Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)

Abbreviated institution and place names in running text

What would you suggest in terms of naming conventions for cases in which a new (name of an) institution, company or location comes up within a continuous text passage? (But for which exists no own Wikipedia page...) In such cases I would normally - to be most precise - like to add the official Hangeul name in parenthesis. This way, later cross-referencing and general identification of the institution/location in question might hopefully improved. As this pertains to the actual WP content and thus to neither to the article title nor potential template boxes (of which there usually may only be one?), what is the common practice in this regard? Adding Hangeul in parenthesis is (imho) sensible, until one has to also contemplate if and in which order (where) to use the English abbreviation of the romanized / official English name. Furthermore, it doesn't seem that there is a consistent convention for parenthesis content, as non-romanized names sometimes are prefixed by the term "Hangul:" or more broadly by "Korean:" and then again by no term. --Philipp Grunwald (talk) 16:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion for given names

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:An Ji-Man which affects this guideline. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. Sawol (talk) 04:37, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

North Korean names

Please see a discussion about this at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Korea-related_articles#Romanization_of_North_Korean_names.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:06, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Notification of RFC for Korean MOS in regard to romanization

Should we use McCune-Reischauer or Revised for topics relating to pre-1945 Korea? Those inclined, please contribute here. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

"-eup can be omitted." ?

-eup can be omitted.

I disagree this sentence in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)#Towns, neighbourhoods and villages. Because there are many disambiguation towns (eup) like Cheorwon(철원), Gangjin(강진), Yecheon(예천), Geochang(거창), Hadong(하동), Goseong(고성), Yeongdong(영동) etc. So, people can be confused --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) 02:37, 12 August 2016 (UTC)

bridges

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(Korean)#Bridges section is empty. How about to add this? For bridges, the full unhyphenated Korean name including daegyo or gyo should be used, as in Incheondaegyo. If disambiguation is needed, "bridge" can be added -- see Wikipedia:Disambiguation. This convention applies to bridges without an accepted English name. If a different name has been established in common English usage, it should be used, per Wikipedia:Use common names. --ㅂㄱㅇ (talk) (Bieup Giyeok Ieung) 02:30, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Why are we calling Hangul "Chosŏn'gŭl" in North-Korea-related articles?

I understand, of course, that "Chosŏn'gŭl" is the preferred native name of the Hangul script in official North Korean usage, but why are we following that convention in North Korean articles? Surely, our naming practices should follow WP:COMMONNAME and WP:USEENGLISH. Is "Chosŏn'gŭl" ever used in lieu of "Hangul" in a majority of reliable English-speaking sources? As far as I can see, this script is only ever called "Hangul" in international English usage; that's its established English name, and for all I can see it's the only significant one it has. Official native terminology should play no role in our naming choices.

Can anybody point out if and when a consensus for this odd usage was established on Wikipedia? I can't find it discussed anywhere, but it seems to have been around for quite a while, apparently since before 2006 according to the history of {{Infobox Korean name}}. This does not seem to be in line with our current policies. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:49, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Having received no feedback here for three days despite notifications on several relevant articles and noticeboards, I intend to go ahead and remove the "north=Chosŏn'gŭl|old=Hunminjeongeum" parameters from the relevant templates, {{Infobox Korean name}} and {{Korean}}. Will post further notifications on the template talkpages and wait for a bit more first. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:49, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Those terms also find use in {{Infobox Chinese}} via Module:Infobox multi-lingual name in function ibox_mln_ko(). Perhaps notification at that infobox template's talk page is appropriate.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 10:58, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Are you referring to the context=north and that then changes how a few fields in the Infobox are displayed? I'm not very well versed in various Wiki policy so I cannot speak of when/how a consensus was made or the rational at that time. I think the reason why previous editors added that code was, at least at that time and quite possibly still today, the English literature on a number of North Korea related content used some of the North's specific spellings as that Korea is a different Korea and things are spelled differently there. Well, there and Yanbian China as well as those native Korean speakers typically used North style words and spellings. As Kpop and South Korean imports have passed those by the North into that area of China, their spellings are changing. Yes, in English South Korean Romanization is normally Hangul but in a North Korea context the rules are different and I honestly think the pages that display it different help me to better understand that context better. Note: I don't check talk pages often so I'll put a note on my calendar to stop by here again in a few days. ₪RicknAsia₪ 06:19, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I'm not referring to the way the names themselves are presented or transliterated (I understand we use different Latin transliterations for North Korean and South Korean names, which is fine as far as I'm concerned, and there were repeated discussions about that). What I'm speaking of is merely the label naming the writing system, which was presented as "Hangul" for South Korean names, but "Chosongul" for North Korean ones, even though both labels refer to the exact same thing, the common Korean script. I have found this discussion in the archives in the meantime. It was a conversation between three editors back in 2005 and seems to have been the only one where this was ever discussed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Pinging @Sawol, Rickinasia who are probably our best experts on Korean. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:51, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping. I never follow these kind of talk pages unless I stumble across one by mistake. ₪RicknAsia₪ 06:19, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I think it would be best to leave it as it is. While the term "Hangul" is undoubtably used more than "Chosongul", "Chosongul" is what it's called in North Korea. Using Korean terms for North Korean things that are not used in North Korea is not desirable. It would be misleading to tell readers that the North Korean alphabet is called "Hangul". It's not called in North Korea. What next? Calling North Korean places and people by South Korean names? This is just dogmatic and will lead to misinformation and confusion. No, please, no!--Jack Upland (talk) 10:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

But there is no such thing as a "North Korean alphabet". There is only a single alphabet, the Korean one, and its name in English is "Hangul" (or simply "Korean", which is something we could also use just as well). Our naming policy is to use the names our English readers are most familiar with, not the names that happen to be used natively in some other country. There's nothing "misleading" or "confusing" about that: WP:USEENGLISH. I don't see why we should want to make an exception from this general principle just for this country. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I would accept using the "Korean alphabet" as this is more informative for the ordinary viewer. However, the writing of Korean is different in the North rather than the South. And using the term "Hangul" implies that this is what it is called in North Korea, which is false.--Jack Upland (talk) 18:33, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

About simply calling it "Korean" (especially in the inline {{Korean}} template): the more I think about it, the more I think that would actually the most reader-friendly and consistent approach. The question is whether we should then still link the term to the article about the script, or rather to the article about the Korean language, which would be analogous to what we do with other foreign-script templates of that kind. I'm less sure about the {{Infobox Korean name}}. As for the differences in the actual writing practices, I don't see how those are relevant here: they are quite minor, and in no way lead to a point where we'd have to say that the northern "Chosongul" and the southern "Hangul" are actually two different scripts. These are not two different things, but a single thing that happens to have two different native names, independently of the minor differences in the actual letters. And as for the perception that "using the term 'Hangul' implies that this is what it is called in North Korea" – well, no, it simply doesn't. Using the term Hangul in English implies no more and no less than that that is its English name. If you disagree, I'd have to ask you to show actual sources: international English publications that do what you propose doing here, using "Chosongul" when writing about North Korean topics. Naming practices on Wikipedia are supposed to do just that: mirror what our reliable sources do. I haven't been able to find any among the sources we cite in our relevant articles. Even the book source we cite in the infobox of the North Korea article for the fact that "Chosongul" is the country's official script doesn't actually do what you want us to do; it uses "Hangul" to make that statement. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:36, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Jack Upland's conclusion that "hangul" is misleading in North Korean context, but for a slightly different reason. Both Hangul and Chosongul literally translate to "Korean script", but the connotations are strongly with South and North Korea, respectively, because these are the respective names of Korea used in these countries. Thus "Hangul" in North Korean contexts is, while not outright wrong, a bit awkward. It's a bit like calling kanji "Chinese script", which we fortunately don't have to do because "kanji" is so established in English-language sources. For the same reason, I'll write choson-ot instead of hanbok, when the context is NK, even though the latter is the common "English" spelling.

