Re: [OT] CJK -> CJC (Re: Corea?)

From: Kenneth Whistler (kenw@sybase.com)
Date: Mon Dec 15 2003 - 19:25:53 EST

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    Peter Kirk noted:

    > Anyway I was thinking not so much of a voluntary decision by WG2, but
    > that there might perhaps be pressure, even a directive, from the top of
    > ISO to change "Korean" to "Corean", which even you, even WG2, might be
    > unable to resist.

    That would constitute a *technical* change to 10646. ISO Central
    Secretariat does not and cannot simply mandate technical changes
    to standards, no matter what the international politics involved.
    JTC 1 directives are quite clear about how ISO standards are
    developed and approved, and allowed changes to technical standards
    do not include political interference outside the participation
    of the relevant national bodies working in the pertinent
    subcommittee of JTC 1.

    That said, you may not be aware of the fact that the name "KOREAN"
    has *already* been the subject of much discussion in WG2, precisely
    because the DPRK, in its initial participation in WG2, tried to
    get the word "HANGUL" (in all of the thousands of characters in
    the standard which include that term as part of their name) changed
    to "KOREAN". (Note: "KOREAN", not "COREAN", by the way.) That
    proposal by DPRK met a stone wall of refusal by all the other
    national bodies participating in WG2 to change the names of
    any character already standardized. And at this point, the agitation
    for that particular change has been dropped, as it became clear
    it was going nowhere in the working group.

    By the way, for anyone still reading this thread, you might be
    interested in more of the linguistic and cultural background
    behind the movement by some groups of Koreans (Coreans?) to
    get English usage changed to "Corea":

    http://www.medeasin.com/coreaspelling.htm

    That has a discussion of some of the drawbacks as well as some
    of the history and mythology involved, links to examples,
    other articles, and many links to "OTHER SITES THAT SPELL IT
    WITH A 'C'".

    And the whole mythology of "Japan forced the 'K' on us so that
    Korea would come after Japan in alphabetical order" rings true
    with threads in the Korean national character of resistance
    to invasion and cultural obliteration by Chinese, Mongols, Manchus,
    Japanese, Russians, and Americans. So don't expect advocacy
    for "Corean" spelling in English to die down once it gets
    identified as reflecting true, historic Corea free of the
    much-resented "foreign" domination and influence.

    --Ken



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