Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)/Archive 6

Request for inputs on Korean surnames
We generally follow Revised Romanization. I previously raised an issue on the naming convention for some of Korean names that have negative meanings if directly following Revised Romanization like 신, 강, 안, 임. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Korea/Archive 5. And this issue brings up again after Sin Chang-won's DYK nom.


 * Google hits.496 for "Shin Chang-won" and 29 for "Sin Chang-won" along with news resut 12 for "Shin Chang-won" There is even no news hit on "Sin Chang-won".


 * There are useful links regarding "conventional Romaniztion on Korean names A passport guide from Paju city website and this.

I've personally never seen people whose surname are 신 spell as "Sin" rather than Shin, or Sheen because Sin reminds of very negative images in English. 신 is the 10th most common surname in South Korea according to a survey, and existing articles regarding people whose surname 신 are commonly styled as "Shin". So I think this fact should be reflected to our naming convention. Here are also articles about Korean names Korean name, List of Korean family names.--Caspian blue 06:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * An aside: Sin, for some reason, is common in Canada. Most of the 신s I've met here are "Sin". SKS2K6 (talk) 06:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Is the 신s whom you have met so far are by any chance middle aged or old people? --Caspian blue 06:43, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, the ones I met are, like, kids &mdash; 2nd-gens &mdash; but obviously, they would have parents, who are middle-aged. The thing is, the ones I met while growing up in the States were "Shin", and the ages are similar, so I'm just guessing that it's a cultural thing (one that I don't have any explanation for). SKS2K6 (talk) 06:49, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * In fact, many of these are family names that exist in the English-speaking world: Emma Duck, Jerry Kill, Katharine Gun (more commonly Gunn), Jeanne Gang. The Paju passport office's suggestions are somewhat misguided, and we don't need to follow them.  In romanizing Korean, common practice is a terrible guide: it's usually inconsistent, often arbitrary, and sometimes deliberately obscure (Zang? Zin? Vark? Khym?).  The most helpful and respectful thing we can do for the reader is to keep to a consistent system except when there's a very compelling reason not to.
 * As for Sin Chang-won, your Google search simply reflects the old system that was in place in the late 1990's, when he was in the news.--Amble (talk) 07:42, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But since we are already following common usage for Lee and Kim, I don't object to standardizing on Shin and Lim as well. --Amble (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Naming convention for palaces and others
Of course, here is English encyclopedia, but should've discussed with community on the naming convention of Korean royal palaces or at least notified his intention to here. Because the change is related to other naming conventions that have not set up yet such as Buddhist temples, mountains, or pavilions, parks and others. More problem with the naming convention is that there is no consistency in the real life. For example, as "gung" is translated into a palace in English, so are "dang" or "jeong" into a pavilion.

likewise, Gyeongbokgung has various namings out there such as
 * Palace
 * 74,000 for "Gyeongbokgung"
 * 31,000 for "Gyeongbokgung" -"Gyeongbokgung Palace"
 * 25,300 for "Gyeongbokgung" -"Gyeongbok Palace" -"Gyeongbokgung Palace"
 * 21,200 for "Gyeongbok Palace"
 * 37,100 for "Gyeongbokgung Palace" including South Korean government and official tourism agency
 * 7,300 for "Kyongbok Palace" including Britaenica which follows McCune-Reischauer

Well, besides, if we change "Gyeongbokgung" to "Gyeongbok Palace", how to handle with names of other buildings in the place? We need to talk obviously. --Caspian blue 15:08, 17 January 2009 (UTC)


 * This is not an easy question. The guiding principle should be: use the name that's the most helpful and useful for readers.  When there's a very well-established name in English, we use it because the reader is likely to already be familiar with the subject under that name.  Otherwise, we have to decide which form is most recognizable and informative.  An English-speaking reader who has absolutely no knowledge of Korea and the Korean language will probably find the variants "Gyeongbok Palace," "Bulguk Temple," etc., more understandable.  However, most people who are interested in reading these articles probably know a thing or two, and may find the half-translated names a bit jarring.  I know I do.  Each name feels like a single unit that should be kept whole.
 * Therefore, there's probably not one single convention that's most helpful for all readers.
 * Fortunately, article titles are not really all that important. There are always redirects, and we usually cover all the possibilities in the first sentence or an info box.  What matters more is how we name places and things when they are mentioned in a different article.  My best suggestion is to give the full Korean name and an English-language hint the first time a name is mentioned, for instance "the royal palace Gyeongbokgung" or "Bulguksa, a major Buddhist temple near Gyeongju."  This should be accessible for everyone, and feels natural to me.
 * If we take this approach, then it's also convenient (but not imperative) to keep the article titles at Gyeongbokgung, Bulguksa, etc. --Amble (talk) 18:44, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Revised (Ministry of Education) Romanization
A year or two I read the discussion here and on similar pages of the Revised Romanization and McCune-Reischauer romanization systems, and was quite dissatisfied. Many of the key issues were never mentioned.

