Airang

As for Memory of the World, a total of 129 items in 59 countries have been registered. With six such cultural items registered,
Hunminjeongeum(訓民正音) In 1997, UNESCO initiated a Memory of the World Register for the purpose of preserving and disseminating the documentary heritage of the world that is in danger of being lost forever. Korean additions to this registry include Hunminjeongeum (Proper Phonetics to Instruct the People), Joseon Wangjosillok (Annals of the Joseon Dynasty), Buljo Jikjisimcheyojeol (Selected Sermons of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters), Seungjeongwon Ilgi (Diaries of the Royal Secretariat), the printing woodblocks of the Tripitaka Koreana(八萬大藏經, 直旨心體要節) and miscellaneous Buddhist scriptures, and the Uigwe(位階) (Royal Protocols of the Joseon Dynasty). and Old Korean Medical Text(東醫寶鑑, 동의보감).

1. Buljo Jikjisimcheyojeol (the world oldest text printed with metal type), compiled in 1372 by the monk Baegun (1298-1374), contains the essentials of Seon (Zen) Buddhism. The key words of the title, “Jikjisimche” were taken from a famous phrase about attaining enlightenment through the practice of Seon(禪). A colophon on the last page of the book states that it was printed with movable metal type at Heungdeoksa Temple in July, 1377, about seventy years before the Gutenberg Bible was printed in Germany in 1455, making it the world's oldest book printed with movable metal type.

Originally two volumes, only its latter volume is still extant. It is in the possession of the National Library of France in Paris. Jikji was inscribed in the Memory of the World Register in September, 2001, in an effort to preserve its documentary heritage as a common heritage of humanity.

2. The Seungjeongwon(承政院), the Royal Secretariat of the Joseon Dynasty, was responsible for keeping the Seungjeongwon Ilgi, a detailed record of the daily events and official schedule of the court, from Joseon Dynasty's first king, Taejo (r. 1392-1398), to the 27th and last, Sunjong (r. 1907-1910). However currently only 3,243 diaries exist. Recorded in the Seungjeongwon Ilgi is the largest amount of authentic historic information and state secrets of the Joseon Dynasty. It served as the primary source for the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, thus, its historic value is even greater than the Annals itself.

A unique form of documentary heritage, the Uigwe is a collection of Royal Protocols for the 500-year-long Joseon Dynasty. A comprehensive and systematic collection of writings and paintings, it provides a detailed account of the important ceremonies and rites of the Joseon court. Its particular style of documentary heritage cannot be found anywhere else in the world.

4. Joseon Wangjosillok (朝鮮王朝實錄)resulted from the tradition of preparing a historic record of each reign. It began in 1413 with the Annals of King Taejo, the founder and first king of Joseon, and continued through the end of the dynasty in 1910. The Annals were drafted by historians in the Office for Annals Compilation (Chunchugwan), and to ensure preservation, copies were stored in special repositories situated in four different parts of the country.

King Sejong the Great (r. 1418-1450) decreed the creation of the Korean alphabet Hangeul to ease the life of commoners in 15th century Joseon. In 1446, the first Korean alphabet system consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels was completed and proclaimed "Hunminjeongeum," literally "the correct sounds for the instruction of the people."

Along with the creation of Korean letters, King Sejong published a manual explaining their derivation and how to use them properly. It has become a UNESCO World Documentary Heritage, and the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize-established in 1989-annually pays tribute to those who have made outstanding achievements in promoting literacy.

The Korean people have their own peculiar spoken and written language. In January 1444 Hunminjeongeum(Korean script) was instituted on the basis of their spoken developed from the time of the ancient states. It is scientifically substantiated and precise in its phonetic and orthographic systems. It is easy to write and read, and so everyone can learn it without difficulty. Further, Korea has numerous world-famous cultural heritages in different fields of science, technology and culture.

The ancient Korean medical text "Dongeuibogam(동의보감, 東醫寶鑑)" has been registered as a global cultural heritage. UNESCO has included the manuscript as part of its Memory of the World. "Dongeuibogam" was completed in 1613 by Heo Jun, a renowned medical practitioner of the Chosun Dynasty (1392-1910). With the latest addition Korea now has seven items on the list of archive and library collections. Korea is surpassed only by seven other countries.

