Korean Speech Contest

This is a quick note to let you know that I'm participating in a Korean Speech Contest this afternoon, and that my real blog post will come after that, hopefully with video. Something to look forward to!

Adventures

Tomorrow I start a new adventure. And the day after that, I start another new adventure.What are these adventures you ask? Well. Tomorrow, I start language maintenance class. It's been a really long time since I've REALLY studied Korean, so it's definitely going to be an adventure. And the day after tomorrow (we really need a word for that) I start Camp NaNoWriMo April. This will be my first time doing a Camp, and I'm pretty excited. I have my story all laid out in my head, my cast of characters keeps developing to be better and better, and I'm actually excited about this one. It's going to rock.

Do you have any upcoming adventures? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

Korean Names and Terms of Familiarity

Back when I posted about romanization, Reader Melody commented on how it was hard for her to understand names and the words usually connected with names, especially when the subtitles are different than what it sounds like is being said. So I thought it would be a good idea to try to explain some of the points of Korean name and familiarity culture.

Korean names are mostly derived from Hanja (한자), which is the word for the Chinese words used in Korean. Most Korean's have three syllable names; last name, and two syllable first name. Here are some examples and how they are written in Korean:

Lee Minho (이민호)
Choi Siwon (최시원)
Park Siwoo (박시우)
Baek Jiyoung (백지영)

In S. Korea, there are roughly 250 family names in use. Of these names, the most common, Kim (김), Lee (이), and Park (박) consist of about half the population, according to Wikipedia. Since there are a limited number of last names, it makes it a tad bit easier to recognize a name when you hear it.

First name wise, there are a million different ways to make a first name. There are always going to be the most commonly used ones, and those are going to change according to generation, so there's not much I can explain about that. There is one thing that a lot of the older generation did pretty often, and the younger generation does occasionally. Among siblings and cousins, a syllable in their given name is shared. Here's some examples.

Kim Junsu (김준수) and twin Kim Junho (김준호)
Park Yoochun (박유천) and younger brother Park Yoohwan (박유환)

Of course, because of the ebb and flow of popularity, there is going to be names that go out of style, and names that seem fresh and new. Alas, I haven't been able to quantify these names, and so I have no information to give you on this point, other that it does happen.

Now to move on to how the Korean people call each other. A lot of how people address each other has to do with how Confucianism has shaped their culture.

It is considered very rude to call a Korean just just their first name, or even just their full name. There is always another word or syllable attached to their name, depending on the relationship between the two people and on the status of the person being spoken off. Let's start with the basics. I'm going to use my own Korean name -- Tae Ahreum (태아름) -- as one example, and a friend's Korean name -- Kim Myungsoo (김명수) -- as the other.

Between close friends, and parents or grandparents to their children or grandchildren, the syllable 'Ah' (아) or 'Ya' (야) is added to their name. So between close friends Ahreum and Myungsoo, they would call each other Ahreum-ah (아름아) -- because the name ends with a consonant -- and Myungsoo-ya (명수야) -- because the name ends with a vowel.

The next step is between just about anyone you are on the same level with, or someone who is higher level than you.; co-workers, casual friends, a person you just met, etc. The syllable 'Ssi' (씨) is added to the end of either their full name, or just their given name. So between Ahreum and Myungsoo, who are just acquaintances, they would address each other as Tae Ahreum-Ssi (태아름씨) and Kim Myungsoo-Ssi (김명수씨).  With this syllable, there is no change depending on consonant or vowel.

Then we have the terms Goon (군) and Yang (양) for addressing a generally young man and young woman respectively. Usually used by older or higher level people towards younger or lower level people. So if someone like a neighborhood grandma were addressing Ahreum and Myungsoo, she would call them Tae Ahreum-Yang (태아름양) and Kim Myungsoo-Goon (김명수군).

For working people and co-workers, people are usually address by their name with their title. So let's say Ahreum is a teacher (선생) (seon-saeng) and Myungsoo is a CEO (사장) (sa-jang). They would be addressed as Tae Ahreum Teacher (태아름선생님) and Kim Myungsoo CEO (김명수사장님). The extra syllable added at the end there is the honorific syllable added to the end of titles and is pronounced somewhere between Nim and Neem. If the person you are addressing is below you in status or age, then you would leave that off.

Of course, not everyone always calls people by their name. There are tons of different ways you can address a person, without using their name. So, let's use our two examples and explore those different name. We'll start at the bottom again.

If Ahreum and Myungsoo were siblings -- last name disregarded -- chances are one of them wouldn't call the other by their name. If Ahreum was the older, then she would call Myungsoo by his name (Myungsoo-ya/명수야) and Myungsoo would call her 'older sister' or Noona (누나). But if the situation were reversed and Myungsoo was the older of the two, then he would call her by her name (Ahreum-ah/아름아) and she would call him 'older brother' or Oppa (오빠). Of course, there are more, however. If both Ahreum and Myungsoo were boys, then the younger one would call the older one 'older brother' or Hyung (형). Or if they were both girls, then the younger one would call the older one 'older sister' or Eonni (언니).

