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Yale romanization of Korean

TheYale romanization of Koreanwas developed bySamuel Elmo Martinand his colleagues atYale Universityabout half a decade afterMcCune–Reischauer.It is the standard romanization of theKorean languageinlinguistics.[1]

The Yale system places primary emphasis onshowinga word'smorphophonemicstructure. This distinguishes it from the other two widely used systems for romanizing Korean, theRevised Romanization of Korean(RR) andMcCune–Reischauer.These two usually provide the pronunciation for an entire word, but the morphophonemic elements accounting for that pronunciation often cannot be recovered from the romanizations, which makes them ill-suited for linguistic use. In terms of morphophonemic content, the Yale system's approach can be compared toNorth Korea's formerNew Korean Orthography.[2]

The Yale system tries to use a single consistent spelling for each morphophonemic element irrespective of its context. It represents some back vowels asdigraphsrather than using diacritics (as done in McCune–Reischauer).

Yale may be used for both modern Korean andMiddle Korean.There are separate rules for Middle Korean. Martin's 1992Reference Grammar of Koreanuses italics for Middle Korean as well as other texts predating the 1933 abandonment ofarae a,whereas it shows current language in boldface.[3]

Vowels

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Yale writes some pure vowels as digraphs. Vowels written to the right in Hangul (ㅏ, ㅓ) are written asaore,and vowels that are written below (ㅗ,ㅜ,ㆍ, ㅡ) arewo,wu,ooru.Yale indicates fronting of a vowel (Middle Korean diphthongs), written in Hangul as an additionalㅣ,with a final-y.Palatalization is shown by a medial-y-.

Yale romanization of Hangul vowels[4]
Plain Palatal onglide[5] Labial onglide[5]
ㅏa ㅐay ㅑya ㅒyay ㅘwa ㅙway
ㅓe ㅔey ㅕye ㅖyey ㅝwe ㅞwey
ㅗ(w)o[i] ㅚ(w)oy[i] ㅛy(w)o[i]
ㅜ(w)u[ii] ㅟwuy/wi[iii] ㅠyu
ㆍo[iv] ㆎoy[iv] ᆢyo[iv]
ㅡu ㅢuy
ㅣi
  1. ^abcSince all modern mainland Korean varieties have lost the vowelㆍ(arae a), the medialwinㅗ(woin Middle Korean), can be omitted. It is thus important to consider the time period in question when the romanization is interpreted.[3]
  2. ^Asㅡudoes not occur afterlabial consonantsin Modern Korean, Yale abbreviatesㅜwutouin this position.[6]
  3. ^The spellingwuyis used for Middle Korean forms anduifor Modern Korean forms.[7]
  4. ^abcThese vowels occur in Middle Korean, but have been lost in all modern Korean varieties exceptJeju.[8]

Consonants

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Yale uses unvoiced consonant letters to write Modern Korean consonants. Tense consonants are transcribed as doubled letters, as in the Hangul spelling. Aspirated stops and affricates are written as digraphs formed by addingh.[5] Middle Korean voiced fricativesㅸ,ㅿ(bansiot) andㅇare written asW,zandGrespectively, but do not occur in modern Korean.[9] In the context of Modern Korean, final ㅇ may be transcribedng.

Korean consonant letters and their Yale transcriptions
Bilabial Alveolar Velar Glottal
Nasal m ㅁ n ㄴ ng ㆁ
Stop plain p ㅂ t ㄷ k ㄱ
aspirated ph ㅍ th ㅌ kh ㅋ
tense pp ㅃ tt ㄸ kk ㄲ
Affricate plain c ㅈ
aspirated ch ㅊ
tense cc ㅉ
Fricative plain s ㅅ h ㅎ
tense ss ㅆ hh ㆅ
voiced W ㅸ z ㅿ G ㅇ x ㆆ
Liquid l ㄹ

Other symbols

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The letterqindicatesreinforcementwhich is not shown in hangul spelling:[10]

  • 할 일halq il/hallill/
  • 할 것halq kes/halkket/
  • 글자kulqca/kulcca/

A period indicates the orthographic syllable boundary in cases of letter combinations that would otherwise be ambiguous. It is also used for other purposes such as to indicate sound change:[11]

  • 늙은nulk.un"old"
  • 같이kath.i/kachi/ "together"; "like", "as" etc.

A macron over a vowel letter indicate that in old or dialectal language, this vowel is pronouncedlong:[12]

  • 말māl"word(s)"
  • 말mal"horse(s)"

Accents marks are used instead of or in addition to the macron when recording dialects, such as Gyeongsang or Hamgyeong, which have retained tones. Note: Vowel length (orpitch,depending on the dialect) as a distinctive feature seems to have disappeared at least among younger speakers of theSeoul dialectsometime in the late 20th century.

A superscript letter indicates consonants that have disappeared from a word'sSouth Korean orthographyand standard pronunciation. For example, the South Korean orthographic syllable영(RRyeong) is romanized as follows:[13]

  • yengwhere no initial consonant has been dropped.
    Example:영어 ( tiếng Anh )yeng.e
  • lyengwhere an initial l(ㄹ)has been dropped or changed to n(ㄴ)in the South Korean standard language.
    Examples:영[=령]도 ( lãnh đạo )lyengto;노[=로]무현 ( Lư võ huyễn )lNo Muhyen
  • nyengwhere an initial n(ㄴ)has been dropped in the South Korean standard language.
    Example:영[=녕]변 ( ninh biên )nYengpyen

The indication of vowel length or pitch and disappeared consonants often make it easier to predict how a word is pronounced in Korean dialects when given its Yale romanization compared to its South Koreanhangulspelling.

High levels of analysis

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At higher levels of morphological abstraction, superscript and subscript vowel symbols joined by a slash may be used to indicate alternations due to vowel harmony. If used for modern day language, this just means the symbole⁄a,though Middle Korean also had the vowel alternationu⁄o.

An apostrophe may be used for vowelelisionorcrasis.

  • 나+ㅣ=내na 'y=nay"my"
  • 별+으로=별로pyel 'lo=pyel lo"especially"

Special letters may be used to indicate final consonants in stem changing verbs. In this example,Tstands in for the alternation betweenㄷandㄹ

  • 걷다keTta"to walk" (dictionary citation form)
  • 걸어요keTe⁄ayo"he walks" (conjugated form)

See also

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References

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  1. ^Lee & Ramsey (2000),p. xii.
  2. ^Cho & Whitman (2019),p. 57.
  3. ^abMartin (1992),p. 4.
  4. ^Martin (1992),pp. 12–13.
  5. ^abcMartin (1992),p. 24.
  6. ^Martin (1992),p. 18.
  7. ^Martin (1992),pp. 17, 26.
  8. ^Martin (1992),pp. 42–43.
  9. ^Martin (1992),pp. 45, 50.
  10. ^Martin (1992),pp. 12–15.
  11. ^Martin (1992),pp. 8–9.
  12. ^Martin (1992),pp. 32–35.
  13. ^Martin (1992),pp. 15–17.
  • Cho, Sungdai; Whitman, John (2019).Korean: A Linguistic Introduction.Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-51485-9.
  • Lee, Iksop; Ramsey, S. Robert (2000).The Korean Language.SUNY Press.ISBN978-0-7914-4831-1.
  • Martin, Samuel E.(1992).A Reference Grammar of Korean.Rutland,VT andTokyo:Charles E. Tuttle.ISBN0-8048-1887-8.
  • Sohn, Ho-Min (2001).The Korean Language.Cambridge University Press. pp.1–4.ISBN978-0-521-36943-5.
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