<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto">Dear all,</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Thank you for taking up this problem. It has been an issue torturing me for a dozen years.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Among the eight simplex vowels in Modern Korean is a tricky one, which is ㅓ and is used in my first name (덕현) twice. This may be described as a middle vowel /<span style="color:rgb(32,33,34);font-family:-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe ui",roboto,inter,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;white-space:nowrap">ʌ</span>/ or /ə/ in Seoul dialect (my native one), with some different phonetic values across dialects. This super-familiar and essential vowel in Korean is tricky particularly in terms of alphabet transcription.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div>It is generally transcribed with <i>u</i> or<i> eo</i> when using the Roman alphabet (Note that the transcription we as linguists most frequently see is <i>e</i>, which follows "Yale Romanization of Korean").<span style="background-color:transparent"> Non-Korean speakers usually do not pronounce it correctly, ending up saying [e.o] (when the transcription is </span><i style="background-color:transparent">eo</i><span style="background-color:transparent">) or [u] (when the transcription is </span><i style="background-color:transparent">u</i><span style="background-color:transparent">).</span></div><div><span style="background-color:transparent"><br></span></div><div>In effect, ㅓ <span style="background-color:transparent">is no strange vowel at least to English speakers. </span><span style="background-color:transparent">ㅓ is </span><span style="background-color:transparent">assigned <i>u</i> because i</span><span style="background-color:transparent">ts phonetic value is compared with that of English /</span><span style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(32,33,34);font-family:-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe ui",roboto,inter,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;white-space:nowrap">ʌ/, a sound the letter u often has (like <i>hut </i>or<i> luck</i>), not that its phonetic value is [u]. This is the case in <i>Hyundai</i> [hj</span>ənd ɛ<span style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(32,33,34);font-family:-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe ui",roboto,inter,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;white-space:nowrap">] and <i>Samsung</i> [sams</span>əŋ<span style="background-color:transparent;color:rgb(32,33,34);font-family:-apple-system,blinkmacsystemfont,"segoe ui",roboto,inter,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:16px;white-space:nowrap">], for example. </span></div><div><span style="background-color:transparent"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color:transparent">ㅓ is </span>assigned<span style="background-color:transparent"> <i>eo</i> when following "Revised Romanization of Korean", one of the many romanization systems invented for Korean (including the Yale one mentioned above). This is the case in<i> Seoul</i> [s</span>əul<span style="background-color:transparent">], for example.</span></div><div dir="auto"><div dir="auto"><br></div><div>The (my) problem is that m<span style="background-color:transparent">y first name 덕현 [d</span>əkʰjən<span style="background-color:transparent">] comprises two syllables and the nucleus vowels are </span><span style="background-color:transparent">ㅓ in both (ㅕ stands for a combination of the semivowel [j] and the vowel</span>
ㅓ <span style="background-color:transparent">[</span>ə<span style="background-color:transparent">]), and on my passport and articles is written <i>Deokhyun</i>. Yes, <i>eo</i> in <i>Deok</i> is <i>eo</i> in <i>Seoul</i> and <i>u </i>in <i>hyun</i> is<i> u</i> in <i>Hyundai</i>, and they have the same phonetic value </span><span style="background-color:transparent">(I don't like this inconsistency so much; but it was determined when I was very young, partly after the famous Hyundai)</span></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><i>Hyeon </i>and <i>Hyun</i> frequently occur in Korean's names written in Roman alphabet, and they normally are phonetically the same. Another caution is that<i> u</i> is one of the forms sometimes really standing for /u/ (or /ɯ/ as well) in Korean (like <i>Ulsan </i>[ulsan], a city name).</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div>Not a few Koreans are affected by this situation and handle it in different ways. T<span style="background-color:transparent">o avoid complexity, these years I introduce myself as </span><i style="background-color:transparent">Dokyon</i><span style="background-color:transparent"> (<i>Tokuhyon</i> in Japanese).</span></div><div><br></div><div>Sincerely,</div><div>Dokyon (Deokhyun Nam)</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto"><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">2026年9月5日(土) 午後11:58 Yuri Koryakov via Lingtyp <<a href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org" rel="noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear colleagues,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Many of us
have encountered a situation where we need to pronounce the name
of a linguist,
but we don’t know how. Or we need to write down someone’s name
in another
script (Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, etc.), and this
again requires
correct pronunciation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">As a
result, you have to look for pronunciation instructions on
personal webpages,
listen to recordings on YouTube, ask friends, and so on, but it
is much more
convenient when such information is collected in one place. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To do this, I
created the editable list of names and their transcriptions
here:
<a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=0#gid=0" rel="noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=0#gid=0</a></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">The <b>General
Guide</b> “How to add your name to the list” is available in
the Info tab ( </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=863783271#gid=863783271" rel="noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer noreferrer" target="_blank">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=863783271#gid=863783271</a> </span><span lang="EN-US"> ).</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Additional
difficulties that this project allows to solve:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">a)
distinguishing the surname from other names (necessary for the
correct
compilation of bibliographies and especially relevant for
languages with a
different order of components in the name or for names
consisting of more than
two words)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">b)
indicating gender pronouns – he / she / they – useful in many
languages when
you need to, for example, refer to the author.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If you are
in doubt whether you should indicate yourself, you can use the
following
criterion as a working one: if you have published at least one
article or had
one presentation at a conference, you can safely provide your
name. Also if
people pronounce your name differently from how you’d like it to
be pronounced,
or if you’ve ever been asked how to pronounce your name, that’s
a hint that you
should provide that information.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If you
can’t/don’t want to add your data to the sheet yourself, you can
send it to me
by email . Also write if you have any
questions/comments/suggestions etc.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Yours,<br>
Yuri Koryakov</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><br>
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