Romanization of Hangul
From DramaWiki
The heart of DramaWiki is its search engine. For the search engine to function at its best for the majority of its illiterate Korean readers, all text must be searchable using common roman characters that can be found on any given keyboard.
Contents
DramaWiki policy
Creed
DramaWiki has a stance on the romanization of Korean text, which differs from other wiki's, such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia, for example, focuses on precise accuracy of its information, which is really important when producing an encyclopedia-like service. DramaWiki, however, places its focus on the ease of searching for information. The guidelines DramaWiki use when romanizing Korean text are that the:
- words and phrases, including proper nouns, be entered using a spelling arrangement that is most common among Korean drama fans.
- latin-based characters used can be entered using any computer keyboard, including non-PC keyboards and operating systems.
- words and phrases can be queried using a variety of Internet-based search engines using their default interfaces and settings.
General guidelines
- Romanizations if done, should follow standard Revised Romanization of Korean rules. Exceptions will be:
- For drama titles, try to use the official translation of the title, in either the official website or Wikipedia(English and Korean), or if the Hangul is a translation of a foreign word: 해피 투게더 (Hae-pi Too-ge-deo) which means Happy Together, use the original language's spelling (Happy Together in this case). A search can also be done using a top-rated search engine like Google or Yahoo to determine the most popular title. If names are found in the drama title, see below.
- For romanization of Korean artist names, please refer to DramaWiki's Korean Personal Names Romanization Preferences first.
- If the Hangul is a translation of an English name(eg: Dennis Oh), use the original English spelling.
- All artist article titles are written without dashes and each word must be capitalized(Lee Young-ae should be written as Lee Young Ae).
Capitalization of romanized artist and TV show names
It is a general rule on DramaWiki that we apply the principles of capitalization on romanized artist and TV show names, using the same principles English writers use. Capitalization is the process of capitalizing the first letter in a word.
It is therefore a DramaWiki policy that the rules of capitalization apply, in that all words, except for internal articles, prepositions and conjunctions, must be capitalized.
Romanization of Korean
McCune-Reischauer romanization
The McCune-Reischauer romanization system, along with Revised Romanization, are the 2 most widely used Korean romanization methods. It was developed in 1937 by Americans George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. Since then, it has been and continues to be the most widely used method of romanization of Korean outside South Korea despite the introduction of Revised Romanization by the South Korean Government(see below).
Revised Romanization
Introduced in 2000 by the South Korean Government as a replacement for the modified McCune-Reischauer(RR) romanization that was in use since 1984, inplementation of RR, however, are met with resistance and usage of RR for place and personal names are not compulsary.
Hanja
Hanja(한자) is the Korean pronounciation of 漢字, or Chinese characters, which was brought to Korea by the spread of Buddhism. Usage of Hanja in modern times however, has been eclipsed by Hangul, the native Korean script invented by King Sejong somewhere around 1444(See Wikipedia's Hangul and Hanja articles).
Usage of Hanja in DramaWiki's Korean articles is optional but is best included in brackets after the Hangul if used by official sources.