Revised Romanization of Korean

The Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea, used as a replacement for the 1984 McCune-Reischauer–based romanization system. The new system is similar to the older system, but eliminates diacritics and is touted as being more closely based on Korean phonology than on western perception of Korean phonetics.

The Revised Romanization uses no non-alphabetic symbols except very limited, often optional, use of the hyphen. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on July 7, 2000, by South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Proclamation No. 2000-8. The proclamation included the following reasons for the new system:

• It is convenient to type on computers since it uses only Latin letters and symbols, omitting the apostrophes and breves that were problematic with the McCune-Reischauer system.
• It promotes consistent romanization by native Korean speakers by better transcribing important language characteristics.
• It reduces the confusion caused by the tendency to ignore apostrophes and diacritics.
• It rationalizes the Korean language with the plain ASCII text of internet domain names.

Features

Notable features of the Revised Romanization system are:

• 어 and 으 are written as digraphs with two vowel letters: eo and eu, respectively (replacing the ŏ and ŭ of the McCune-Reischauer system).
  • However, ㅝ is written as wo and ㅢ is written as ui.
• Unlike McCune-Reischauer, aspirated consonants (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ) have no apostrophe: k, t, p, ch. Their unaspirated counterparts (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ) are written with letters that are voiced in English: g, d, b, j. However, all consonants that are pronounced as unreleased stops (which basically means all except ㄴ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅇ that are not followed by a vowel or semivowel) are written as k, t, p, with no regard to their morphophonemic value: 벽 → byeok, 밖 → bak, 부엌 → bueok (But: 벽에 → byeoge, 밖에 → bakke, 부엌에 → bueoke)
• ㅅ is always written as s before vowels and semivowels; there is no sh except when transliterating.
• ㄹ is r before a vowel or a semivowel, and l everywhere else: 리을 → rieul, 철원 → Cheorwon, 울릉도 → Ulleungdo, 발해 → Balhae. Just like in McCune-Reischauer, ㄴ is written l whenever pronounced as a lateral rather than a nasal consonant: 전라북도 → Jeollabuk-do

In addition, there are special provisions for regular phonological rules that makes exceptions to transliteration (see Korean language#Phonology).

Other rules and recommendations include:

• A hyphen may optionally be used to disambiguate syllables: 가을 → ga-eul (fall; autumn) versus 개울 → gae-ul (stream). However, no official publications seem to make use of this provision.
  • A hyphen must be used in transliterations, where it denotes syllable-initial ㅇ (except at the beginning of a word): 없었습니다 → eobs-eoss-seubnida, 외국어 → oegug-eo, 애오개 → Ae-ogae
• While in principle, syllables in Korean given names are not separated by a hyphen, the rules permit doing just that. Certain phonological changes that are otherwise indicated are ignored between the syllables of given names: 강홍립 → Gang Hongrip or Gang Hong-rip, 한복남 → Han Boknam or Han Bok-nam
• Syllables of Korean administrative units (such as do) are separated from the placename with a hyphen: 강원도 → Gangwon-do
  • One may omit terms “such as 시, 군, 읍”: 평창군 → Pyeongchang-gun or Pyeongchang, 평창읍 → Pyeongchang-eup or Pyeongchang.
• However, names for geographic features and artificial structures are connected to the placename: 설악산 → Seoraksan, 해인사 → Haeinsa
• Capitalize proper nouns.

Usage

Similarly to several European languages that have undergone spelling simplifications (such as Portuguese or Swedish), the Revised Romanization is not expected to be adopted as the official romanization of Korean family names. For example, the common family name, Lee (이), would be I in both the Revised Romanization and McCune-Reischauer. Given names and commercial names are encouraged to change, but it is not required. All Korean textbooks were required to comply with the new system by February 28, 2002. English-language newspapers in South Korea initially resisted the new system, citing its flaws, though all later gave in to government pressure. The Korea Times was the last major English newspaper, which switched in May 2006 to the Revised Romanization.

North Korea continues to use a version of the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization, which was in official use in South Korea from 1984 to 2000.

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