our culture as well as the language. Thus changing the Russian style pronunciation of Ukrainian names in Korean is very important, and will help to preserve the correct Ukrainian naming. This campaign has been run for many years worldwide, and we are grateful that Korea is willing to correct this historical mistake now."
According to the Ukrainian embassy, the correct version would be “Lviv,” not “Lvov,” for the city in western Ukraine, and “Krym” for “Crimea.”
The Embassy of Ukraine in Korea lists the correct transliteration of Ukrainian cities in English. Courtesy of the Embassy of Ukraine to Korea
Rep. Cho Tae-yong of the People's Power Party, who previously served as Vice Foreign Minister, wrote on Facebook that if Korea respects the sovereignty of a country, Koreans should call the capital of the country the way their people want.
"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs still calls the Ukrainian capital, 'Kiev.' If Japan calls Seoul as 'Souru' and the international community writes Seoul as 'Souru,' would Koreans accept it?" Cho wrote Monday.
In response, the National Institute of Korean Language suggested the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to use the Ukrainian transliteration of the names of places, however, to write it along with the Russian transliteration as of now, to reduce confusion.
According to the institute, Korea respects a country's original pronunciation when transliterating that country's language in Korean, so the change conforms to the transliteration rule. A government-media joint committee on foreign language transliteration will give the final verdict on the change later.
Korean news outlets also announced their change of style in writing the names of Ukrainian cities in the Ukrainian style of romanization in support of the eastern European country.