Revised Romanization of Korean is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Proclamation No. 2000-8. The new system addressed problems in the implementation of the McCune–Reischauer system, such as the phenomena where different consonants and vowels became indistinguishable in the absence of special symbols. To be specific, under the McCune–Reischauer system, the consonants ㄱ (k), ㄷ (t), ㅂ (p) and ㅈ (ch) and ㅋ (k), ㅌ (t), ㅍ (p) and ㅊ (ch) became indistinguishable when the apostrophe was removed. In addition, the vowels ㅓ (ŏ) and ㅗ (o), as well as ㅡ (ŭ) and ㅜ (u), became indistinguishable when the breve was removed. Especially in early internet use, where omission of apostrophes and breves is common, this caused confusion.

Features

These are notable features of the Revised Romanization system: In addition, special provisions are for regular phonological rules in exceptions to transcription (see Korean phonology). Other rules and recommendations include the following:

Transcription rules

Vowels

Consonants

ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ and ㄹ are transcribed as g, d, b and r when placed at the beginning of a word or coming before a vowel, and as k, t, p and l when followed by another consonant or when appearing at the end of a word.

Usage

In South Korea

Almost all road signs, names of railway and subway stations on line maps and signs, etc. have been changed according to Revised Romanization of Korean (RR, also called South Korean or Ministry of Culture (MC) 2000). It is estimated to have cost at least 500 billion won to 600 billion won (US$500–600 million) to carry out this procedure. All Korean textbooks, maps and signs to do with cultural heritage were required to comply with the new system by 28 February 2002. Romanization of surnames and existing companies' names has been left untouched because of the reasons explained below. However, the Korean government recommends using the revised romanization of Korean for the new names.

Exceptions

Like several European languages that have undergone spelling reforms (such as Portuguese, German, Polish or Swedish), the Revised Romanization is not expected to be adopted as the official romanization of Korean family names (example I, Bak, Gim, Choe instead of Lee, Park, Kim, Choi which are used commonly). However, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism recommends those who "newly" register their romanized names to follow the Revised Romanization of Korean. In addition, North Korea continues to use a version of the McCune–Reischauer system of romanization, a different version of which was in official use in South Korea from 1984 to 2000.