As for using simply "Korean", I note that many equivalent templates for many non-latin script languages do that. That would point to general support toward such a move. But personally, I find the solution in all of these languages awkward. "Moon Jae-in", "Mun Jae-in", "Mun Chae-in" "문재인文", and "在寅" are all Korean; the first three are romanized Korean, the others are Korean rendered in hangul and Korean using hanja, respectively. All are Korean.

Fut.Perf., naming conventions are first and foremost about article titles, and we're not discussing about moving anything here. In terms of article titles, WP:COMMONNAME is the only way to go. Sure, it's good practice to use the common name in other articles as well – when applicable. But this isn't a hard fast rule. Consider this especially in light of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles: we've agreed to waive a uniform common name approach and use North Korean spelling and romanization (MR) for North Korea articles, and South Korean spelling and romanization (RR) for South Korea articles. Here, consistency across natural sets of topics trumps a universal approach.

A note on sources. The standard practice in anglophone academic Korean studies is to use MR for both South and North Korea articles, whereas sources originating in each country tends to stick to their own romanizations. Consequentially, a blind "follow the RS" approach would counterintuitively probably mean just using MR for everything, even though that's not the official script in South Korea any more. My point is, that this is primarily about what makes sense within the context of a set of articles rather than what is the overall common name (so more of a "WP:ENGVAR" thing than simply WP:USEENGLISH). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:56, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Finnusertop, thanks for your thoughtful response and sorry for the late reply. I still disgree. Contrary to what you say, the principle of "use common English names" does apply to article text just as much as it does to article titles. It does so, not because of this or that WP policy, but because that's the only way to produce reader-friendly articles. We follow the naming practices of our sources, because that means following the principle of "least astonishment" for our readers. Speaking of astonishment, I'm a person fairly knowledgable about languages and writing systems, so I did know what "Hangul" means (that being the common English name), but I'm damned if I ever heard or saw the term Chosongul before stumbling across it on some Wikipedia article. It was completely opaque to me and I had to follow the links to figure out what was going on. That's not the way Wikipedia ought to work.

As for the matter of Romanization systems (which, I repeat, is not what I wanted to discuss here, but since you bring it up:) if, as you say, there is a conflict between usage in "anglophone academic Korean studies" and "sources originating in each country" about the spellings of South Korean names, then the decision between those is still a matter of WP:COMMONNAME. It may very well make sense to favor the non-academic local sources over the others, if those are considered to be what English readers are more likely to be familiar with. But that's not an exception to the "follow the sources" rule; it's precisely its correct application.

So, at the end of the day, the challenge still stands: no matter how well-considered the opinion of Wikipedia editors may be that using "Hangul" for the North is somehow "inconsistent" or "inappropriate", without sources to support such a practice that opinion is simply not relevant. If only "Chosongul" was appropriate in that context, then surely we ought to be able to point to reliable sources that use it. I haven't seen a single one so far. Can you point me to any? Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Jack Upland. "Hangul" is South Korea's political name for the Korean alphabet (as noted above, South Korea calls itself "han-guk" in Korean, whereas North Korea is "Joseon"). North Korea does not use hangul, it uses Joseongul/Chosŏngŭl. Alternatively, to avoid the controversy, it could just be "in Korean." Added by Incogreader (talk • contribs) 16:37, 4 June 2019 (UTC) edited 7/6/2019

I also happen to completely agree with @Incogreader:, @Finnusertop:, and @Jack Upland:. We should use "Chosungul" for the North and "Hangul" for the South. If not that, then we should just use the neutral all-encompassing term "Korean" for all articles and link to page on the language and not the script as we usually don't link to Latinate or Cyrillic, for instance. And local considerations absolutely do matter, which is why we use UK English on UK-related articles, for instance (thus why the article on the England national football team is located under that name and not "England national soccer team" for example). And for romanization we use RR on South Korean and MR on North Korean too. Lastly, invoking WP:USEENGLISH is odd here, since neither "Hangul" or "Chosongul" are English words, or if they are, then they are both equally English words. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 07:25, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Challenge still stands: Sources, please. Without reliable sources using such a naming practice, any WP:LOCALCONSENSUS favouring it is irrelevant and invalid in light of our general naming policies. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Re to your last point: No, quite clearly, "Hangul" is the most common name in English, and as such it is an English word (though of course not a native but a borrowed one). It's even in Merriam-Webster's dictionary [1]. "Chosongul" isn't, because nobody outside Wikipedia uses it in English. Challenge still stands: Sources please, or literally nothing of what you've been saying here has any relevance whatsoever. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:12, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

• For what it's worth, the Oxford English Dictionary says that "Hangul" appeared in English in the 1950s (i.e., after the division), and prior to that, the alphabet was known as "Onmun".--Jack Upland (talk) 00:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
• One cannot discuss about (Hangeul=Chosŏn'gŭl) in isolation. There is also 한자 (=Hanja-Hancha). Don't even try to translate the later as "Chinese". And thus the former cannot be translated as "Korean". In fact, the best educated translation of Hangeul/Chosŏn'gŭl would be "our writing, as of now" since Han-geul alludes to HanMinguk (대한밍욱) and Chosŏn'gŭl alludes to ChosŏnMin...guk. As a result, "Hangul" is not how SK or NK are (separately) describing their (common) alphabet. Moreover, this term was coined by the 1911 anti-Japanese activists and therefore doesn't take a SK/NK side. As a result, Hangul can be branded as a politically correct neutral English term. Being also the far most usual wording in English, this term could be used everywhere. But this would undermine the rule: use NK methods when writing about NK, taken as an argument to keep the dual romanization RR/McC. Ah lala, nothing is simple! Pldx1 (talk) 11:12, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Romanization of names

We have rules for typical 3 syllables (1 family + 2 given) names, but nothing regarding not typical names. What with 4 syllables names? Example: 3 syllables given names. Should we write it same as 2 syllables names (hyphenate the syllables, with only the first syllable capitalized)? E.g. Hong Ah-mo-gae. If this is correct, it should be added to rules. Similar question to 2 syllables family names. Usually are written as a joined word, but no written rule regarding that. E.g. Dokgo Young-jae. KarlHeintz (talk) 18:48, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

There are 2 syllables family names such that Dokgo, Dongbang, Hwangbo, Hwangmok, Jegal, Mangjeol, Namgung, Sagong, Seomun, Seonu, and so on. They have already established themselves with no hyphen in English Wikipedia. There are 3 syllables (2 family + 1 given) names like Hwangbo In. Hyphenating the syllables as Hwang-bo In puts in confusion of family name Hwangbo and given name Hwang-bo. Sawol (talk) 07:10, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

Regarding 2 syllables family names I agree that there is established rule in English Wikipedia to write it as joined word without hyphen. My point in this case is that this rule should be added to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) page. Generally in Wikipedia this rule is followed, but I have seen e.g. Namgung written as Nam Goong. But main problem is with 3 syllables given names, because these names are usually are written wrong: first syllable of given name is treated as family name and given name is made from last 2 syllables. In example I gave before: Hong Ah Mo-gae. Example from modern names: 임메아리 in Wikipedia is written as Im Me Ah-ri, according to me should it be Im Me-ah-ri. KarlHeintz (talk) 15:33, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

