McCune–Reischauer


McCune–Reischauer is a romanization system for the Korean language. It was first published in 1939 by George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. Significant work on the system was done by Korean linguists Choe Hyeon-bae,, and.
According to Reischauer, McCune "persuaded the American Army Map Service to adopt, and through the Korean War it became the foundation for most current Romanizations of Korean place names."
A variant of McCune–Reischauer is currently used as the official system in North Korea. Another variant is currently used for standard romanization library catalogs in North America. On the other hand, South Korea formerly used [|yet another variant] as its official system from 1984 to 2000, but replaced it with the Revised Romanization of Korean in 2000.

Characteristics

The following are some characteristics of the McCune–Reischauer system:
  • With a few exceptions, it does not attempt to transliterate Korean hangul but rather represents the phonetic pronunciation.
  • * Example: 독립
  • The voiceless and voiced allophones of the Korean phonemes /ㄱ/, /ㄷ/, /ㅂ/, and /ㅈ/ are transcribed differently.
  • * Examples: 가구, 등대, 반복, 주장
  • The apostrophe is used for transcribing strongly aspirated consonants ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ, and for distinguishing ㄴㄱ from ㅇㅇ.
  • * Examples: 투표 ; 연구
  • The breve is used for the vowels ㅓ and ㅡ, and diphthongs containing those sounds.

Use of diacritics and their omission

McCune–Reischauer employs dual use of apostrophes, with the more common being for syllabic boundaries. Therefore, it may take some time for learners to familiarise themselves with the placement of apostrophes to determine how a romanized Korean word is pronounced. For example, 마찬가지 →, which consists of the syllables,,, and.
In the early days of the Internet, the apostrophe and breve were even omitted altogether for both technical and practical reasons, which made it impossible to differentiate the strongly aspirated consonants,, and from the unaspirated consonants,, and, and the vowels ㅓ and ㅡ from ㅗ and ㅜ.
For example, if the diacritics in the MR rendering of the name of South Korean city Ch'ŏngju are omitted, it overlaps with the name of North Korean city Chongju. There is a claim of uncertain veracity that, during the 1950–1953 Korean War, the US Army accidentally bombed the wrong city due to this.
As a result, the South Korean government introduced a revised system of romanization in 2000. However, Korean critics claimed that the Revised System fails to represent ㅓ and ㅡ in a way that is easily recognizable and misrepresents the way that the unaspirated consonants are actually pronounced.

Guide

This is a simplified guide for the McCune–Reischauer system.

Consonants

Word-initially and word-finally

The heterogeneous consonant digraphs exist only as syllabic finals and are transcribed by their actual pronunciation.

Word-medially

The following table is sufficient for the transcription of most proper names.
The following subsections are for cases not covered by the table above, or for cases where the result should be different from the table.
Any non- syllabic final + syllabic initial
In this combination, the syllabic final is
  1. either directly transferred to the syllabic initial position of the next syllable,
  2. * Examples: 독일, 낟알, 촬영, 답안, 웃어라, 낮은
  3. # When the syllabic final ㄷ or ㅌ is followed by 이, palatalization occurs.
  4. #* Examples: 미닫이, 같이, 훑이다
  5. # Syllabic final digraphs are split.
  6. #* Examples: 앉아, 읊어
  7. or neutralized to one of first, and then transferred to the syllabic initial position of the next syllable.
  8. * Examples: 웃어른, 값어치
    Any non- syllabic final + syllabic initial {ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ}
If the syllabic initial is pronounced
  • , they are romanized. When is preceded by, an apostrophe is added between them.
  • , they are romanized .
Examples:
  • 대궐 vs. 태권도
  • 전등 vs. 손등
  • 물방아 vs. 물방울
  • 환자 vs. 한자
    Any syllabic final + syllabic initial
Any combination with the syllabic initial ㅎ is transcribed based on the actual pronunciation, except when the result is,, or ; these are treated as ㄱㅎ, ㄷㅎ, and ㅂㅎ respectively.
  • Examples: 앉히다, 굳히다, 맞히다
  • Examples of exceptions:
  • * 속히
  • * 못하다
  • * 곱하기
    Syllabic final + any syllabic initial
Any combination with the syllabic final ㅎ is transcribed based on the actual pronunciation.
  • Examples: 좋다, 많네, 끓고

