kerpingtack | PARADIGM SHIFT

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PARADIGM SHIFT

My sister just pointed out that maybe Jonghyun should be romanized as Jonghyeon, just like in those old posts from when SHINee first debuted and no one knew the official English spelling!! noooooooooooooo!!! It's because his name has ㅕ in it (종현), like Taeyeon (태연) and Hyoyeon (효연). If it were Jonghyun with the "u", it would be ㅜ/ㅠ ("oo") like in Yunho (윤호)?? So, like... Jonghyoon (종휸)? LOL ;~; Maybe the rule is different when there's a consonant (ㅇ doesn't really count; it's like an empty placeholder sound), because Seohyun (서현) and like, ramyun (라면) are also spelled with "u" ("hyun"/"myun"). Plus sometimes ㅜ/ㅠ will be written as "oo" instead of "u" like in Yoona (윤아) even though I guess it should technically be Yun-ah? (As a sidenote, 'Kim Yuna' should seriously be spelled Yeon-ah (연아).) But Onew (온유) isn't spelled Onyu or Onyoo. omg romanization rules are so confusing. Maybe for names, they just go by aesthetics. That seems to be the most logical answer, lol.

Okay while I have the language bar set to Korean~ girl!Onew's name is not really Eunsook (은숙), it should be Onsook (온숙) because they kept the first part of all their first names, or a close approximation in Key's case. Similarly, Junghee (정희) should be Jonghee (종희). The other three names are correct though. (~quick proof of the Korean spelling~)

Now I'm googling Korean romanization rules. Such wonders and progress I make in my life! ?__?

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as a disclaimer I TOTALLY don't speak korean so this is coming from a I've-taken-a-lot-of-linguistics-and-wrote-one-paper-on-korean-phonetics place, not a I-know-what-I'm-talking-about place

But I always figured the reason the "official" romanizations of their names didn't follow any particular pattern was because the phonetics of Korean and English match up really badly so "proper" romanization patterns are always at least a little bit ridiculous (among other things, who even thought of "eo" for ㅓ?? I SERIOUSLY ORIGINALLY THOUGHT "ryeowook, for example, went ree-oh-wook), so they were just like "FUCK IT" and tried to pick something that would make a person who read English but not Korean be able to pronounce it vaguely correctly? We English speakers are all so used to constonant-spelling ridiculousness that we DO interpret something like "hyun" as basically vaguely 현 but if I/we saw "yun" (as in Taeyeon/Hyoyeon) I think it'd be interpreted as 윤 and not 연. Idk about the oo/u Yoona/Yuna thing though because on the one hand, I remember looking up the hangul of Kim Yuna's name to see if it matched Yoona's (lol I couldn't even read it at the time), but on the other hand I still Yunho in my head as 연호 even though I know that's not it.

And then it's weird that they used oo in Yoona and not Yuri because it's the exact same and I think Yoori might even make people tend more towards the correct pronunciation??? Yuri kind of makes me tend towards something like Yurr-i rather than Yu-ri.

so basically I have no idea what is even going on or what anyone was thinking

That's kind of funny that girl!SHINee's names got muddled in translation though.

LOL oh that's a good point, that for names in particular they go for what would be most pronouncable? That makes a lot of sense. I wonder if it's any better for people who use the... Roman...?? alphabet but whose languages don't adhere to the English pronounciation rules. omg I took like three linguistics classes but obviously I learned nothing from them; I mean people who speak French or Spanish or other languages that use the same alphabet but that maybe have more vowel blends and diphthongs or whatever than English does. But even that doesn't match up. The Yuri/Yoona thing really makes the inconsistency clear because there's no reason for the difference. Maybe they were following a precedent/already accepted spelling for Yuri, because the equivalent Japanese name is spelled that way too? Yeah, I'm also just confused lol. I THINK THEY GO BY WHAT LOOKS PRETTIEST TO THEM!!

(Tangent: it's kind of fun to scroll through the different languages that use 'Yuri' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri) as a first name, both for men and women.)

SHINee's ifandom drives me crazy lol. Oh well, it's not a big deal, even though I don't know how the mistake happened... isn't it more logical to have Onew-->Onsook/Jonghyun-->Jonghee than Eunsook and Junghee? Not that logic is ever really relevant in kpop fandoms...

I don't know about Spanish but the French sound system lines up even worse to Korean sound system than the English one does. Like there's no equivalent to ㅓ at ALL in French (whereas we basically do in English, we just don't have a consistent way to spell it, which is I guess why "eo" exists as a romanization), and there's also no "j" so you'd end up naturally pronouncing Jonghyun something like ʒonghyoon? I do think it's probably mostly English that's considered (vs other languages with roman alphabets), because English-speaking asian countries like Singapore & the Philippines are generally better hallyu targets than Europe/Africa/South America et al. But good point about Yuri being a consistent/already existing romanization. (I think you might be right about the prettiest thing, hee.)

WAY more logical. The first time I saw a girl!SHINee fic I'm pretty sure I had to google it to be sure because the names were just off enough that you couldn't be sure...

omg I'm an airhead, I completely forgot about Hallyu or um general geopolitics in this discussion. I don't know what I was thinking lol. YES English is probably what they consider the most, and the basis of the romanization in the first place. why was I talking about French and Spanish lol.

Anyway, ty for the discussion so far! I... don't have anything of substance to contribute anymore. ;; I've just been sitting here saying all the names and different pronounciations out loud. "jamais... Jonghyun... Jyonhyon... hyooooon... Yuri... Yoori... Yurri..."