The name for Sea of Japan

Regardless of articles relating to Japan or Korea or whatever countries, the term "Sea of Japan" should be used following the international custom since this is an English Wikipedia. Instead, the term "East Sea" which is a term in common use in only Korea should be used in Korean Wikipedia alone. Here's a previous instance. "East Asia/Southeast Asia :: Korea, South". Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
Eddal (talk) 13:27, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

"East Sea" is not a term in common use even in Korea. It is called "동해" (Donghae) in Korean. "East Sea" is a mere English translation of Korean name "동해" (Donghae).―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 11:30, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with putting down both Sea of Japan and "East sea" from a neutral perspective. The term "Donghae" or "East sea" is merely adopted in Korea only. Whether related to Korea or not, Sea of Japan only should be used as Sea of Japan is in common use in English and widely accepted in many large intergovernmental organizations. This is English Wikipedia, NOT Korean Wikipedia. Eddal (talk) 21:57, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Dear User:Eddal. I am not sure of how to parse your last message. Are you saying: "this is the Wikipedia in English language, not the Wikipedia in Korean language" or are you saying "this is the Wikipedia of U.S., not the Wikipedia of T.H.E.M." ? Pldx1 (talk) 08:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Dear Pldx1. Of course, I mean the former. Obviously, English is spoken not only in the U.S. but all over the world. (I thought a.n.y.o.n.e can edit Wikipedia, but actually not correct ?) Eddal (talk) 15:31, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Dear User:Eddal. This sea should be called as "Sea of Stupidity" to acknowledge how ineffective were the two governments of Korea when arguing against the name "Sea of Japan". Seen from Vladivostok, this is rather the "South sea". Proposing the "Whale sea" would have been politically correct, and probably successful, but this wasn't done. Have a good day ! Pldx1 (talk) 15:59, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

Sea of Japan guideline

The current instructions on Sea of Japan is not in line with naming policies and should be completely struck. As long as the page name is Sea of Japan, that is the only form that should be used in running text in Wikipedia. The exceptions would be 1) a mention on the Sea of Japan page in the same manner we cover non-English names for any geographic entity and 2) the article on the dispute itself. --Khajidha (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• +1 to what Khajidha says. The rule (about using parenthetical "East Sea" after "Sea of Japan" in Korea-related articles) was created back in 2005 or thereabouts, through a "vote" between a handful of participants, and hasn't kept up with the development of our general naming guidelines and policies. As such, it is at best a "WP:LOCALCONSENSUS" that's no longer valid, as it contradicts the larger, project-wide consensus about how such things should be handled ("Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale"). The actual rule we need to follow is "use common English names", nothing else. The only valid argument for retaining the "East Sea" variant would be if a large portion of reliable English-language literature could be shown to use this variant when dealing with Korean topics, but apparently they don't. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Default policy on given names with three or more syllables: Should there be hyphens or not?

Currently, there are Shin Saimdang (with no hyphens) and Lee Bom-so-ri (with hyphens).

Well, a given name with three or more syllables are not common, but what should be the default policy when there is no personal preference? Should hyphens be inserted between every single syllable (like Bom-so-ri above), or not (like Saimdang above)?

I would like to leave a suggestion: When there is no personal preference, do not insert a hyphen in given names that are three or more syllables long.

(Personally I'm against inserting a hyphen even in two-syllable given names (e.g. Hong Gildong instead of Hong Gil-dong), but inserting a hyphen in two-syllable given names seems to be what English-language media usually do.) 182.172.59.84 (talk) 12:17, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

There is also the #Romanization of names section above. Here is another suggestion with that section in consideration:

For personal names, when there is no personal preference and no established English spelling, join syllables (i.e. do not insert a hyphen or space), with the following exceptions:

• Use a space between the family name and the given name
• Insert a hyphen between syllables in a two-syllable given name, with only the first syllable capitalized (e.g. Hong Gil-dong)

The second exception does not apply to given names with three or more syllables (e.g. Shin Saimdang, not Shin Sa-im-dang) and to polysyllabic family names (e.g. Namgung, not Nam-gung).

Probably other people should be aware of this, but I don't know who to notify. For now I'm notifying Sawol, who seems to be still active. 76.102.5.114 (talk) 00:35, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

76.102.5.114 is right. English Wikipedia puts Korean given names into forms separated by one or more hyphen (e.g. Lee Bom-so-ri, Yeon Gae-so-mun, Kim Jong-un). South Korean government rules given names with a joined word (e.g. Lee Bomsori, Yeon Gaesomun, Kim Jongun). North Korean government's system used a space between every syllable (e.g. Lee Bom So Ri, Yon Kae So Mun, Kim Jong Un). South Korean government's old romanization system used one or more hyphen between syllables before 2000. English Wikipedia seems to be following the old romanization system of South Korea. Sawol (talk) 06:27, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

@Sawol: Actually, that's not what 76.102.5.114 is saying. They are saying (or proposing) that (when there is no personal preference and no established English spelling) hyphens should not be used in given names with three or more syllables, which means full names like 이봄소리 should be romanized as Lee Bomsori, not Lee Bom-so-ri.

I agree with what they said — i.e. no hyphens by default, only except in two-syllable given names. --216.16.109.115 (talk) 06:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

North Korean names

Following this recent discussion on Talk:Kim Jong-un#Survey and discussion, should we remove hyphen from names (e.g. Kim Il Sung, per official sources) and leave it unhyphenated. This can change per consensus via Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)#Given name. Surveyor Mount 00:26, 8 April 2023 (UTC) WP:SOCKSTRIKE --216.16.109.115 (talk) 06:26, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Changing of naming conventions

Given the local consensus achieved at Kim Jong Un (formerly Kim Jong-un, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Il-sung), I'd like to propose a change in naming conventions for North Koreans to prefer the transliteration Kim Jong Un (one segment per syllable, each capitalized) over the transliteration Kim Jong-un. As was demonstrated during the request for move at Kim Jong Un, this spelling is broadly used by reliable secondary sources (being the one supported by the AP Stylebook) for North Korean names and is the one preferred by North Korea.

Given the local consensus achieved at Park Chung Hee (formerly Park Chung-hee), I'd like to propose a second change to the naming conventions to support the un-hyphenated romanization of Korean names for South Koreans who gained prominence prior to the 1980s/90s (the shift in naming conventions in favor of hyphens occurred at this time - this proposal would not restrict articles on South Koreans from continuing to use hyphens). The article Park Chung Hee has already been moved, but there are numerous other articles of historical South Koreans that are currently not found at their WP:COMMONNAME, including:

• Kim Jae-gyu (instead of Kim Jae Kyu [2])
• Chun Doo-hwan (instead of Chun Doo Hwan [3])
• Choi Kyu-hah (instead of Choi Kyu Hah [4])
• Shin Joong-hyun (instead of Shin Joong Hyun)
• Chough Pyung-ok (instead of Chough Pyong Ok [5])
• Lee Ki-poong (instead of Lee Ki Poong [6])

:3 F4U (they/it) 01:05, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree on both proposals. toobigtokale (talk) 18:23, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't think any of those five ngrams links demonstrates WP:COMMONNAME for the unhyphenated version. (As for the first graph for Kim Jae-kyu, it's missing some combinations of hyphenation and spelling: [7].) For historical figures we look to the practice of modern secondary sources, which may or may not follow older spellings. (It's the same for historical place names.) Also, I think "gained prominence prior to the 1980s/90s" would be too nebulous of a standard and needs work. Adumbrativus (talk) 08:18, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Oop good catch for Kim Jae Kyu! I'm not entirely certain on the standard either, which is why I brought it here. The reason why I brought it here is because I don't think the naming conventions should be a blanket support for one variant of spelling.

