More Romanization issues (from a linguist's view)

[SiEd]

Romanization of Korean has never been an easy task - and for most people here, it's most beneficial to be "weaned off" of Romanization and be able to read and write 한글 as quickly as possible. It'll make your Korean language learning much more enjoyable.

However, if some of you do decide to delve further into the Korean language (i.e. studying the linguistic structures of Korean), I must advise you about the Romanization system linguists use.

South Korea presently uses a revised romanization system approved in 2000, while North Korean uses the McCune-Reischauer system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Ro ... _of_Korean
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCune-Reischauer

However, most linguists use the Korean Yale system, which is the standard in that field. And it looks pretty daunting, especially the vowels. Here are some of the more unusual ones.

<e>=어 (NOT 에)
<u>=으 (NOT 우)
<wu>=우
<ey>=에
<ay>=애
<oy>=외
<we>=워 (NOT 웨)
<uy>=의
<way>=왜
<wey>=웨
<wi>=위
<ye>=여 (NOT 예)
<yey>=예
<yay>=얘
<k, kk, kh>=ㄱ,ㄲ,ㅋ
<t, tt, th>=ㄷ, ㄸ, ㅌ
<p, pp, ph>=ㅂ, ㅃ, ㅍ
<c, cc, ch>=ㅈ, ㅉ, ㅊ

So, the way this sentence
"현우씨는 지금부터 한국어를 가르치실 겁니다."
(Hyunwoo-ssi from this point on will teach Korean)

is romanized is this:
"Hyenwu-ssi-nun cikum-pwuthe hankwuke-lul kaluchisil kepnita."

Rather strange, huh?

[Taliana]

.... wow. That's kind of hideously scary looking :X

[javiskefka]

It does seem more unambiguous than the Revised system, and it doesn't use diacriticals not available on a standard keyboard as the McCune-Reischauer does, so I suppose it would do the job of accurately representing Korean text to those who do not read Hangul. On the other hand, my favorite feature of the Revised system, the representation of consonant liason makes that system great for conveying the pronunciation of the word, which is more important than the orthography for purposes of tourism or communication.