These are not reserved just for siblings, either. It works between cousins and friends as well. And Oppa and Noona work between romantically engaged couples, too. So say Ahreum and Myungsoo were dating. Chances are Ahreum would call Myungsoo Oppa, instead of his name, especially if she was trying to be cute. And if Ahreum was older than Myungsoo while dating, then he would probably call her Noona.

Because the family is such an important thing to the Koreans, they have many different terms for family members, according to how the person is related to the speaker. It goes so far as to having a specific word for your father's older brother's wife! Since there are too many to name, I'll just say that a lot of these terms aren't really used in most dramas, unless you happen to be watching a soap opera, and then they are all over the place.

And these are all just the very basic names and familiar terms, there are plenty more and it would probably take a dozen posts to cover them all. But I think, at least for now, these are enough to keep people afloat while watching the dramas.

Is there a certain topic about Korean culture or language that you would like to know more about? Let me know in the comments, and I'll try to answer your questions in future posts!

Sorry for how long this post was, and if you made it to this point, thanks for reading!

Korean and the Nightmare of Romanization

I'm a little obsessive about certain things. Okay, I'll be honest; I'm a lot obsessive about a lot of things. But that's not what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about today is turning a language's script into English's Latin script and the pitfalls that come with that. Mostly about Korean and romanization.

First off, the Korean Language (한국어/한국말) uses Hangul (한글) as their writing system. This is an alphabet that was created in about 1443 during the Joseon Dynasty (조선시대), reportedly by the king at the time, King Sejong (세종대왕). It has a fantastic creation story and is really a beautiful alphabet, but that's for another post.

Now obviously, if you didn't know the alphabet, you wouldn't be able to read it. That's a given. And for a lot of people in the world, there is no real reason to learn how to read Hangul. So of course people are going to come up with a way to write Korean so that English speakers, or people who read the Latin alphabet, can read Korean, even if they don't understand it. This is especially helpful with names and brands and things of that nature. I get all that. That kind of thing is important, especially in a world where English is the business language.

But. What I don't get is how the different kind of romanizations for Hangul came about, and why they are so... wrong.

There are three different major romanization systems that I know of. McCune-Reischauer (MR), which came about in the 1930s and was the first officially accepted romanization. Yale, from the 1940s, which is the accepted romanization among linguists. Revised Romanization of Korean (RR), which is from the early 2000s, and is the current officially accepted romanization.

Let me give you an example of how different these three are -- and this comes from Wikipedia:

The Korean word for 'wall' is 벽. In MR this is pyŏk. In RR this is byeok/byeog. In Yale this is pyek.

The people who created the Yale romanization must have been smoking something, because what?

Now to be fair, Korean does have a lot of sounds that English doesn't have and a lot of rules that guide those sounds. And 벽 is a perfect example. ㅂ, or the letter bieup (비읍) is not exactly a 'B'. It's kind of in the middle of 'B' and 'P'. Then the 여 vowel sounds a bit like 'Yaw', no southern accent, made in the back of your throat. And then the ㄱ, or letter giyeok (기역) is normally in between a 'G' and a 'K' sound, but since it's at the end of the syllable then it sounds like a 'K' that is cut off before you finish making the sound.

So for the person who doesn't have a PhD in linguists, Revised Romanization is the closest approximation.

I would be completely okay with this if there was any kind of consistency. But there is no consistency, and so my little obsessive brain grimaces and can't process Korean written in the Latin alphabet.

Here's a couple of examples:

One of the most common last names in Korea is the name 이. Most of the time this is romanized as Lee, which while partially correct thanks to North Korea, is not the sound 이 makes. Other times it is romanized as Yi, and still other times it is romanized as I, and sometimes as Rhee. See how different it all is?

Of course, that's not the best example, sometimes Lee or Rhee is correct. There is the name 이, and there is also the name 리, which is the North Korean version.

Here's another example.

A couple singers that I know of have the name 정민. However, for one of them it is spelled Jungmin, and for the other one it is Jeongmin. Now, this is probably to differentiate the two singers, so not the best example. So here's another one.

There is a famous old university north of where I am called 성균관대학교. Now, 대학교, or Daehakkyo is the word for university, and I'm not picking on that one. What I am picking on is how 성균관 is romanized.

Sung Kyun Kwan.

You probably can't see it, so let me make it a little clearer.

성 has one vowel there on the right, the 어 vowel, which is pronounced kind of like 'aw' at the back of your throat.
균 has one vowel in the middle there, the 유 vowel, which sounds like 'you.'
관 has two vowels that make a 'wa' sound, but that's not the focus here.

The focus is on 어 and 유 being romanized with the same Latin vowel, even though the two sounds are completely different.

Can you see the problem here?

And there is things like Hyundai (현대) and Samsung (삼성) and even the names Park (박) and Choi (최), well known names and brands that have been romanized in such a way that unless you know the Hangul, you will never be able to pronounce it correctly.

I don't really have a solution to this. I'm not a linguist, and I'm definitely not in any kind of position to suggest changes. But it's something that frustrates me on a daily basis.

Do you know a foreign language? How about a foreign writing system? Tell me about it in the comments!

Thanks for reading!