Generally, in my reading of Korean topics, English-language sources published from Korea support the newer hyphenated spellings, but with mixed usage for people with established names among English-language sources outside of Korea. In particular, academic sources, literature, and the American government tend to use the older, more-established spellings, while news organizations, particularly those from Korea, tend to prefer the newer spellings.

I think the better way to phrase what I'm proposing is: These people are prominent as historical figures, and unless there is an abundance of contemporary coverage on the figures, I think its better to recommend that the historical spellings be preferred. For historical figures where English-language coverage is difficult to find, it is much more likely that these people will be covered in the older transliteration (no hyphen and MR), meaning having a policy that blanket supports having these articles at their RR names actively hurts our readers' ability to find these articles.

Of course, WP:COMMONNAME trumps all, and that should obviously be stated in the policy, but I think its unhelpful for the policy to support blanket hyphenization, when that's oftentimes not the WP:COMMONNAME for historical South Koreans. :3 F4U (they/it) 14:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Family name

I'd like to propose changing the "family name" section from

Unless the subject is known to prefer otherwise such as Kim, Lee, or Park, family names are romanized per Revised Romanization (RR) for South Koreans and pre-1945 Koreans, or McCune–Reischauer (MR) for North Koreans.

to the following:

Unless the subject is known to prefer otherwise such as Gim, Yi, or Bak, family names are romanized per the transliteration found at Category:Korean-language surnames.

The romanizations of Kim, Lee, Park, Choi, Kang, Han, etc. are overwhelmingly more common than either a strict reliance on MR or RR. The transliteration Park, for example, is neither MR or RR, but is more common, by an astounding margin, than Bak or Pak. :3 F4U (they/it) 01:24, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree on this too. toobigtokale (talk) 18:24, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the general idea of using clearly established spellings even if they are non-systematic. I think the guideline should state the basic idea, a couple illustrative and non-exhaustive examples, and not much else. I'd propose something like this in substance: For many family names, such as Kim, Lee, and Park, there is a single clear common spelling, which is not necessarily the Revised Romanization or McCune–Reischauer romanization. In such cases, family names are romanized according to the common spelling, if the subject has no known personal preference.

I recommend against specifically citing Category:Korean-language surnames. First, without more, that just begs the question of how those pages' titles should be decided. Second, individual members of the category are not necessarily well vetted, and category members will change over time as articles may be added, removed, merged, or moved. It's best for the guideline not to endorse, or appear to endorse, everything in the category. Lastly, the category contains names which are not exclusively Korean, and also some variant spellings, and so those don't necessarily reflect the common name in the context of Korean romanization. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:25, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Addendum: In my wording above, I'm leaving the door open for the possibility that a surname might have no clear common spelling at all. That would unlike any of the cases we've explicitly discussed, which have all been clear. It's probably not too frequent. I'd let this subsection of the guideline be silent on that, and leave it up to more general principles. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:29, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Mhm, I get what you mean. I think endorsing "Kim", "Lee", "Park", "Jung", "Choi", "Cho", "Kang", and "Yoon" as the commonly accepted spellings of Korean surnames would be good. At the very minimum, the naming conventions shouldn't be endorsing blanket RR surnames which are very much not the common spellings. :3 F4U (they/it) 14:03, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I'd also note something @Toobigtokale mentioned, which I agree with, which is that this also contradicts the recommendations in the MOS for Korean articles, which recommends MR romanization for topics pre-1945 (something I believe is much better reflected in common usage). :3 F4U (they/it) 14:23, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

I do agree the current section is very problematic and promotes rare RR variants of family names, over well-established transliterations, as per @Freedom4U. However, instead of using Category:Korean-language surnames as basis, I propose using the 성씨 로마자 표기 방안: 마련을 위한 토론회 [Plan for romanisation of surnames: a preparatory discussion] created by the National Institute of the Korean Language (also the creators of RR). Using the data provided in pages 57-62, we find that Kim (99.3%), Lee (98.5%), Park (95.9%), Kang (96.9%), Cho (73.1%), Moon (73.5%), Ko (67.5%), Woo (97.0%), etc are the more common transliterations compared to their RR and/or MR counterparts. For pre-1945 Koreans, I do think that either Revised Romanization or McCune–Reischauer romanization should be used. When reading from an academic paper or book, the historical figures are often known by their MR names, such as Yi Chagyŏm rather than Lee Ja-gyeom, or Yu Tŭkkong rather than Yoo Deuk-gong. Another thing that should be addressed is the attempt by some to translate the family name 김 as "Gim", supposedly based on the principles of Revised Romanization. However, most published works that do use Revised Romanization overwhelming translate 김 as "Kim" when used as a surname. For example, in A History of Korea (Third Edition) by Kyung Moon Hwang, it uses Kim Yu-sin and Kim Hong-do, rather than Gim Yu-sin and Gim Hong-do that Wikipedia currently uses. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 23:07, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Question

Romanized Chinese titles get to keep ü (e.g. Lüchun County) and romanized Japanese titles get to keep macrons (e.g. Kōchi Prefecture). But why do McCune–Reischauer-romanized Korean titles have to drop breves and apostrophes (e.g. Munchon, not Munch'ŏn)? 125.4.19.70 (talk) 07:17, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm also bugged by this and a bit jealous of Japanese titles that have markings. Now that I give WP:TSC a closer read, maybe we should preserve markings for MR titles and turn the non-marked versions into redirects. The titles with diacritics are the proper titles; the names without diacritics don't make sense to anybody. toobigtokale (talk) 09:45, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

McCune–Reischauer in titles

Proposing that we allow McCune–Reischauer special characters (ŏ, ŭ, ') in titles for place names. Applying them in the title but not in the body is confusing, and doesn't even abide by WP:TSC: Sometimes the most appropriate title contains diacritics... This can make it difficult to navigate to the article directly. In such cases, provide redirects from versions of the title that use only standard keyboard characters. The most appropriate title would be the North Korean standard, which is what is being followed in the body anyway.

I propose deleting (except that ŏ, ŭ, and the apostrophe (') are not used in article titles, although they may be used in article bodies).

Note that to my understanding, the use of diacritics for non-place article titles isn't explicitly prohibited or encouraged. I think we ideally should write a section for article titles to make our practices clearer, but this is my scope for now. toobigtokale (talk) 08:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

It looks like this is actually from a technical restriction that existed in the very early years of Wikipedia. Now that such a restriction is gone, there does not seem to be a reason to prohibit breves and apostrophes in article titles.

From Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)/Archive 4#Diacritics in MR (note that this was in 2006):

Actually I would like to revisit that provision, which (IMO) has long outlived its usefulness. The "no diacritics or apostrophes" provision was originally put in place for technical reasons (as I recall, it was once impossible to have a well-formed article title containing an apostrophe). However, those days are long behind us, and the existing guideline only encourages (nay, enforces!) sloppiness. I would suggest that the diacritics/apostrophe exception, quoted above, be stricken from the naming conventions.

But there are some issues with using breves and apostrophes.