History

According to early historical records, two groups of languages were spoken in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula at the dawn of the Christian era; one belonged to the Northern Buyeo group and the other to the Southern Han group.
When the Koryeo Dynasty was founded in the 10th century, the capital was Gaeseong, located at the center of the Korean Peninsula and its language became the dominant form of communication. As a result, the linguistic unification of the peninsula was achieved on the basis of the Koguryeo language.
From that time onwards, the language of Gaeseong became the standard national language. After the Choseon Dynasty was founded at the end of the 14th century, the capital was moved to Hanyang, today's Seoul. However, since Seoul is geographically close to Gaeseong, the move had little significant effect on the development of the language.

Korean Script

The Korean script which is now generally called Hunminjeongum was invented in 1443 under the reign of King Sejong (r.1418-1450), the fourth king of the Choseon Dynasty. It was then called Hunminjeongeum, or proper sounds to instruct the people. The script was promulgated in 1446 in a document which was also called Hunminjeongeum. The motivation behind the invention of the Korean script, according to King Sejong's preface to the book, was to enable the Korean people to write their own language without the use of Chinese characters. Until the introduction of Hunminjeongeum, Chinese characters were used by the upper classes, and Idu letters, a kind of Chinese-based Korean character system, were used by the populace. There also seems to have been a second motivation behind the development of Korean script: to represent the "proper" sound associated with each Chinese character.

King Sejong and his scholars developed a theory of tripartite division of the syllable into initial, medial and final.

The initial sounds (consonants) are represented by 17 letters of which there are five basic forms. According to the explanations of the original Hunminjeongeum text,

ㄱ (g) depicts the root of the tongue blocking the throat;
ㄴ (n) depicts the outline of the tongue touching the upper palate;
ㅁ (m) depicts the outline of the mouth;
ㅅ (s) depicts the outline of the incisor; and
ㅇ (ng) depicts the outline of the throat.

The other initial letters were derived by adding strokes to the basic letters. No letters were invented for the final sounds, the initial letters being used for that purpose.

The original Hunminjeongeum text also explains that the medial sounds (vowels) are represented by 11 letters of which there are three basic forms:

.	(a) is a depiction of Heaven
_	(eu) is a depiction of Earth
l	(i) is a depiction of man
By combining these three signs, the other medial letters are formed.

After the promulgation of the Korean alphabet, its popularity gradually increased, particularly in modern times, to the point where it has replaced Chinese characters as the primary writing system in the country.

One of the more interesting characteristics of the Korean script is its syllabic grouping of the initial, medial and final letters. Some examples are as follows:

Standard Language and Orthography

Modern Korean is divided into six dialects: Central, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Jeju. Except for the Jeju dialect, these are similar enough for speakers of the various dialects to communicate. That is because Korea has been a centralized state for more than a thousand years. The language of the capital exercised a steady influence on the language spoken throughout the country.

The language of the capital was established as the basis for modern standard Korean in 1936, as a result of the deliberations of a committee organized by the Korean Language Research Society. The language of the political and cultural center of a nation usually becomes the standard language for the entire population. In Korea, however, the case was somewhat different, since the guidelines for the national language standard were set forth by a small but dedicated group of scholars who had worked during the Japanese occupation. They endeavored to preserve their own language in the face of an oppressive regime which had sought the eventual extinction of the Korean language.

Modern orthography was also determined by this same Korean Language Research Society in 1933. In this way, Korean orthography, rather than being a product of a gradual process of natural selection, was deliberately manufactured. Whereas 15th century orthography had been based on a phonemic principle, with each letter representing one phoneme, modern Korean orthography operates on a morphophonemic principle. That is, while a morpheme, or a minimum meaningful unit, may be realized differently according to its context, its orthographic representation is a single base form. The Korean word "값" for "price," for example, is pronounced [gaps] or [gap], according to the context; nevertheless, it is always spelled according to its base form, "값."

