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