• Characters with a breve (ŏ ŭ Ŏ Ŭ): People often mis-input them as the ones with a caron (ǒ ǔ Ǒ Ǔ).
• Apostrophe: In various MR-romanized text, I have not only seen ' (U+0027, ASCII apostrophe) but also encountered ‘ (U+2018) and ’ (U+2019), and rarely ʻ (U+02BB) and ʼ (U+02BC), and more rarely even ʾ (U+02BE). I guess there are some MR converters outputting these non-ASCII characters, and someone using such a converter may inadvertently use them in article titles.
  • The original MR uses the ’ shape. Article titles in Wikipedia should simply use the ASCII apostrophe.

These issues can cause problems with finding existing articles or checking if an article already exists.

So maybe it is better not to use breves and apostrophes in article titles. I am not against your proposal though (I am neutral on this issue). 172.56.232.122 (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Good point, although I'll add a bit of nuance. If you use the search bar, Wikipedia does automatic redirects for those swapped characters. However, linking won't work. For example, you can get to Kwŏnŏp Sinmun (with breves) by searching "Kwǒnǒp Sinmun" (with carons), but linking with carons yields a redlink.

To try and address this, like MOS:JAPAN#Article titles we can just tell them to create redirects for the alternative titles. But casual editors probably will never see that instruction.

Still, this swapped character issue exists in many other languages as well (including Japanese), yet they still manage to deal with it. I think we can too. toobigtokale (talk) 23:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Furthermore, note that we already somewhat have this issue with MR and RR. I've yet to see any duplicate articles for MR and RR spellings or MR special character typos. I've only ever seen one for an English spelling variation: Movie theatres in South Korea and Movie theaters in South Korea (I merged them). toobigtokale (talk) 23:37, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

If you need more input, how about a WP:RFC? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:03, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

But by the way, are breves and apostrophes really needed in article titles? Article titles are supposed to follow whatever is common in English, and if English text usually omits those symbols, then allowing them probably does not give much benefit.

Again, I am not against your proposal. I am just curious about it (also I would like to know the exact policy about article titles). 172.56.232.169 (talk) 23:21, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

No worries, this is a good discussion, thanks. For convenience, I'll resummarize my reasoning while addressing your point.

• We should overall abide by WP:TSC (particularly the part that I quote above)
• We should also abide by WP:COMMONNAME
  • You rightfully point out that in some cases, the common name will not have breves or apostrophes. However, there will be cases that they will have it, particularly in niche historical topics that are mainly covered by academia. Academic papers in most English-language journals about Korea use McCune-Reischauer, and hence breves.
  • Furthermore, if we follow common name we should be consistent about the name we use throughout the body, and not only use a certain name in the title and another in the body. This contradiction is what particularly bothers me; if we were consistent in prohibiting breves across the board (which I think would be unacceptable anyway) I think it'd be less of an issue.
• If other language style guides on Wikipedia allow special characters and do OK, I don't get why we would be an exception.

toobigtokale (talk) 23:31, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a strong consensus to amend this naming convention to allow for the use of special characters in article titles using McCune–Reischauer romanization, but only if they are a part of the WP:COMMONNAME of the article topic. The WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS argument, made on principle, was successfully refuted by the reasoned contentions that there is sometimes ambiguity without the use of special characters and that this is likely to eliminate, rather than create, confusion and that those matters outweigh any concerns about keyboard capabilities. Further suggestions made during the discussion (such as the one regarding the article titles of pre-1945 Korean biographies) were outside the scope of this RfC and should be discussed further. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:41, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

---

See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)#McCune–Reischauer in titles. Currently, the Korean naming convention is to not use special characters for titles that use McCune–Reischauer romanization and to only use the special characters in the body. I am proposing that we allow the special characters. toobigtokale (talk) 22:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. WP:TITLESPECIALCHARACTERS (part of WP:AT policy) opposes this, and you give no argument to overturn it. Without a justification powerful enough to overturn policy, I must oppose. Mathglot (talk) 08:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the reply, you rightfully point out that I should have been clearer on why I think this is needed.

  Characters not on a standard keyboard (use redirects): Sometimes the most appropriate title contains diacritics (accent marks), dashes, or other letters and characters not found on most English-language keyboards.

  From this paper (p. 64):

  However, quite often the breve and apostrophe are omitted when writing. The breve is not a standard key on a keyboard and many non-native Korean speakers do not feel the need to add apostrophes (National Academy of the Korean Language, 2001). Research by Jeong (1998) and Kim (2006) also conclude that many users don’t use diacritics. Omitting diacritics can cause an extreme amount of confusion. Take for example Shinch’ ŏn (신천) and Shinch’on (신촌). Not only are both of these places in Seoul, but at one time they were both on subway line 2 (the circle line). They are on opposite ends from each other. If you leave out the breves and apostrophes, they are both spelt Shinchon. If you looked up information for a restaurant and the information told you to go to Shinchon Station exit 4, you could have ended up going to the wrong subway station on the wrong side of Seoul. This caused a lot of confusion and inevitably Shinch’ ŏn (신천) station was renamed Jamsilsaenae.

  The paper lists more examples afterwards. In short, currently, the guideline suggests that we should misspell Korean words (then, oddly, spell it correctly in the body). toobigtokale (talk) 09:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

• Support.(Summoned by bot) This is a close call: I think there's a lot of reasonable accessibility concerns (and arguments from pragmatics) that keep our article title policy conservative by nature when it comes to special characters. But diacritics such as these are very much an edge case, and I can see the value of clarity and conformity with the more typographical deep orthography of this particular use of romanized characters. I agree in principle with Mathglot's first impression analysis above, but I think Toobigtokale has since provided a rational response to that inquiry. To be honest, there is very little downside here as I see it: the average reader unfamiliar with the function of the diacritics is going to interpret the phonetics for most words as similar regardless of whether said diacritics are present or absent, while those more familiar with how they condition the pronunciation are going to get extra nuance. So this is largely a win-neutral, with little potential that the inclusion of these particular features will create confusion or ambiguity for most readers. This compares favorably to the (very reasonable) concerns about confusion and/or ambiguity that arise out of allowing so many other types of special characters. If anything this is a scenario when the inclusion of such characters is in the aggregate more useful to the average reader. So I think the proposed change is well-considered, when we take into account all context. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 07:21, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot Pinging in case any other thoughts. If no opposition, I'm considering leaving this discussion open until 2/30, then going ahead and making the change. toobigtokale (talk) 20:55, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

I'll review again in light of your response, however I suggest you do not make the decision yourself on the outcome of this Rfc on 2/29 (or any other date) but rather request closure from an independent reviewer at WP:Closure requests. Your last statement suggests that you are ready to cut discussion short two weeks early, and while there are only two !votes present. There is no hurry; please let it run its course. In the meanwhile, have you notified appropriate venues to attract more opinions here? If not, please do: see WP:APPNOTE. Mathglot (talk) 21:37, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Oh ok; I just didn't really understand protocol, this is the first time I've done something like this. Thanks for pointing out these pages. I think I've reached out to the appropriate places for a change of this calibur (fairly minor and unlikely to impact many pages; common name actually often doesn't use diacritics, so most major places will be unaffected), but am open to suggestions for where else I should reach out. I'll reach out to closure requests at a later date. toobigtokale (talk) 21:54, 24 February 2024 (UTC)

Toobigtokale, just for some further elucidation that might help you out with future RfCs, it's important to know that this is an atypical context, insofar as we are discussing a change to policy.