Phonology

The Korean language possesses a rich variety of vowels and consonants with nine simple vowels and three series of stops and affricates: plain, aspirated, and glottalized. These variations make it difficult for foreigners to learn and pronounce the language. They also complicate the task of Romanization.

Phonemes of the plain stop series are realized as unvoiced sounds in the word-initial position, voiced sounds in the intervocalic position and unreleased sounds in the word-final position, e.g. 갑 [gap] "case or small box" and 갑에 [gabe] "in the case." The liquid phoneme is realized as [r] in the intervocalic position and [l] in the word-final position. For example, 달 [dal] "moon," and 달에 [dare] "at the moon."

Consonants

Notes: The letter o has a double function: in the final position, it denotes a nasal consonant (n, g), while in the initial position, it denotes that the syllable begins with a vowel.

Another characteristic of modern Korean is that there are no consonant clusters or liquid sounds in the word-initial position. As a result, Koreans pronounce the English word "stop" in two syllables, as [seu-top], and change the initial [l] or [r] in foreign words to [n]. Recently, however, there has been a tendency to pronounce initial liquid sounds in Western loan words.

Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that it possesses vowel harmony. Evidence indicates that vowel harmony was rigidly observed in old Korean, but rules have been significantly weakened in modern Korean. Vowel harmony nevertheless continues to play an important role in the onomatopoetic and mimetic words so abundant in the language.

Korean is a difficult language to Romanize, given the variety of vowel and consonant phonemes and the complex rules for their realization. Of the Romanization systems that have been in use since the 19th century, the most widely accepted have been the McCune-Reischauer System (1939). This has been used mainly in the United States and other Western countries. The Korean system was revised along the lines of the McCune-Reischauer System, with a few modifications, so that the two systems most widely used in Korea and the West were, in effect, the same. We have chosen to McCune-Reischauer and South Korea system. You might notice that the same Korean name or word may be spelled in several different ways. These differences exist because two main methods are used for Romanization (transferring Korean into the Roman alphabet used by English). These systems are the McCune-Reischauer and the newer Revised Romanization of Korean.
This was made necessary by the widespread use of the computer which required automatic transliteration in searching words. There also was the need to adopt a system which does not use diacritical signs as those seen in the M-R System. The Romanized forms in this website reflect the latest revised system and McCune-Reischauer.

Morphology and Syntax

Korean is one of the so-called agglutinative languages which add suffixes to nominal and verbal stems in derivation and inflection. Suffixes agglutinate one after another and indicate different styles of speech, express moods and aspects, and function as case markers, connectives, etc. Vowel gradation, that is, the change of vowels to make morphological distinctions such as singular-plural in nouns (e.g. man-men) and present-past in verbs (e.g. sing-sang), is not found in Korean.

Korean is a verb-final language: the verb is always the last constituent of the sentence. Constituents other than verbs are relatively free to switch around, although the normal and preferred word order is subject-object-verb. In Korean, modifying words or phrases precede the modified words without exception: adjectives precede nouns, adverbs precede verbs, etc. Since Korean has no relative clauses, the clauses precede the nouns they modify however long they may be. One of the important characteristics of Korean grammar is the honorific system. Korean is perhaps the only language in the world which has honorific suffixes such as -si-, exalting the subject of the sentence, and -seumni-, showing the speaker's respect to the hearer. Although Japanese has a well-developed system of honorific expressions, it is different from that of Korean in that it utilizes auxiliary verbs instead of suffixes.

Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Korean is composed of indigenous words and loanwords, the latter being the result of contact with other languages. The majority of the loanwords are of Chinese origin, often called Sino-Korean words, a reflection of several millennia of Chinese cultural influence on Korea. In modern Korean, native words are significantly outnumbered by Sino-Korean words. As a result, a dual system of native and Sino-Korean words pervades the Korean lexicon, including two sets of numerals which are interchangeable in some cases but mutually exclusive in others. For example, native numerals are used with si (the hour, i.e. ahop si, "nine o'clock") but Sino-Korean numerals are used with bun (the minute, i.e. gu bun, "nine minutes"). The process of modernization has resulted in a steady flow of Western words entering the Korean language. Technological and scientific terms represent the majority of these loanwords, although Western terms have been introduced into almost every field.