Personal names

The rules stated above are also applied in personal names, except between a surname and a given name. A surname and a given name are separated by a space, but multiple syllables within a surname or within a given name are joined without hyphens or spaces.
The original 1939 paper states the following:
The original paper also gives McCune–Reischauer romanizations for a number of other personal names:
  • ,,
  • ,

History

George M. McCune, son of Pyongyang-based missionary George Shannon McCune, was born in Korea in 1905. After attending university in the United States, he returned to Korea in the summer of 1937 to work on his PhD dissertation for the University of California, Berkeley. In Korea, he studied at Chōsen Christian College in Seoul under the Korean linguists Choe Hyeon-bae,, and. Around September of that year, Japanologist Edwin O. Reischauer became stranded in Keijō while he was en route to Beijing due to the Second Sino-Japanese War. During Reischauer's two-month stay there, he and McCune worked with Choe, Jeong, and Kim to develop what would become the McCune–Reischauer romanization system. Work continued on the system even after Reischauer departed Korea to China. Eventually, the system was published in 1939 in the journal Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch.
In 1980, Reischauer wrote in a letter that the system was devised at his suggestion because he "found absolutely no uniform system of any sort, and needed something for the Korean names that appeared in studies on the travels of the monk Ennin". He also wrote that they designed the system "with only scholars in mind", and that he felt it was too complicated for regular use. He expressed hope that a new romanization that "everyone would use for both scholarly and popular use be worked out and adopted".
The new South Korean government adopted the system in 1948. English-language newspaper The Korea Times adopted the system in the 1950s. The system received pushback from Koreans. It came to be seen as more intuitive for foreigners and less intuitive for Koreans, as it reflected pronunciation changes that most Koreans were not consciously aware of. Fouser argued that another point of contention was related to nationalism; some disliked that the system had been developed by foreigners during the Japanese colonial period, and wanted a natively developed alternative. In 1959, the published a romanization system, which has since been dubbed the Ministry of Education system. The system was immediately controversial, especially among foreigners. Fouser evaluated the system as prioritizing use for Koreans; it had a one-to-one correspondence from Hangul to Latin script and did not reflect pronunciation changes that Hangul did not. In June 1981, a number of scholars met at the University of Hawaii's Center for Korean Studies and developed a number of proposed changes to MR. The changes were largely based on a draft proposal from the US Library of Congress and were meant to aid use by librarians. For example, it was designed to promote reversibility, which was to the interest of librarians. In the 1980s, the South Korean government began considering whether to use a more foreigner-friendly system in anticipation of the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Summer Olympics, which were to be held in Seoul. In 1984, a slightly modified version of McCune–Reischauer was adopted. Some South Koreans reportedly had negative reactions to the system, which they viewed as confusing and overly beholden to pronunciation.
With the spread of computers and the Internet in the 1990s, complaints and debate about MR grew. This was primarily related to the system's use of diacritics, which are difficult to access on standard keyboards. In 1997, the South Korean government began moving to revise or switch romanization systems.
In contemporary South Korea, which has since adopted Revised Romanization, MR has left a lasting legacy in a number of cases:

Variants

North Korean variant

A variant of McCune–Reischauer is currently in official use in North Korea. The following are the differences between the original McCune–Reischauer and the North Korean variant:
  • Aspirated consonants are represented by adding an h instead of an apostrophe.
  • * However, ㅊ is transcribed as ch, not chh.
  • ㅈ is transcribed as j even when it is voiceless.
  • ㅉ is transcribed as jj instead of tch.
  • ㄹㄹ is transcribed as lr instead of ll.
  • ㄹㅎ is transcribed as lh instead of rh.
  • When ㄹ is pronounced as ㄴ, it is still transcribed as r instead of n.
  • ㄴㄱ and ㅇㅇ are differentiated by a hyphen.
  • * But when ng is followed by y or w, a hyphen is not used, like the original system.
  • In personal names, each syllable in a Sino-Korean given name is separated by a space with the first letter of each syllable capitalized. Syllables in a native Korean name are joined without syllabic division.
  • * However, it is not really possible to follow this rule. See the section below.
The following table illustrates the differences above.
HangulMcCune–ReischauerNorth Korean variantMeaning
편지phyŏnjiletter (message)
주체JucheJuche
안쪽anjjokinside
빨리ppalriquickly
발해PalhaeBalhae
목란mongranMagnolia sieboldii
연구yŏn-guresearch, study
영어yŏng-ŏEnglish language
안복철An Pok Chŏlpersonal name