For example, if this were a debate about whether to adopt a different standard for the diacritics in just one article, and taking place on that article's talk page, there wouldn't even necessarily need to be a formal close. Formal closes (ideally by neutral third parties) to well-attended RfCs have become more and more the norm over the years, but if you opened an RfC on an individual article talk page and only two people replied, and one deferred commentary on the core issue and the other more or less agreed with you (as has taken place above in this discussion), you would probably be safe to just skip the closure and implement the change on the assumption that there was a tiny (but undisputed) consensus. Afterall, the issue could always be revisited if someone later disagreed, and there is the principle of WP:NOTBURO / economy of volunteer time with small matters.

However, here we are talking about a change to a policy page, which in turn could impact a large number of articles. In these circumstances, the community expects and requires a much more thorough vetting, hopes for a larger consensus than just a handful of people, and utilizes a much more formalized process. So as Mathglot notes, it is not advisable to try to close the discussion yourself. But it would also be an issue to implement changes without a formal close. As such, my recommendation is as follows: wait for the typical 30 day initial listing period to expire, and if no additional parties have responded by then, relist with the Feedback Request Service, post notices to additional WikiProjects or other spaces which may be active with editors who would take an interest, and wait another 15-30 days. If after that time no one has further responded, go to WP:AN and request a close. I appreciate that this is a bit of work, relative to the interest shown in this change so far, but for a change to a WP:PAG, it really is advisable. Good luck: per my previous comment, I do think the change is advisable. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 22:42, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

This is really helpful, thank you! Read and understood, will keep in mind for future. toobigtokale (talk) 22:58, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

You bet! Thanks for taking the time and interest needed to do it pro forma. :) SnowRise ^{let's rap} 23:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

• The current wording (in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean)#Place names) applies this restriction only to North Korean place names. I also note that that section does not allow for WP:COMMONNAME, but it should. The North Korean capital is correctly titled Pyongyang rather than P'yŏngyang, but because the former is the common name in English-language sources, not because the apostrophe and breve should be dropped. Ditto Kaesong. Lots of other places in NK are seldom mentioned in English-language sources, of course. So I don't think the apostrophe and breve should be forbidden, but they should not be added to names that are common in English-language sources. Kanguole 17:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  Agree with your assessment. toobigtokale (talk) 18:06, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

  I think you've hit the nail on the head/identified the appropriate (and commonly accepted) balance. In fact, where the guideline reads "Generally, place names are romanized according to the official romanization system of the country the place is a part of.", that is largely inaccurate--or at least an incomplete picture. In fact, in both article titles and and content, place names tends to be controlled by COMMONNAME and weight factors beyond any other single factor, almost irrespective of language. Mind you, for the majority of topics (particularly the more historically relevant rather than more contemporaneously relevant subjects) there is going to be strong overlap between the modern official romanization schema and the commonname, but where they part I agree with you that the commonname should predominate as a matter of encyclopedic practicality, and that this is the approach that is already exercised broadly on the encyclopedia. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 04:18, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support to allow the usage of special characters in article titles using McCune–Reischauer romanization, provided that it respects WP:COMMONNAME. While I do agree with the assessment made by other editors that North Korean place names with M-R romanization such as Pyongyang, Kimchaek, or Kaesong shouldn't have special characters in the article title per WP:COMMONNAME, there are topics in where McCune–Reischauer romanization with special characters is the common name, such as the names of historical Korean figures pre-dating 1945. Most journal articles or books use the form with the special characters, such as Wang Kŏn, Kyŏn Hwŏn, or Ch'oe Ch'ung-hŏn. Kanguole makes a good point in that it does appear that the restriction on special characters only seems to apply to North Korean places, and thus not to pre-1945 Koreans. I would go further and support a revision to WP:NCKO that pre-1945 Koreans use McCune–Reischauer including the special characters, in contrast to modern North Korean names which do not use the special characters. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 23:15, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support allowing special characters when they are used in the topic's WP:COMMONNAME. I largely echo the thinking of CountHacker and SnowRise on this point. For navigation, redirects from the sans-special-character variants of the titles should be sufficient to ensure an easy path to the destination. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:10, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

General comment

WP:NCKO and MOS:KO need style revisions imo. NCKO is confusingly organized (e.g. for NCKO, Romanization of names covers people/organization names, but not place names for some reason, which is covered by a separate section Place names. Are place names not names?).

It's hard to parse where to use McCune-Reischauer and where to use Revised Romanization. Perhaps someone should create a table of various scenarios, what system to use, and examples of correct usage.

If someone can step up to do this that'd be appreciated. While I (toobigtokale) still edit Wikipedia here and there, it's usually simple gnome stuff for a few minutes. 187.190.191.57 (talk) 00:28, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Handling oreum

Jeju oreum aren't currently handled in NCKO. Propose modifying WP:NCKO#Mountains to read Articles about specific mountains should be titled with the mountain's full unhyphenated Korean name including san, bong, or oreum should be used, as in Seoraksan or Geomunoreum.

Reasoning: I'm not sure there is a WP:COMMONNAME convention for how oreum are named; I'm seeing conflicted usage online. UNESCO has "geomunoreum" [8]. However, the visitkorea website has two different spellings: [9][10].

I think just proposing one standard that matches how mountain articles are named is easier than hashing out each naming discussion for oreum in future. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 04:44, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

On July 4 (week after orig post), if no opposition I'll WP:BOLDly make the change. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 08:45, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Weak Support Concerning WP:COMMONNAME, when doing a brief scan I found more links of oreum being combined into one word; for instance, when looking up geomunoreum on ngrams, it only gave back results for the combined word. If it were up to me though, I’d honestly say that oreum should be split up to prevent confusion about syllables, but in the face of COMMONNAME (even in a small sample pool) my preference is neither here nor there. Edit: Struck my support in light of evidence below Dantus21 (talk) 03:35, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Dantus21 Actually now I flip my vote to splitting the name.

Common name survey of some famous oreum (just plain google in quotes; some are not really mentioned in the news etc):

• Geomunoreum 42,300 vs Geomun Oreum 8,980
• Yongnunioreum 2,940 vs Yongnuni Oreum 29,300
• Geumoreum 5,070 vs Geum Oreum 3,390
• Saebyeoloreum 2,460 vs Saebyeol Oreum 14,400
• Darangswioreum 371 vs Darangswi Oreum 2,110
• Ttarabioreum 173 vs Ttarabi Oreum 2,190
• Baekyakioreum 140 vs Baekyaki Oreum 7,240
• Mulyeongarioreum 70 vs Mulyeongari Oreum 2,950
• Gamaoreum 58 vs Gama Oreum 592

Also, to your point, unlike the leading letters in "san" or "bong", the "o" in "oreum" really lends itself to being ambiguous with the previous syllable. Lots of examples of this in oreum#List of oreum... Around every 5th oreum in this it seems.

There's also the fact that names often become really long when combined, making them hard to parse quickly.

While I was aiming for more consistency with the rest of the Geography section, we're already inconsistent in it. I think possibly rightfully so, given common name practices, WP:USEENGLISH, etc. Lmk thoughts 211.43.120.242 (talk) 02:02, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I have no issues with splitting Dantus21 (talk) 11:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and boldly make the change; if anyone disagrees please poke me and I'm happy to revert and discuss. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:46, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Clarify hyphenization MR spelling

Feel like a minor bit should be clarified under "Given name". It's not specified how we should treat voicing for the second particle after a hyphen in names. For example, I ran into this issue with "정상진". I used "Chŏng Sang-chin", but should it have been "Chŏng Sang-jin"?