Korean is a difficult language to Romanize, given the variety of vowel and consonant phonemes and the complex rules for their realization.

When you are reading this website and about Korea in various sources, you might notice that the same Korean name and word may be spelled in several different ways. These differences exist because two main methods are used for Romanization (transferring Korean into the Roman alphabet used by English). Of the Romanization systems that have been in use since the 19th century, the most widely accepted have been the McCune-Reischauer System (1939) that has been used mainly in the United States and other Western countries. In 1984, however, the South Korean system was revised along the lines of the McCune-Reischauer System, with a few modifications, so that the two systems most widely used in South Korea, DPRK and the West were, in effect, the same. Although South Korea has made revised Romanization its official system, DPR Korea has chosen to continue using McCune-Reischauer. However, it was wrong for the information age.

Further more, "Hangeul," the Korean alphabet, could be used for Internet domain names as early as the first quarter of 2009
ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has been in the process of revising the current Roman alphabet-based system to allow use of other characters for domains such as "com," "org" and "net" used at the end of addresses.
ICANN hopes for the Korean government to participate in the discussions (for the new domain-labelling system) in Paris,July 2008. ICANN which manages the assignment of domain names and IP addresses throughout the world.
Potentially, Korean internationalized domain names should be receivable by that time,noting that its agency aims to allow the use of characters from any language, including Arabic. It will be the biggest change in the domain name system.
The Agency called upon Internet service providers to make investments to upgrade the currently widely used IPv4, the fourth generation of Internet protocols, to the next-generation IPv6 standard.

The breve (as in "" and "") and the apostrophe (as in k', t', p', ch') were always difficult to use with consistency on computers and on the Internet. It didn't maintain important phonetic differences.

When it came to daily usage, the old system was far too often used without the apostrophe. This made it impossible to differentiate between ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ and ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅊ. Without revising the system used to Romanize Korean, these consonants would continue to be written the same in most cases.

The breve was left out even more frequently than the apostrophe. Once omitted, however, it becomes impossible to differentiate between the vowels 어 and 오, and 으 and 우. All of these vowels appear frequently, and often they determine the difference between the meaning of one word and another. Leaving the Romanization system unchanged would only guarantee that these critical differences were ignored forever. The frequency of highly abbreviated usage of the old system made revision unavoidable.

There was, however, a drastic revision of Romanization system by the South Korean Government in 2000, which, in effect, returned to the system of 1959. This was made necessary by the widespread use of the computer which required automatic transliteration in searching words. There also was the need to adopt a system which does not use diacritical signs as those seen in the M-R System. The Romanized forms in this website reflect the latest revised system.

1) "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" have been changed from "k, t, p, and ch" to "g, d, b, and j."

3) "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ" have been changed from "k', t', p', and ch'" to "k, t, p, and ch."

4) "ㅅ" will always be written as "s" instead of both "sh" and "s" depending on the vowel it preceded.

Principles of transcriptions are the same as in the old system, in that words are Romanized according to sound, as opposed to a transliteration system, in which Romanization would be done according to Korean spelling regardless of pronunciation.

While it is true that the old system has been widely used around the world to record the pronunciation of Korean, from a general linguistic point of view it had various shortcomings. The difference between some voiced and non-voiced sounds are in Korean little more than allophones, but old system transcribed these as entirely different phonemes. This is a problem that should have been remedied long ago, but unfortunately has had to wait until now for attention.

