McCune-Reischauer
McCune-Reischauer is a romanization system of the Korean language, created in 1937 by two Americans: George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. It does not adhere to Hangul but is relatively phonetic. North Korea and many Western countries use this system while South Korea replaced it with a new romanization system that was created by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Revised Romanization of Korean. A third system--the Yale romanization system--exists, but is only used in academic literature. During the period of Russian interest in Korea at the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were also made at representing Korean in Cyrillic.
The McCune-Reischauer system is basically friendly to Westerners. For example, Korean has phonologically no distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants, but it phonetically distinguishes them. Aspirated consonants like "p'", "b'" and "t'" are distinguished by apostrophe from unaspirated ones, which is intuitive to Westerners. The apostrophe is also used to disambiguate syllables (jon'gum vs. jong'um).
However, since it is difficult to type them, breves, the diacritic marks for vowels and consonants are often omitted, which caused serious confusion. In this case, "ŏ" (ㅓ) is simply written as "o" and "ŭ" (ㅡ) as "u". It becomes impossible to tell from "o" (ㅗ) and "u" (ㅜ). Lack of apostrophe makes it impossible to tell aspirated and unaspirated consonants.
The McCune-Reischauer system is purely based on anglophone spelling. In the beginning, most Westerners (non-english) will find it hard, to pronounce correctly.
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Referenced By
2000 South Korean Revised Romanization | 2000 South Korean revised romanisation | 38th parallel | Administrative Divisions of Korea | Administrative Divisions of South Korea | Buddhist Teachers: Historical | Buddhist Teachers: Past | Buddhist Thinkers | Chosen | Choson | Chu Si-kyeong | DMZ (Korea) | DPRK | Demilitarized Zone (Korea) | Democratic People's Republic of Korea | Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea | Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea | Edwin O. Reischauer | Edwin Reischauer | Eight Provinces of Korea | George M. McCune | George McCune | Han'geul | Han'gul | Han-geul | Han-guk | Hangeul | Hangul | ISO 3166-1:KP | ISO 3166-1:KR | ISO 3166-2:KP | Joseon | Ju Si-gyeong | Ju Si-kyeong | Ju Sigyeong | Kings and Queens of Baekje | Kings and Queens of Barhae | Kings and Queens of Gaya | Kings and Queens of Goguryeo | Kings and Queens of Goryeo | Kings and Queens of Korea | Kings and Queens of Silla | Korea, North | Korea, South | Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Yanbian | Korean DMZ | Korean Demilitarized Zone | Korean Demlitarized Zone | Korean Romanization | Korean alphabet | Korean language | Korean province | Korean provinces | List of Korea-related topics | List of historical Buddhist teachers | N. Korea | N Korea | North Korea | North Korea/History | North Korean | North Korean Won | Panmunjeom | Panmunjom | Province of Korea | Provinces of Korea | Republic of Korea | Revised Romanization of Korea | Revised Romanization of Korean | Revised version of Korean Romanization | Revised version of Romanization | Romaja | Romanisation | Romanise | Romanization | Romanization of Korean | Romanize | Rulers of Baekje | Rulers of Barhae | Rulers of Gaya | Rulers of Goguryeo | Rulers of Goryeo | Rulers of Joseon | Rulers of Korea | Rulers of Silla | Rulers of Yi Dynasty Joseon | SK Romanization | South Korea | South Korea/Language | South Korean | South Korean Won | Special cities of Korea | Special city of Korea | U-breve | Yale (Romanization) | Yale Pinyin | Yale Romanization | Yanbian | Yanbian Autonomous Region | Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture | Yanbian Korean Autonomous Region ...
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