I've avoided specialized IPA symbols and have included approximate English sounds so that any careful reader can follow my discussion below.

When the French first came to Korea, they spelled Korean words to represent the closest sounds in the French language, according to the spellings used in French. So for example, in almost any other language "eu" would be two vowel sounds: [e] followed by [u] (roughly rhymes with "say who"), but in French this is a single sound, roughly like "book" in English (contrast with "boot"). So the French rendering of the Korean capital city "Seoul" is a little unusual, and violates basic conventions of international spellings of languages with non-Roman alphabets. Most English speakers don't realize that "Seoul" is a two-syllable word (Se-oul). The French pronounced the first syllable "se" (rhymes with "je" as in "je m'appelle [ name ]"), which was the closest sound they had to the Korean so (in English, roughly between the vowel in the word "son" and the first syllable of "August"). The vowel in the second syllable ("oul") was written "ou." (Remember that in French, "u" is a different sound, a high vowel with rounded lips.)

The Koreans assumed that since [u] was the vowel in the second syllable, the second syllable was being written "ul," and so the rest ("seo") must be the first syllable.

Summary: The French wrote "Seoul" (Se-oul) but the Koreans thought it was Seo-ul, so this common vowel should be written "eo". This MISTAKE became part of the official Ministry of Education system, in spite of the fact that no language anywhere in the world now or in the known past (with the possible exception of a spelling in Middle English) used "eo" for anything close to this vowel. There was a great deal of criticism, ridicule, and even an empirical study published in a top professional journal showing the inferiority of the Ministry of Education system by a wide margin. This system did not find favor anywhere outside of those the article described as "linguistically naive Koreans" - not with linguists, not with publishers of books on Korean topics in other languages, not with foreign residents living in Korea, etc. At first, it was not enough to make the obvious point that a Romanization system for Korean (or any language) is primarily for the sake of people who can't read the native script. The Ministry of Education seemed to want to keep their own system because of some combination of ignorance of linguistics and pride in a system they could call their own. Not long after the empirical study was published, the (perhaps embarrassed) Korean government finally in 1984 scrapped the Ministry of Education system in favor of the system that was used almost universally elsewhere in the world (among languages using the Roman alphabet), the McCune-Reischauer system. (A notable exception was Martin's "Yale" system for specialized linguistic studies.) The Korean government adopted a modified version of the McCune-Reischauer system - with, for example, Cho's hacek (optionally) rather than the breve. Unfortunately, a decision a few years ago by the Korean government revived the widely reviled Ministry of Education system with some modifications (but preserving the mistaken "eo" spelling, as well as other poor choices) under the name "Revised Romanization".

Wikipedia editors need to get a little more information on topics about which they make decisions rather than just talking too much among themselves. One Wikipedia editor pointed out with pride that Wikipedia was one of the only places (besides those under the authority of the Korean government) that has adopted the Revised Romanization (RR) system. It didn't occur to this RR supporter that there might be a good reason for the remarkable lack of support. Contrast this with pinyin for Chinese, which was immediately and pretty universally adopted.

I'm not sure what the best solution is (one of Visviva's proposals for North Korean spellings applied consistently to all Korean on English Wikipedia? "C" would be my choice, with hangul provided in parentheses as often as possible). In any case, I think we have to treat the McCune-Reischauer system with at least as much respect as the inferior RR system, allowing it to have at least equal status on the English Wikipedia (we do this already for British and American English without too many loud complaints). - Do c  t  orW  21:17, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * --Amble (talk) 11:20, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

North Korea v. DPRK
I was surprised that there are no guidelines here for the most obvious of the questions, whether it is called North Korea or whether it is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Perhaps it is seen as too obvious (common name is clearly "North Korea" which is also a lot more neutral than the name that pretends it is democratic) but this ought to be one of the first things noted. --140.247.241.193 (talk) 18:54, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Romanization issue at Gwon Yul
There is currently a move request at Talk:Gwon Yul involving Korean romanization issues. Please discuss it there if you care. —  AjaxSmack   23:46, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for changing naming convention on mountains and Buddhist monks
Could we change the existent naming convention to mountains and Buddhist monks? We already have styled rivers as Han River, Nakdong River instead of Hangang River and Nakdongang River, so this would go same to Mountains. Since famous mountains such as 한라산 or 설악산 are commonly known as Halla Mountain and Seorak Mountain (or Mount Halla and Mount Seorak) instead of Hallasan and Seoraksa.

As for Buddhist monk's name, I don't think Buddhist name should be equally treated with the existent naming convention on Korean people. I will add more to this later.--Caspian blue 15:28, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

North Korean spellings
Please Im Kkokjeong - this needs checking to see if English WP:RS have a different spelling. Cheers In ictu oculi (talk) 04:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)