Because the old system did not reflect the phonetic characteristics of the Korean language, it was never compatible for easy and consistent use of native speakers of Korean, even if it was used outside of Korea without particular difficulty.This difficulty contributed to confusion and inconsistency in the Romanizing of Korean. The old system differentiated between voiced and non-voiced consonants, making it very difficult for Koreans to understand and contributing to spellings such as "Kumkang", “Koguryo” and "Choson" for "금강",”고구려” and "조선" instead of "Geumgang", “Goguryeo” and "Joseon," as would have been correct according to the old system.There were contradictions as well. "대구" was written "Taegu," but 동대구, the name of Daegu's largest passenger train terminal, was Romanized "Tongdaegu." And because "ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" have to be written in a way that a distinction is maintained between "ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ," people rarely wrote "ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" as "t, p, and ch," even when they were conscious of the fact that this was not correct according to the old system, since they would not want to have words confused with the "t', p', and ch'" that often had the apostrophe omitted.The result was that "ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" were written "t, p, and ch" on road signs but as "d, b, and j" almost everywhere else, such as personal names and the names of companies and schools.

This revision of the Romanization of Korean was undertaken with the belief that if not correct, this confusion and inconsistency would only continue to worsen with time. Priority was given to pronunciation instead of Korean orthography out of consideration of the needs of foreigners, and in this sense the government's Romanization policy remains unchanged. The difference is that phonological opposition is made clear in the new system.

The old Romanization system was based on the one developed privately in 1939, and was unfit for the information age. The old system used the breve (v), which is not to be found on a computer keyboard. The apostrophe is on all keyboards but was still omitted more often than not in common usage. , , k', t', p', and ch' are all lacking in existing ASCII code, making them difficult for everyday usage with computers and the Internet. It is only a matter of course that, rarely used properly anyway, these be left out of the new system.

Why does a Romanization system have to differentiate between "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" and "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ"?

Massive confusion occurs if a distinction is not made between "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" and "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ." The difference between many personal names cannot be made without respect for this distinction, for example in the case of "대수" and "태수" names that can easily that of two brothers. Without guaranteeing this distinction, one ends up with a situation like would be in English by writing both "Tale" and "Dale" as "Tale." While perhaps not a particularly dire problem in some languages, in Korean the distinction is critical, particularly for personal names.

Why is the difference between "어", and "오" and "으" and "우" so important?

"어" and "오" are completely different phonemes in Korean. A distinction not only must be made but is also possible. The same goes for the two vowels "으" and "우." Korean family names are an easy example, as the names "선" and "손" both become "Son" when the breve is omitted, just as "성" and "송" both become "Song." The native speaker of Korean clearly feels a difference between the vowels, and so many have little choice but to improvise. Again in the case of names, someone with the name "성" does not want to become "Song," so, having no guarantee that their name will be written consistently as "Sng," often felt the need to write "성" as "Sung" to make this distinction, leaving it to guesswork to determine how that person may have Romanized their name.

Does a Romanization system have to reflect the characteristics of the Korean language?

Romanization systems exist for the purpose of reflecting the phonetic characteristics of a given language that does not ordinarily use Roman letters. Any Romanization system that does not respect the phonological opposition of Korean is not maintaining the principle purpose of a system in the first place. Phonological opposition with consistency is entirely possible when Romanizing Korean, and so it is only a matter of course that this be assured with a new system.

Most of the maps and encyclopedias of the world use the McCune-Reischauer System of Romanization of Korean Language for Korean place names, won't the change cause confusion?

Much confusion can be expected for some time. The old system, based on the McCune-Reischauer system of Romanization for the Korean Language, is widely used overseas, particularly in Western countries. Many other documents besides maps and encyclopedias use the old system as well. It is indeed believed that it will take considerable time before the new system is recognized around the world. Confusion between the old and new systems can be expected. But if we delay making this needed change out of fear of this initial confusion, problems of inconsistency will only worsen, making the situation only more difficult to rectify for the next generation. The Korean government is prepared to do its part so that the new system is widely recognized and understood in Korea and around the world. The new system will not be accepted overnight, but the government is prepared to apply patience and effort to making this new system work.

While at first there may seem to be little advantage to following the new system, the benefits will be great over the long run. Since in the old system both "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" and "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ" end up written as "k, t, p, and ch," even simple tasks such as Internet searches suddenly become highly inefficient. Since 대성 and 태성, for example, but become Taesong when the apostrophe is omitted, a search for either would turn up both. A system that is easy to follow and always maintains critical and frequent phonetic differences will make finding people, places, and everything else immensely easier because phonetic distinctions will be maintained consistently and there will be little cause for arbitrary improvision.

