[Lingtyp] IPA for linguists' names

[NAM Deokhyun]

Dear all,

Thank you for taking up this problem. It has been an issue torturing me for
a dozen years.

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 /ʌ/ 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.

It is generally transcribed with *u* or* eo* when using the Roman alphabet
(Note that the transcription we as linguists most frequently see is *e*,
which follows "Yale Romanization of Korean"). Non-Korean speakers usually
do not pronounce it correctly, ending up saying [e.o] (when the
transcription is *eo*) or [u] (when the transcription is *u*).

In effect, ㅓ is no strange vowel at least to English speakers. ㅓ is assigned
*u* because its phonetic value is compared with that of English /ʌ/, a
sound the letter u often has (like *hut *or* luck*), not that its phonetic
value is [u]. This is the case in *Hyundai* [hjənd ɛ] and *Samsung* [samsəŋ],
for example.

ㅓ is assigned *eo* 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* Seoul* [səul], for example.

The (my) problem is that my first name 덕현 [dəkʰjən] comprises two syllables
and the nucleus vowels are ㅓ in both (ㅕ stands for a combination of the
semivowel [j] and the vowel ㅓ [ə]), and on my passport and articles is
written *Deokhyun*. Yes, *eo* in *Deok* is *eo* in *Seoul* and *u *in *hyun*
is* u* in *Hyundai*, and they have the same phonetic value (I don't like
this inconsistency so much; but it was determined when I was very young,
partly after the famous Hyundai)

*Hyeon *and *Hyun* frequently occur in Korean's names written in Roman
alphabet, and they normally are phonetically the same. Another caution is
that* u* is one of the forms sometimes really standing for /u/ (or /ɯ/ as
well) in Korean (like *Ulsan *[ulsan], a city name).

Not a few Koreans are affected by this situation and handle it in different
ways. To avoid complexity, these years I introduce myself as *Dokyon* (
*Tokuhyon* in Japanese).

Sincerely,
Dokyon (Deokhyun Nam)




2026年9月5日(土) 午後11:58 Yuri Koryakov via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:

> Dear colleagues,
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> To do this, I created the editable list of names and their transcriptions
> here:
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=0#gid=0
>
> The *General Guide* “How to add your name to the list” is available in
> the Info tab (
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=863783271#gid=863783271
>   ).
>
> Additional difficulties that this project allows to solve:
>
> 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)
>
> b) indicating gender pronouns – he / she / they – useful in many languages
> when you need to, for example, refer to the author.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Yours,
> Yuri Koryakov
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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