McCune–Reischauer facts for kids

In this sign on Seoul Subway Line 8, Chamshil (잠실역) and Amsa (암사역) are romanized with the South Korean variant of McCune–Reischauer. They would be Jamsil and Amsa in Revised Romanization.

McCune–Reischauer romanization (/məˈkjuːn ˈraɪʃaʊ.ər/) is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems. A modified version of McCune–Reischauer was the official romanization system in South Korea until 2000 (in transition through 2002), when it was replaced by the Revised Romanization of Korean system introduced two years earlier. A variant of McCune–Reischauer is still used as the official system in North Korea.

The system was first published in 1939 by George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. With a few exceptions, it does not attempt transliterate Korean hangul but rather represents the phonetic pronunciation.

Characteristics and usage

Under the McCune–Reischauer system, aspirated consonants like p’, k’, and t’ are distinguished by apostrophes from unaspirated ones. The apostrophe is also used to distinguish ㄴㄱ from ㅇㅇ: 연구 is rendered as yŏn'gu while 영어 is yŏngŏ.

The breve is used to differentiate vowels in Korean: ㅜ is spelled u, ㅡ is ŭ, ㅗ is o and ㅓ is ŏ.

Criticism

Because of the dual use of apostrophes – the more common being for syllabic boundaries – it can be ambiguous for persons unfamiliar with McCune–Reischauer as to how a romanized Korean word is pronounced. For example, 뒤차기 → twich’agi, which consists of the syllables twi, chʼa and gi).

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 aspirated consonants k’, t’, p’ and ch’ from the unaspirated consonants k, t, p and ch, ㄴㄱ (n'g) from ㅇㅇ (ng), and the vowels ㅜ and ㅡ as well as ㅗ from ㅓ. As a result, the South Korean government adopted 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.

Despite official adoption of the new system in South Korea, North Korea continues to use a version of McCune–Reischauer.

Guide

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

Vowels

• 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'.

Consonants

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

1. ㅇ is an initial consonant before a vowel to indicate the absence of sound.
2. 쉬 is romanized shwi.
3. When the previous syllable ends in a vowel (for example, 아주 is romanized aju, not achu).
4. In Sino-Korean words, lt and lch respectively.

For ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ, the letters g, d, b, or j are used if voiced, k, t, p, 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
• 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
  • 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 predict pronunciation

• The sequences -ㄱㅎ-, -ㄷㅎ- (only when palatalization does not occur)/-ㅅㅎ-, and -ㅂㅎ- are written kh, th, and ph respectively, even though they are pronounced the same as ㅋ (k’), ㅌ (t’), and 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, 평성 is written as Phyŏngsŏng. The original system would have it written as P’yŏngsŏng.

However, the consonant ㅊ is transcribed as "ch", and not "chh", while ㅈ is transcribed as "j". For example, 주체 is spelled "Juche", and not "Chuch’e", as it would be transcribed using the original system.

• ㅉ is written as "jj" (for example, 쪽발이 is spelled as "jjokpari").
• ㄹㄹ is transcribed as "lr". Example: 빨리 is spelled "ppalri".
• ㄹㅎ is spelled "lh", and not "rh": e.g. 발해 is written as "palhae".
• When ㄹ is pronounced as ㄴ (e.g. 목란), it is transcribed as "n" by the original system (Mongnan). Nevertheless, the North Korean variant keeps it as "r" (Mongran).
• ㅇㅇ and ㄴㄱ are differentiated by using a "-". For example: 강인 is spelled "kang-in", and 인기 is spelled "in-gi".
• When "ng" is followed by "y" or "w", however, the hyphen is not used (평양 and 강원 are written as "Phyŏngyang" and "Kangwŏn").

The North Korean variant renders names of people with each syllable capitalized and no hyphenation between syllables of given names: e.g. "Kim Il Sung" for Kim Il-sung. Native Korean names, however, are written without syllabic division.

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.

Other systems

A third system, the Yale Romanization system, which is a transliteration system, exists but is used only in academic literature, especially in linguistics.

The Kontsevich system, based on the earlier Kholodovich system, is used for transliterating Korean into the Cyrillic script. Like McCune–Reischauer romanization it attempts to represent the pronunciation of a word, rather than provide letter-to-letter correspondence.

See also

In Spanish: Romanización McCune-Reischauer para niños

• Hangul
• New Korean Orthography