Some additional reasonings (provided to me by the 172 IP user above), although note that these are not people names:

• In the 1939 proposal for MR, "연산군" is romanized/hyphenated as "Yŏnsan-gun" and not "Yŏnsan-kun".
• Similar is done in the 1961 version: "덕수궁" -> "Tŏksu-gung", not "Tŏksu-kung".
• Note that the 1939 proposal does not use hyphens in peoples' names at all, so we need to indirectly reason.

Also my reasoning: just because a hyphen is written, does not mean that consonants would be voiced differently in speech. We should reflect how people would speak the name.

Please let me know if thoughts or if I'm getting anything wrong. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 12:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: Personally I don't care much about this. I usually don't care about article titles or any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English.

I merely told them what I noticed. 172.56.232.178 (talk) 02:51, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I've seen both variations. For example, for 김알지, the progenitor of the Kims of Silla, most texts M-R romanizations romanize it as Kim Al-chi, but there were some that romanized it as Kim Al-ji. On the other hand, most texts romanize the powerful Goryeo government minister 이자겸 as Yi Cha-gyŏm, however, a few texts also romanize it as Yi Cha-kyŏm instead. The reason for the discrepancies may be due to the difference between the official M-R and the South Korean version of M-R. I've personally just used the variants that were more common in English language sources, so Kim Al-chi over Kim Al-ji and Yi Cha-gyŏm over Yi Cha-kyŏm. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 08:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Good points. I'll note we already display an implicit preference for non-NK/SK MR, per MOS:KO#Romanization: Use McCune–Reischauer (not the DPRK's official variant) for topics about North Korea and pre-1945 Korean names.

I'd argue based on these factors that unless there's a clear WP:COMMONNAME, we should by default use the default MR, and per my OP's bullet points I'd argue the default MR would prefer 이자겸 as "Yi Cha-gyŏm". 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:44, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

By the way, a more serious problem than this would be reflecting consonant assimilation before and after a hyphen.

• Example: 왕식렴 Wang Sing-nyŏm

The original MR explicitly states that this should not be done.

A simple example, the word Silla, will help to clarify the point. In Chinese, hsin 新 plus lo 羅 are pronounced Hsin-lo but in Korea, sin 新 plus na (la) 羅 are pronounced Silla. To hyphenate this name as Sil-la would imply that it is composed of two parts which individually are sil and la, which is obviously misleading.

(page 49)

As a side note, the surname 이 is actually I (not Yi) in MR.

Another very important example is 李, the surname of the kings of the last Korean dynasty and still a very common Korean surname. Actually it is pronounced in the standard dialect and should be Romanized I, but some may prefer to retain the older Romanization, Yi, because that is already the familiar form.

(page 53)

These are also found in the McCune–Reischauer article.

While I usually don't care about article titles (or any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English), I decided to post this because some people may find this helpful. 172.56.232.137 (talk) 19:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Now that I think about it, what's the reason for our defaulting to hyphens in names for both MR/RR anyway? To my understanding, neither system has them used by default in given names (MR even less so than RR), so why do we set it as so?

I just searched through the talk page archives of NCKO and couldn't find any compelling arguments for their use beyond "I think Koreans use them" or "they're helpful". In academic papers, hyphens aren't used for MR, and our using them leads to all kinds of hairiness, as seen in this thread.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Significant issue; if we overturn this practice it will impact a huge portion of pages about Korean people on Wikipedia. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 01:46, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Documenting two more thoughts.

1. Leaning towards proposing this for pre-1945 historical figures: set default spelling to be MR without hyphens.
   • Reasoning: this is the practice in English academic lit on Korea. These pre-1945 figures are often confined to history books/papers, and thus it is likely safe to assume WP:COMMONNAME practice will be the academic one. Also, default naming formats make finding pages easier and also reduce the amount of debates that need to happen. Debates add admin overhead to our already stretched community.
2. For post-1945 figures, I'm not sure what to do. There's a further split here: 1. What do we do with North Korean names (NK version of MR? Just MR? Hyphenate? Spaces like Kim Jong Un?) and 2. South Korean names (significant variance in naming practices).

211.43.120.242 (talk) 06:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

After some thoughts, I started to think that "add a hyphen to a given name by default" is not really necessary.

1. When there is an established English spelling, that is used as the article title (and also any case where a spelling is supposed to follow a common form in English). That spelling can be anything – that is, it does not even have to use a hyphen. For example, Yuna Kim (joined) and Yoon Suk Yeol (spaced).
2. When there is no established English spelling, there is not really a reason to default to a form with a hyphen. You will have to use the spelling in accordance with RR or MR, but that spelling (whether with or without a hyphen) may rarely (or even never) be attested in any English-language text.
3. For modern people, if Koreans are inconsistent (like what the first sentence of WP:NCKO#Given name currently says), then why should the guideline state what to use by default?

172.56.232.178 (talk) 07:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Three thoughts and a proposal:

1. I think for family names in both MR and RR, we should recommend they be spelled according to WP:COMMONNAME. This will go against MR/RR, and thus not be strict applications.
   • For MR, I think 이 is the only notable exception that will come from this. The WP:COMMONNAME spelling in academic literature is "Yi" I'm pretty sure. Other common family names tend to follow MR, e.g. 박 ->"Pak" and 김 -> "Kim".
   • RR, I think we should set default family name spellings to those most commonly used by South Koreans, e.g. Park, Lee, and Kim. Some stats in table here. I think people will be bothered if we use "Bak", "I", and "Gim", when each of those spellings are used in <2% of cases.
2. I disagree with not having default spelling systems for post-1945 people. I think we should give a clearly weak recommended romanization for post-1945 people. E.g. "There's lots of variations for names, here's a suggestion for what you can use". Reasons:
   • As said before, ease of finding and fewer debates.
   • There are many notable people whose names have basically never been written in English-language reliable sources, and it's too hard to find how they would have spelled it. What do you do with those names? Wikipedia editors will inevitably make some kind of choice in these scenarios; we should give them at least an option that's relatively consistent.
   • What if an editor creates 250 articles with clearly bad or outlandish spellings that virtually nobody else will be able to find/interpret? (e.g. 철수 -> "Joolsoo"). This is a realistic scenario; I can envision this happening. If there's no standard, nobody will have any consistent basis to dispute the spellings.
   • Relying on MR/RR also has the benefit of relative reversibility. I'd strongly prefer we have relative reversibility rather than not. Impromptu romanizations like "Younghill Kang" are hard to reverse to Hangul (강영흘).
3. One thing I think we could/should investigate. Is hyphenating or not hyphenating more common for South Koreans? I think the National Institute of Korean Language possibly has statistics on this; they've surveyed passports before. We should also check what various style guides in newspapers etc recommend.
   • This could influence whether or not we recommend hyphenation by default.

To summarize, this is my tentative proposal. Unless WP:COMMONNAME or preferred spelling is known,

• For pre-1945 people, default to MR (with diacritics), except for spelling 이 as "Yi". No hyphen in names.
• For post-1945 people, spell surnames according to WP:COMMONNAME practices. For given names, weak recommendation for strict MR for NK (with diacritics) and strict RR for SK. No hyphens in names.

211.43.120.242 (talk) 08:21, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Note: #3 I wrote above is only about between syllables of a given name. I did not mean that Wikipedia editors should use any random spelling when there is no established English spelling (I thought this was clear since I wrote "You will have to use the spelling in accordance with RR or MR" in #2).