Westerners tend to hear "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" as "k, t, p, and ch." Why do these consonants have to be written "g, d, b, and j"?

It is true that most Westerners hear "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" as "k, t, p, and ch" when these consonants appear as the first letter in a word. But the problem is that "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ" also seem like "k, t, p, and ch" to the average Western ear as well, and the differences between each of these vowels are important in Korean. The Korean phonological opposition must be given first priority in a Romanization system designed for Korean, even if to foreign ears these differences are not easily recognized. In addition, when the differences between "ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ" and "ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ" are written with consistency, it makes non-native pronunciation of Korean more distinguishable to native speakers.

When it comes to views about the new system, many have expressed opposition to transcribing "어" as "eo" and "으" as "eu." Some may think it ideal to write "어" as "o" and "으" as "u," but then there becomes no way to distinguishing "어" from "오" and "으" from "우." This leaves one with little choice but to develop a way to make this distinction. As long as "" and "" are no longer going to be used, the only option available is to Romanize "어" and "으" using two Roman letters.

"어" is a front vowel, while "으" is a back vowel. Both lie between "o." "으" comes from closer to the front of the mouth than "u," and so it was decided to place add "e" in front of "o" and "u". Given the phonetic characteristics of Korean, a language of many written vowels all of which experience no variation, we are left with little option but to explain to non-native speakers that "eo" is "어" and "eu" is "으." Roman letters will have their own sound value in every language, whether that languages uses Roman letters as its main script or only when Romanized. Using "eo" and "eu" to Romanize "어" and "으" is unavoidable.

In principle family names should follow the new system, but there are names that will have difficulty doing this. The family name "이" should be written as "I," but no one with this family name currently writes their name this way. Ninety five percent of all persons with the family name "이" write their name "Lee," though one can also find "Rhee," "Yi," "Ri," "Li," "Rhie," and "Lie." The Institution will continue to work towards determining methods of Romanization for family names that might have difficulty following the new system and announce these separately. Some family names may require the setting of a separate standard for the sake of consistency within that name. This will be determined as the soonest date possible.

Just as in the case of Romanizations of personal names that have already been established, businesses that so desire may continue to use previously established Romanizations. Business names such as Samsung and Hyundai, both known the world over, will not be required to change to "Samseong" and "Hyeondae." New companies, however, will be encouraged to follow this system. Also, the government will gladly welcome decisions by companies using inconsistent names to follow the new system.

1. Basic Principles of Romanization

(1) Romanization is based on standard Korean pronunciation
(2) Symbols other than Roman letters are avoided to the greatest extent possible.

2. Summary of the Romanization System

(1) Vowels are transcribed as follows :
simple vowels

Note 1 : ㅢ is transcribed as ui, even when pronounced as ㅣ.
Note 2 : Long vowels are not reflected in Romanization.

Note 1 : The sounds ㄱ, ㄷ, and ㅂ are transcribed respectively as g, d, and b when they appear before a vowel; they are transcribed as k, t, and p when followed by another consonant or form the final sound of a word. (They are Romanized as pronunciation in [ ].)e.g.구미 Gumi, 영동 Yeongdong, 백암 Baegam, 옥천 Okcheon, 합덕 Hapdeok, 호법 Hobeop, 월곶[월곧] Wolgot, 벚꽃[벋?] beotkkot, 한밭[한받] Hanbat

Note 2 : ㄹ is transcribed as r when followed by a vowel, and as l when followed by a consonant or when appearing at the end of a word. ㄹㄹ is transcribed as ll.e.g.
구리 Guri, 설악 Seorak, 칠곡 Chilgok, 임실 Imsil, 울릉 Ulleung, 호법 Hobeop

(1) When Korean sound values change as in the following cases, the results of those changes are Romanized as follows :

1. The case of assimilation of adjacent consonantse.g
.백마[뱅마] Baengma, 승리[sungni], 종로[종노] Jongno, 왕십리[왕심니] Wangsimni, 별내[별래] Byeollae,
신라[실라] Silla

