Of the email that I receive regarding this site, one of the most frequent topics is spelling. Usually once each month I receive an email telling me that I have misspelled the names of the patterns. The user is always very helpful, providing me a list of the spellings with which they are familiar. Whenever I receive feedback on this site, it is usually the suggestions for change or revision that help the most. The spelling of the pattern names, however, turns out to be a sticky wicket. On this site I try to spell the pattern names so that a typical English speaker will come close to the Korean pronunciation when saying them aloud. On the other hand, I also try not to completely diverge from the traditional way in which Asian vowel sounds are usually represented in English. This means that there's always a trade off. Simply put, different people will spell them different ways (in English) because they are not English words. The best way to learn the pronunciation of the pattern names is to hear a native Korean say them aloud. (For more audio try this link.)
The languages of both Korea and Japan use scripts (or alphabets) that are unfamiliar to most westerners. Korea uses an alphabet called "Hangul". It is much like our own alphabet in that each element represents either a consonant or a vowel. One striking difference, however, is the way they group their 'letters' into a syllable. They stack them and/or place them next to one another, forming the syllables of words, instead of just placing one letter after another in a horizontal line as we do in English. As if the foreign script didn't make Korean difficult enough, they also use characters imported from Chinese throughout their writing. Currently, high school students are required to be able to recognize approximately 1,800 of these characters (called "Hanja" in Korean). These characters are used widely in various places -- from signs and advertisements to newspapers to scholarly writing.
The Japanese do not use an alphabet like ours. Instead each Japanese 'letter' equates to one syllable in English. Additionally, they use two completely different "alphabets" of syllables in their writing. The most common is "hiragana" and is used primarily for words native to Japanese. The other is called "katakana" and is used mostly for the spelling of words imported from foreign languages. Think that's as difficult as it gets? Not at all. The Japanese also use characters imported from Chinese (they call them "kanji"). And they use a lot more of them and a lot more often. A Japanese high school student can recognize approximately 5,000 kanji by the time he/she graduates from high school.
The process of rendering Korean and Japanese script into the English/European alphabet is called transliteration or Romanization. Fortunately, the transliteration of Japanese is easy. This is due to several factors. First, the system for Romanizing Japanese is very standardized. Second, the same system has been in place for as long as anyone can remember. Third, the system currently in place makes it remarkably easy for speakers of English to pronounce the Japanese words. And lastly, the Romanized letters and combinations of letters have one (and only one) pronunciation, with very little variation, thus avoiding confusions for both those who transliterate and those who must read and/or pronounce the rendered words. What this means to you is that if you see a Japanese word on my site (spelled using our familiar alphabet) you can rest assured that this is the way anyone would spell the word. Also, anyone who speaks Japanese can accurately transliterate it back into its native script.
Korean, on the other hand, poses a more difficult problem. The system by which Korean is transliterated is not as standardized as the system for Japanese. The system currently promulgated by the Korean government has only been around for a few years. Before that, a very different system was considered the standard for quite some time. Because of this, there are currently two very popular methods for transliterating Korean -- the McCune-Reischauer system developed in 1939 by George McCune and Edwin Reischauer and the Se-Jong system which was first proffered in the year 2000 as the new, official method of Romanization for the Korean government. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Let's examine them in (just a little) detail.
Prior to the development of the Se-Jong system the McCune-Reischauer system was, without a doubt, the most popular way of Romanizing the Korean language. Through its relatively long history of use it became standardized and consistent among sources and translators. Its biggest selling point was that, if you took the time to learn a few special characters, this method did an excellent job of replicating the pronunciation of the original Korean. These special characters, usually an English vowel with a diacritic mark, were also its primary reason for criticism. Native English speakers were unfamiliar with the special marks and learning their pronunciations made it more difficult to read and speak. Probably the biggest reason that the Korean government abandoned this system, though, was the rise of the internet. While modern word processors and browsers can recognize and display characters in nearly every language imaginable, the heart and soul of the internet is still English. Website URLs and email addresses must be in English and must only use characters of the Latin/Roman alphabet (ours). What this meant was that Korean words that were transliterated using the McCune-Reischauer system could often not be used in an email or web address. Imagine the confusion and frustration that arises when a company has been spelling its name for decades using this system on everything from stationery to its own buildings and then cannot spell it the same way in its web or email addresses. Hence, the introduction of the Se-Jong Project.
The Se-Jong Project's primary goal was to develop a standardized system of Romanization that could mesh seamlessly with Information Technology (IT). In this system, nearly every Korean sound is represented by only one English equivalent. This is much often-times more accurate than the McCune-Reischauer system in that this allows for easy conversion from the English transliteration back into Korean. Also, there are no special characters or diacritic marks and, thus, no letters that are unfamiliar to speakers of English. This means that all Korean words can be transliterated into web and email addresses. This system, though, makes it much more difficult for English speakers to pronounce Korean correctly. It does not take into account the variety of diphthongs or mutations that certain sounds undergo in the context of normal Korean speech. While this system is gaining in popularity (and has been mandated for use in South Korea), its frequent inability to invoke an acceptable pronunciation makes it inappropriate for many uses.
If you've made it this far, I congratulate you. I'll stop boring you with the details now and let you check out the sources for yourself.
For more information on the Se-Jong system of Romanization, visit the
following sites:
http://www.sejong.or.kr/english/index.html (in English)
http://www.sejong.or.kr/sejong_kr/index.html (in Korean)
For more information on the McCune-Reischauer system, visit the following
site:
http://mccune-reischauer.org/
(in English with Korean examples)