Minister of Culture and Tourism Park Jie Won announced Tuesday that the government had changed its official system of Romanization for the Korean language. The new system, developed by the MCT's National Academy of the Korean Language, is in largely a system transcription as opposed to transliteration, and does not use the diacritical marks used in the system in place since 1984.
Other readily noticeable changes include the rendering of 丑, 之, 仆, and 元 as j, d, b, and j whenever followed by a vowel. Tongdaegu Station, located in Taegu, now becomes Dongdaegu Station located in Daegu. Kwangju, for example, becomes Gwangju. 丑, 之, and 仆 remain k, t, and p when followed by a consonant that does not affect their pronunciation or when at the end of a word. Also, the vowels 勻 and 天 will be written as "eo" and "eu" respectively. The dipthong 勿 will be written as "yeo." The issue of how to render 勻 had been the topic of much discussion in the twenty hearings held to discuss the new Romanization policy.
Phonetic changes difficult for native speakers of Korean to understand will also be reflected in the new system. "Paekche," then, becomes "Baekje." Having the 元 Romanized in a different fashion depending on what consonant preceded it has contributed to inconsistency among Koreans using the old system.
Road signs using the old system do not have to be changed until the year 2005. Textbooks, maps, and other government publications can continue to be used in governmental function until 2002. The decision to implement the new system in phases was made, according to Minister Park, to defray the budgetary shock of doing it all at once.
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