New Korean Orthography

New Korean Orthography
Hangul	조선어 신철자법
Hanja	朝鮮語新綴字法
Revised Romanization	Joseoneo sincheoljabeop
McCune–Reischauer	Chosŏnŏ sinch’ŏlchapŏp

Seven words written in New Orthography. The standard spellings are 놉니다, 흘렀다, 깨달으니, 지어, 고와, 왕, and 가져서.

The New Korean Orthography was a spelling reform used in North Korea from 1948–1954. It added five consonants and one vowel letter to the hangul alphabet, making it what is believed to be a more morphophonologically "clear" approach to the Korean language.

The reason for the reform is that some Korean roots change form and therefore cannot be written with a consistent spelling using standard hangul. The additional letters introduced in the New Orthography do not represent new sounds, but these situations where a sound changes, say from a /p/ to a /w/. Three were created de novo by modifying existing letters, two (ㅿ and ㆆ) were obsolete letters, and one (1) is a numeral.

For example, the root of the verb "to walk" has the form 걷 kŏt- before a consonant, as in the inflection 걷다 kŏtta, but the form 걸 kŏl- before a vowel, as in 걸어 kŏrŏ and 걸으니 kŏrŭni. In New Orthography, the root is an invariable , spelled with the new letter ㅿ in place of both the ㄷ in 걷 and the ㄹ in 걸: 다 kŏtta, 어 kŏrŏ.

Another example is the root of the verb "to heal", which has the form 낫 nas- before a consonant, as in 낫다 natta, but the form 나 before a vowel, as in 나아 naa. In some cases, there is an epenthetic ŭ vowel before a consonant suffix, as in 나을 naŭl. In New Orthography, this variable root is written as an invariable , and the epenthetic vowel is not written: 다 NA’.DA for 낫다 natta, ᄅ NA’.L for 나을 naŭl, 아 NA’.A for 나아 naa.

Letter	Pronunciation
	before a vowel	before a consonant
	/l/	—1
	/nn/	/l/
ㅿ	/l/	/t/
ㆆ	—1	/ ͈/2
	/w/3	/p/
	/j/4	/i/

1. Silence.
2. Makes the following consonant tense, as a final ㅅ does
3. In standard orthography, combines with a following vowel as ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ
4. In standard orthography, combines with a following vowel as ㅑ, ㅒ, ㅕ, ㅖ, ㅛ, ㅠ

As with all letters in North Korea, the names follow the formula CiŭC. For convenience they are also called 여린리을, 된리을, 반시읏, 여린히읗, 위읍, and 여린이.

The New Orthography also added two new digraphs to the lexicon, ㅭ lʔ and ᇬ ŋk.

There were other changes that made the orthography more morphemic, without requiring the addition of new letters. For example, in the word normally spelled 놉니다 (top example in image at right), the politeness morpheme ㅂ is separated out in its own block. Such spellings can be found in medieval documents, but weren't normally seen in the 20th century.

The attributive ㄴ n morpheme at the ends of adjectives is also placed in a separate block, and the occasional epenthetic ŭ that appears before it is not written, unlike standard 은 ŭn. A morphemic h is retained before this ending: 하얗다 HA.YAH.DA hayata "is white", 하얗ㄴ HA.YAH.N hayan "white" (standard 하얀 HA.YAN). 좋다 CHOH.DA jota "is good", 좋ㄴ CHOH.N chohŭn "good" (standard 좋은 CHOH.ŬN).

References

• Kaplan & Baldauf (2003) Language and language-in-education planning in the Pacific Basin, p. 39f.
• Ross King, "Language, Politics, and Ideology in the Postwar Koreas", in McCann ed. (1997) Korea briefing: toward reunification, p. 123f.