South Korean variant

A variant of McCune–Reischauer was in official use in South Korea from 1984 to 2000. The following are the differences between the original McCune–Reischauer and the South Korean variant:
  • 시 was written as shi instead of the original system's. When ㅅ is followed by ㅣ, it is realized as instead of. The original system uses sh only in 쉬, as.
  • ㅝ was written as wo instead of the original system's. Because the diphthong w + o does not exist in Korean phonology, the South Korean government omitted the breve in.
  • Hyphens were used to distinguish between ㄴㄱ and ㅇㅇ, between ㅏ에 and ㅐ, and between ㅗ에 and ㅚ in this variant system, instead of the apostrophes and ë in the original version. Therefore, apostrophes were used only for aspiration marks and ë was not used in the South Korean system.
  • ㄹㅎ was written as lh instead of.
  • Assimilation-induced aspiration by a syllabic initial ㅎ was indicated. ㄱㅎ is written as in the original system and as k in the South Korean variant.
  • In personal names, each syllable in a given name was separated by a hyphen. The consonants ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ right after a hyphen were transcribed using the voiceless letter even when they are voiced. But a hyphen can be omitted in non-Sino-Korean names.
  • * However, it is not really possible to follow this rule. See the section below.
The following table illustrates the differences above.
HangulMcCune–ReischauerSouth Korean variantMeaning
시장shijangmarket
쉽다swiptaeasy
소원sowonwish
연구yŏn-guresearch, study
영어yŏng-ŏEnglish language
회사에서hoesa-esŏat a company
차고에ch'ago-ein a garage
발해PalhaeBalhae
낙하산nak'asanparachute
못하다mot'adato be poor at
곱하기kop'agimultiplication
남궁동자Namgung Tong-chapersonal name

ALA-LC variant

Among the various ALA-LC romanization systems is one for Korean. It is currently used for standard romanization library catalogs in North America. It is based on but deviates from McCune–Reischauer. The following are some differences between the original McCune–Reischauer and the ALA-LC variant:
  • Unlike the original McCune–Reischauer, it addresses word division in 29 pages of detail.
  • * A postposition is separated from its preceding word, even though the original McCune–Reischauer paper explicitly states that this should not be done.
  • /ㄷ/ + /ㅆ/ is written as ts instead of ss.
  • The surname 이 is written as Yi instead of .
  • For given names:
  • * A hyphen is inserted between the syllables of a two-syllable given name only when it is preceded by a surname, with the sound change between the syllables indicated. The original McCune–Reischauer paper explicitly states that this also should not be done.
  • * If a given name is three syllables long or is of non-Sino-Korean origin, the syllables are joined without syllabic division.
  • * However, it is not really possible to follow this rule because a certain name written in hangul can be a native Korean name, or a Sino-Korean name, or even both. For example, Bo-ram can not only be a native Korean name, but can also be a Sino-Korean name. In some cases, parents intend a dual meaning: both the meaning from a native Korean word and the meaning from hanja. In fact, ALA-LC admitted that it is not really possible to determine whether a certain given name is Sino-Korean or not.
The following table illustrates the differences above.
HangulMcCune–ReischauerALA-LC variantMeaning
꽃이kkot iflower +
굳세다kutsedastrong, firm
이석민Yi Sŏng-minpersonal name

The older version of the ALA-LC rule used for strongly aspirated consonants and for ㄴㄱ, even though the original McCune–Reischauer paper uses the shape for both. This distinction in the older ALA-LC rule was removed in the new ALA-LC rule above.