McCune–Reischauer

McCune–Reischauer romanization /məˈkuːn ˈraɪ.ʃaʊ.ər/ is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems (the other is the Revised Romanization of Korean) that replaced (a modified) McCune–Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. A variant of McCune–Reischauer is used as the official system in North Korea.

The system was created in 1937 by George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. With a few exceptions, it attempts not to transliterate Korean hangul but to represent the phonetic pronunciation. McCune–Reischauer is widely used outside Korea. A variant of it was used as the official romanization system in South Korea from 1984 to 2000. A third system, the Yale Romanization system, which is a transliteration system, exists but is used only in academic literature, especially in linguistics. During the period of Russian interest in Korea at the beginning of the 20th century, attempts were also made at representing Korean in the Cyrillic alphabet by the Kontsevich system.

Characteristics and criticism

Korean has phonologically no distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants, but it phonetically distinguishes them. Aspirated consonants like p', k', and t' are distinguished by apostrophe from unaspirated ones, which may be falsely understood as a separator between syllables (as in 뒤차기 → twich'agi, which consists of the syllables twi, ch'a and gi). The apostrophe is also used to mark transcriptions of ㄴㄱ (n'g) as opposed to ㅇㅇ (ng): 잔금 → chan'gŭm vs. 장음 → changŭm).

Critics of the McCune–Reischauer system claim that casual users of the system omit the breves ( ˘ ) over the o for 어 and the u for 으 because typing o or u without the breves is often easier than adding them. That can lead to confusion over whether the o being romanized is 오 or 어 or the u being Romanized is 우 or 으. Casual users also often omit the apostrophe that differentiates aspirated consonants (ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ) from their unaspirated counterparts (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ), which can also lead to confusion.

Defenders of the McCune–Reischauer system, however, respond that even if it is still best to include breves and apostrophes, even when they are omitted, a casual user unfamiliar with Korean can easily approximate the actual pronunciation of a Korean word.

Such common omissions were the primary reason the South Korean government adopted a revised system of romanization in 2000. Critics of the revised system claim it fails to represent 어 and 으 in a way that is easily recognizable. Also, it misrepresents the unaspirated consonants the way that they are actually pronounced.

Meanwhile, despite official adoption of the new system in South Korea, many in the Korean Studies community, both inside and outside South Korea and international geographic and cartographic conventions generally continue to use either the McCune–Reischauer or the Yale system. Also, North Korea uses a version of McCune–Reischauer.

Even within South Korea, usage of the new system is less than universal, like the variant of McCune–Reischauer that was the official Romanization system between 1984/1988 and 2000.

Guide

This is a simplified guide for the McCune–Reischauer system. It is often used for the transliteration of names but does not convert every word properly, as several Korean letters are pronounced differently depending on their position.

Vowels

Hangul	ㅏ	ㅐ	ㅑ	ㅒ	ㅓ	ㅔ	ㅕ	ㅖ	ㅗ	ㅘ	ㅙ	ㅚ	ㅛ	ㅜ	ㅝ	ㅞ	ㅟ	ㅠ	ㅡ	ㅢ	ㅣ
Romanization	a	ae	ya	yae	ŏ	e*	yŏ	ye	o	wa	wae	oe	yo	u	wŏ	we	wi	yu	ŭ	ŭi	i

• ㅔ is written as ë after ㅏ and ㅗ. This is to distinguish ㅐ (ae) from ㅏ에 (aë), and ㅚ (oe) and ㅗ에 (oë). The combinations ㅏ에 (aë) and ㅗ에 (oë) very rarely occur except in sentences when a noun is followed by a postposition, as, for example, 회사에서 hoesaësŏ (at a company) and 차고에 ch'agoë (in a garage).
• The Korean surnames 이/리(李) and 이(異) are transcribed as Yi not I (e.g. 이순신 as Yi Sunsin)

Consonants

Hangul		ㄱ	ㄲ	ㄴ	ㄷ	ㄸ	ㄹ	ㅁ	ㅂ	ㅃ	ㅅ	ㅆ	ㅇ	ㅈ	ㅉ	ㅊ	ㅋ	ㅌ	ㅍ	ㅎ
Romanization	Initial	k	kk	n	t	tt	r	m	p	pp	s	ss	–	ch	tch	ch'	k'	t'	p'	h
	Final	k	k	n	t	–	l	m	p	–	t	t	ng	t	–	t	k	t	p	–

• The consonant digraphs (ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ) exist only as finals and are transcribed by their actual pronunciation.

		Initial consonant of the next syllable
		ㅇ¹	ㄱ k	ㄴ n	ㄷ t	ㄹ (r)	ㅁ m	ㅂ p	ㅅ² s	ㅈ ch	ㅊ ch'	ㅋ k'	ㅌ t'	ㅍ p'	ㅎ h
Final consonant	ㄱ k	g	kk	ngn	kt	ngn(S)/ngr(N)	ngm	kp	ks	kch	kch'	kk'	kt'	kp'	kh
	ㄴ n	n	n'g	nn	nd	ll/nn	nm	nb	ns	nj	nch'	nk'	nt'	np'	nh
	ㄷ t	d	tk	nn	tt	nn(S)/ll(N)	nm	tp	ss	tch	tch'	tk'	tt'	tp'	th
	ㄹ l	r	lg	ll/nn	ld³	ll	lm	lb	ls	lj³	lch'	lk'	lt'	lp'	rh
	ㅁ m	m	mg	mn	md	mn(S)/mr(N)	mm	mb	ms	mj	mch'	mk'	mt'	mp'	mh
	ㅂ p	b	pk	mn	pt	mn(S)/mr(N)	mm	pp	ps	pch	pch'	pk'	pt'	pp'	ph
	ㅇ ng	ng	ngg	ngn	ngd	ngn(S)/ngr(N)	ngm	ngb	ngs	ngj	ngch'	ngk'	ngt'	ngp'	ngh

• ¹ ㅇ is an initial consonant before a vowel to indicate the absence of sound.
• ² 쉬 is romanized shwi.
• ³ In Sino-Korean words, lt and lch respectively.

For ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ, the letters g, b, d, or j are used if voiced, k, p, t, or ch otherwise. Pronunciations such as those take precedence over the rules in the table above.

Examples

• Voiceless/voiced consonants
  • 가구 kagu
  • 등대 tŭngdae
  • 반복 panbok
  • 주장 chujang
• Of course, the initial consonant ㅇ is disregarded in romanization, since it is only used in order to indicate the absence of sound.
  • 국어 (pronounced 구거) kugŏ (not kukŏ)
  • 믿음 (pronounced 미듬) midŭm (not mitŭm)
  • 법인 (pronounced 버빈) pŏbin (not pŏpin)
  • 필요 (pronounced 피료) p'iryo (not p'ilyo)
• r vs. l
  • r
    • Between two vowels: 가로 karo, 필요 p'iryo
    • Before initial ㅎ h: 발해 Parhae, 실험 sirhŏm
  • l
    • Before a consonant (except before initial ㅎ h), or at the end of a word: 날개 nalgae, 구별 kubyŏl, 결말 kyŏlmal
    • ㄹㄹ is written ll: 빨리 ppalli, 저절로 chŏjŏllo
• Consonant assimilations
  • 연락 (pronounced 열락) yŏllak
  • 독립 (pronounced 동닙) tongnip
  • 법률 (pronounced 범뉼) pŏmnyul
  • 않다 (pronounced 안타) ant'a
  • 맞히다 (pronounced 마치다) mach'ida
• Palatalizations
  • 미닫이 (pronounced 미다지) midaji
  • 같이 (pronounced 가치) kach'i
  • 굳히다 (pronounced 구치다) kuch'ida

Exceptions that do not exactly follow pronunciation

• The sequences -ㄱㅎ-, -ㄷㅎ- (only when palatalization does not occur)/-ㅅㅎ-, -ㅂㅎ- are written kh, th, ph respectively, even though they are pronounced the same as ㅋ (k'), ㅌ (t'), ㅍ (p').
  • 속히 sokhi (pronounced 소키)
  • 못하다 mothada (pronounced 모타다)
  • 곱하기 kophagi (pronounced 고파기)
• When a plain consonant (ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅅ, or ㅈ) becomes a tensed consonant (ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, or ㅉ) in the middle of a word, it is written k, t, p, s, or ch respectively, even though it is pronounced the same as ㄲ (kk), ㄸ (tt), ㅃ (pp), ㅆ (ss), or ㅉ (tch).
  • 태권도 (pronounced 태꿘도) t'aekwŏndo
  • 손등 (pronounced 손뜽) sontŭng
  • 문법 (pronounced 문뻡) munpŏp
  • 국수 (pronounced 국쑤) kuksu
  • 한자 (漢字, pronounced 한짜) hancha

North Korean variant

In North Korea's variant of McCune–Reischauer, aspirated consonants are not represented by an apostrophe but are instead by adding an "h". For example, 평안 is written as Phyŏngan. The original system would have it written as P'yŏngan.

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 si. When ㅅ is followed by ㅣ, it is realized as the [ɕ] sound (similar to the English [ʃ] sound (sh as in show)) instead of the normal [s] sound. The original system deploys sh only in the combination 쉬, as shwi.
• ㅝ was written as wo instead of the original system's wŏ in this variant. Because the diphthong w (ㅗ or ㅜ as a semivowel) + o (ㅗ) does not exist in Korean phonology, the South Korean government omitted a breve in wŏ.
• 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.
• When ㄹ is followed by ㅎ, the ㄹ was written as l in the South Korean variant. Under the original McCune-Reischauer system, it is written as r.
• Assimilation-induced aspiration by an initial ㅎ is indicated. ㄱㅎ is written as kh in the original McCune-Reischauer system and as k' in the South Korean variant.

The following table illustrates the differences above.

Word	McCune–Reischauer	South Korean variant	Meaning
시장	sijang	shijang	market
쉽다	shwipta	swipta	easy
소원	sowŏn	sowon	wish, hope
전기	chŏn'gi	chŏn-gi	electricity
상어	sangŏ	sang-ŏ	shark
회사에서	hoesaësŏ	hoesa-esŏ	at a company
차고에	ch'agoë	ch'ago-e	in a garage
발해	Parhae	Palhae	Balhae
직할시	chikhalsi	chik'alshi	directly governed city
못하다	mothada	mot'ada	to be poor at
곱하기	kophagi	kop'agi	multiplication

See also

• Hangul
• New Korean Orthography
• Kontsevich system – Cyrillization of Korean
• List of Korea-related topics

External links

• A Practical Guide to McCune–Reischauer Romanization: Rules, guidelines, and font
• Comparison table of different romanization systems from UN Working Group on Romanization Systems (PDF file)
• PDF files of the 1939 paper, and the 1961 paper
• Archived 2009-03-27 at the Wayback Machine
• Online tool for McCune–Reischauer romanization (with BGN modifications)