2. The case of the epenthetic ㄴ and ㄹ e.g. 학여울[항녀울] Hangnyeoul, 알약[알략] allyak

3. Cases of palatalizatione.g. 해돋이 haedoji, 알같이[가치] gachi, 맞히다[마치다] machida

4. Cases where ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ are adjacent to ㅎ e.g. 좋고[조코] joko, 놓다[노타] nota, 잡혀[자펴] japyeo, 낳지[나치] nachi

However, aspirated sounds are not reflected in case of nouns where ㅎ followsㄱ, ㄷ, and ㅂ, as in the examples below.e.g. 묵호 Mukho, 집현전 Jiphyeonjeon

Note : Tense (or glottalized) sounds are not reflected in cases where morphemes are compounded, as in the examples below.e.g. 압구정 Apgujeong, 낙동강 Nakdonggang, 죽변 Jukbyeon, 낙성대 Nakseongdae, 창광거리 Changwanggeori, 팔당 Paldang, 샛별 saetbyeol, 울산 Ulsan

(2) When there is the possibility of confusion in pronunciation, a hyphen '-' may be used.

(4) Personal names are written by family name first, followed by a space and the given name. In principle, syllables in given names are not separated by hyphen, but the use of a hyphen between syllables is permitted.

① Assimilated sound changes between syllables in given names are not transcribed.

(5) Administrative units such as 도, 시, 군, 구, 읍, 면, 리, 동, and 가 are transcribed respectively as do, si, gun, gu, eup, myeon, ri, dong, and ga, and are preceded by a hyphen. Assimilated sound changes before and after the hyphen are not reflected in Romanization.

e.g. 함경북도 Hamgeongbuk-do, 제주도 Jeju-do, 라진시 Rajin-si, 양주군 Yangju-gun, 서송구 Sosong-gu, 신창읍 Sinchang-eup, 삼지연 Samji-yeon, 인왕리 Inwang-ri, 서촌동 Sochon-dong, 문수거라 Munsu-geori

Note : Terms for administrative units such as 시, 군, 읍 may be omitted.e.g. 청진시 Cheongjin, 평성군 Pyeongseong, 순창읍 Sunchang

(6) Names of geographic features, cultural properties, and man-made structures may be written without hyphens.

e.g. 백두산 Baekdusan, 속리산 Songnisan, 금강산 Geumgangsan, 독도 Dokdo, 경복궁 Gyeongbokgung, 무량수전 Muryangsujeon, 선죽교 Seonjukgyo, 극락전 Geungnakjeon, 안압지 Anapji, 대성산성 Daeseongsanseong, 화랑대 Hwarangdae, 불국사 Bulguksa, 현충사 Hyeonchungsa, 독립문 Dongnimmun, 오죽헌 Ojukheon, 촉석루 Chokseongnu, 종묘 Jongmyo, 다보탑 Dabotap

(7) Proper names such as personal names and those of companies may continue to be written as they have been previously.

(8) When it is necessary to convert Romanized Korean back to Hangeul in special cases such as in academic articles, Romanization is done according to Hangeul spelling and not pronunciation. Each Hangeul letter is Romanized as explained in section 2 except that ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㄹ are always written as g, d, b, l. When ㅇ has no sound value, it is replaced by a hyphen may also be used when it is necessary to distinguish between syllables.

e.g. 집 jib, 짚 jip, 밖 bakk, 값 gabs, 붓꽃 buskkoch, 먹는 meogneun, 독립 doglib, 문리 munli, 물엿 mul-yeos, 굳이 gud-i, 좋다 johda, 가곡 gagog, 조랑말 jolangmal, 없었습니다 eobs-eoss-seubnida

1. This system of Romanization becomes effective on the date it is formally proclaimed.

2. Signs using the previous system of Romanization (road signs, official large-scale notices, information posted at cultural sites, etc.), when this system of Romanization becomes effective, must follow this system by December 31, 2005.

3. Publication such as textbooks using the previous system of Romanization must follow this system by February 28, 2002.