NO I AM GLAD YOU BROUGHT IT UP BECAUSE NOW I SITTING HERE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING HOW A FRENCH PERSON WOULD PRONOUNCE THESE NAMES ON SIGHT

and apparently that is fun for me idk :|

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lol the difference between this comment and the first one u__________n

lol ilu

haha, there's just a lot of contradictions inherent in Korean romanisation, like the roads and place names (i.e. Daegu should actually be Taegu) will follow the old system but nearly everywhere else, the new, revised system is used? It's the same in Taiwan, actually, except road signs are even more heterogeneous, because there's mainland China's romanisation, and Taiwanese romanisation, and four tones to denote (similar to the way the apostrophe and breve is used in the revised Korean romanisation). The primary users of romanisation are obviously foreigners, so I think Koreans themselves don't necessarily know how to use it – case in point, SM (among other companies, I'm sure) tend to slip up every now and then and use a romanisation contrary to the norm/what they've officially set down. With stars' names, people tend to use a consistent but hybrid system, although companies sometimes just throw it all out the window and come up with things like "Onew." (I think possibly SM has English-speaking people to decide what is easiest, because ... I mean, I'm not entirely objective, because I'm strongest in East Asian languages, but "Yoona" and "Onew" are written basically exactly as they ought to sound.) I think "u" and "eo" are just the "sticky" vowels that are most likely to be all over the place. Like "Yoonho" has shown up before, I think, although ㅜ is "u" and ㅠ is "yu"? I don't think it's that rare to see "ramyeon," though? idrk because I stick by the revised romanisation but have learned a lot of "exceptions," like I'm flexible with "si" and "shi" and can generally tell if "u" means "eo" or an actual "u." I feel awful for Kim Yuna because foreign officials/everyone pronounce her name as 윤아 :( haha sorry this paragraph is a mess, I'm packing :x

and with regards to the girl names, I believe they just did what they thought sounded better and/or more feminine?

I am enjoying your lj activity immensely by the way! hehe

oh wait I misunderstood you on the girl names part, IGNORE ME. but "gwiboon" should be "guibun" sdljfsd ROMANISATION YOU STINK. ALSO WHAT IS WHEESUNG'S NAME, IT DEFIES IT ALL

"Gwiboon" is like "Onew" in that it follows no pattern but at least it's close to the way it sounds. LOL I can hear a super American accent pronouncing "Guibun" as "Gue-bun."

Every time I see "Wheesung", it reminds me of Wee-Sing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wee_Sing_Video_Series) because we had a bunch of those tapes when I was little. Wee Sing! Wee Sung!

yeah ia, I kind of wonder how SFI/SHINee Subs makes these decisions though lol it leads the entire ifandom awry!!

LMAO I've never heard of Wee-Sing but now I imagine baby Wheesung watching those tapes and making baby hand gestures crying Q u Q

om nom nom your brains are smart *~*

LOL I don't have anything to add! All of this makes perfect sense, particularly the point about native speakers themselves not knowing or really needing to know romanization systems. The official spelling of my Korean name is weird and doesn't follow any system that I know of, probably because my parents didn't know and just put down what looked close enough to them.

ikr, it's like a totally official mispronunciation of her name now. Who decided on that spelling? :<

heee me too! Can't believe I forgot how much I liked writing long comments lol.

lol not really but ty ;w; and oh yeah ia, like my name uses Taiwanese romanisation which tbh ought to be easier for foreigners than the mainland equivalent but :| jw does your name use a hyphen/space (i.e. Jong Hyun or Jong-hyun as opposed to Jonghyun or JongHyun or whatever)? I don't know if there's something standardised about that, it seems like personal preference?

btw SHINee is going to be at MBC's Gayo Daejun, CRYING ; ____ ; also the new Korean album must be coming out in early 2012? idk I have high hopes *^* kind of ignoring the rumour of a new Japanese single bc Key's been hinting at the Korean album so much + they sang a new (I think Korean?) song at Minho's birthday party ;w;

and I forgot to link you to this song as part of my C.N.Blue recs yesterday, it's written by Yonghwa and is so solidly jrock (the song and the PV), I love it *^*

oh, you~ ♥

No, it doesn't have a hyphen, and there is so much variation about that, I think it must be personal preference.

omg I heard rumors about the Gayo but I hardly dared to hope ,__, okay looks like I'll be staying up till 6 AM then!! crying I'm going to be back on twitter by then so I can spam 5000000 tweets in a row and lock myself in twitter jail.

Oh I didn't know they sang a new song at Minho's bday!! omg omg omg *~* NO I refuse the possibility of a new Japanese single, they've been dropping hints about the Korean album or something happening near the end of the year so so so they're going to come back soon. Our collective hopes will make it so ;~;

omg ty for the link! I can't think of a way to make it sound like I'm not just politely saying "this is nice" lol but I really like the song! And Lie! LOL the In My Head PV really is so jrock with all the debris and general garbage flying at them while they play in a void.

I know, I'm so happy omg ;w; here's the full lineup if you want it! so excited for their stage, screams!!

oh maybe it's in Japanese ... "shinee sang a song that was not included in The First. it’s a new song that’s in the making." (cr. keysir) but they wouldn't do that to us would they omg Q u Q KEY WOULDN'T LIE ABOUT COMING BACK TO KOREA THOUGH :(

lol ikr, it's so great ;w; they all look so good! and hehe I'm glad you like Lie, I'm so attached to that song lol ;w;

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PARADIGM SHIFT

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