I agree with your tentative proposal. 172.56.232.253 (talk) 09:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh I misinterpreted. I thought you were saying that 1 and 2 were about pre-1945 and 3 was about post-1945. 211.36.142.187 (talk) 10:34, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

My response to your 3 points now that my head is clearer:

For 2, I'd argue it's possible that hyphenation is common practice, but I need to research this. We already let common name practices affect the surname independently of the given name, the given name may be affected independently too by some practice.

For 3, I'd argue our goal is to specifically avoid dictating what Koreans should do. Per common name, we should aim to represent current common practice. If there's like a 70% common practice then we should follow that until if/when it changes. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 13:20, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Since the issue is brought up, I decided to bring up another related issue.

This is currently found in articles about people who go by their mononyms:

Hong Gil-dong, known mononymously as Gildong, ...

Using different hyphenations for the exact same name is inconsistent and confusing. If the mononym does not contain a hyphen, then the same should apply when writing the full name. This is consistent and not confusing:

Hong Gildong, known mononymously as Gildong, ...

I think this should be done. 172.56.232.253 (talk) 09:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Is this a frequent issue? I haven't seen it around much. May be able to just handle locally if not, without setting a guideline. It'll also possibly go away naturally if we recommend no hyphens by default.

I'll note though, I'm still not certain about no hyphenation for RR. I'm going to do some research on common name practices for hyphenation. 211.43.120.242 (talk) 11:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Found in Chaeyoung, Changmo, Dahyun, Dawon (singer), Hyojung, Jeongyeon, Seungkwan, Soojin (singer), Soya (singer), Yebin (singer), etc. 172.56.232.246 (talk) 03:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Article naming conventions vs romanization in body

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

One thing that's difficult to understand in the MOS is what to use in the body: names per the naming convention or romanization guidelines.

For example, do we use Gyeonggi Province (as recommended in NCKO) or Gyeonggi-do (RR)? Currently we provide no guidance for that. It's implied elsewhere in the transliteration section that common name has weight for how we spell things in the body, but it's not explicit.

I like how MOS:JACOM handles it. It clearly applies for both body and article title. I think it should be possible for us to do similar. I may take a go at it.

@Nonabelian let me know if any thoughts. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 04:04, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I think this is the biggest issue we need to think through how to fix. I also like how others have tried to address for instance MOS:IRELAND and WP:HEBREW have guidance for Article names and In-line use explicitly. I think we might need a "Article Name" section, if only to say follow the convention as laid out in names for people for biographies, places for geography etc.

Agree the transliteration guidance should be the fallback option to the explicit guidance for names, places. --Nonabelian (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Still actively brainstorming. Given the things I want to receive consensus on (namely the romanization section), I think how we rule on that may need to come before this reorg. seefooddiet (talk) 14:42, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Edit: I suspect we don't need a separate article title section; suspect our guidance will be the same for both title and body. This matches the common practice in academic writing on Korea; just use common names for spelling. seefooddiet (talk) 07:33, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I take this comment back; I may advocate for splitting off WP:NCKO again from MOS:KO 😥 I couldn't figure out a good way to merge these two seamlessly seefooddiet (talk) 05:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

MR hyphenation

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hey all, this is 104.232.119.107; I decided to just make an account again.

This post is primarily meant for @Nonabelian. This post is about MR romanization practices. Unfortunately this is the first of a series of major questions that I'd like to discuss before the MOS gets approved. I'll take these one at a time, for clarity. As a heads up because you've been developing code that implicitly accepts the current What Korean romanization to use section, my next discussion thread will be on that section.

I wanted to get your thoughts on whether we should hyphenate people names in MR. Previously, I (211.43.120.242), another IP user (172...), and @CountHacker had a discussion on this: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Korean)#Clarify hyphenization MR spelling.

Tl;dr of the thread is that the IP user and I are skeptical of hyphenation. We're not sure why it's recommended; it's a practice from South Korean MR, it's not a common practice in academia (most style guidelines I've seen recommend against it), and if we did recommend it, we should recommend in the MOS how to voice the particle after the hyphen. seefooddiet (talk) 16:27, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Sea of Japan and Liancourt Rocks

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to rewrite the Sea of Japan section to also be inclusive of the Liancourt Rocks. I'm going to propose that our guidance be to use whatever the title of each of those articles are in the body, and will also warn people against haphazardly trying to edit war or drive-by criticize the terms. seefooddiet (talk) 01:07, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Hopefully this wording is strong enough. God the talkpages for the Liancourt Rocks and Sea of Japan are such trainwrecks... seefooddiet (talk) 01:48, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Actually nvm. I need to go through and read both their archives to understand the situation better. I'll try to do this in the near future. seefooddiet (talk) 06:06, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@Freedom4U I had written this section before seeing your argument on Talk:Liancourt Rocks/Archive 22#Requested move 15 March 2023. Your argument sounds pretty compelling to me, and I'm dissatisfied with the quality of counterarguments others made, as well as how the move was closed (see talk page of the user that closed the move). Do you think we should reopen this discussion at some point, while highlighting these irregularities in the previous discussion?

Also, what are your thoughts on how to word this section in the MOS/NCKO. I think the section's meat could probably stay ("use current titles, avoid mentioning alternate terms"), but considering wording it emotionally softer to avoid harming future move discussions. Maybe better to keep the section sparse? seefooddiet (talk) 22:20, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't reopen discussion myself, though I probably would have phrased my comment quite differently had I made it today. You're welcome to if you'd like to, though I don't particularly care about the discussion. What the MOS is supposed to be in the end is just documentation of consensus/convention, so it should state that you shouldn't mention alternate terms unless you're discussing the naming conflict. That's especially true with the Sea of Japan, which imo has a much stronger case for the current consensus. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 22:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm loathe to open the discussion myself, but I think someone eventually should. Dealing with the nationalists and dismissive people who'll make poor arguments is a headache.

I'll word the section softer in near future. seefooddiet (talk) 22:47, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Mountains

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet For the most part I agree with your suggestion at Talk:Namsan#Question; I think we should follow Wikipedia:WikiProject Mountains#Naming conventions for mountain names. I would personally use a comma to disambiguate for WP:NATURAL but for the sake of consistency we should do what they do already. I’m not sure how unencyclopedic the slash is though; nothing in the naming conventions at WP:MOUNTAINS seemed to suggest it was, but we should definitely stick with something consistent, whether it be "and" or slash. Dantus21 (talk) 07:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

My first instinct was the same as yours; the comma feels better to me. I got the mountain idea from WP:NCPLACE#Natural features, which recommends that WikiProject guideline.

For the slash, I once tried a RMT for a mountain that had a slash in it (I was changing an unrelated part of the name; left the slash as is), and someone overrode it with "and". Just looked into it; I think WP:DISAMBIG#Format may be loosely interpreted to express a preference for "and", as we're supposed to format the term in parentheses as any other part of a title. I've yet to see a slash used like that in a regular title. seefooddiet (talk) 07:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Maybe I should just post a question on the talk page for the disambig page seefooddiet (talk) 07:50, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Question: "/" in parenthetical disambig?

I'm thinking of recommending 1. try to disambiguate by mountain range first 2. then disambiguate by location, with "and" instead of "/" seefooddiet (talk) 18:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Having taken a quick look at the mountains in the Taebaek and Sobaek categories (two major mountains ranges), imo it didn’t seem like disambiguating by mountain range would be helpful (or at the least used a lot), so I feel it’d be excessive to list that one. I think that your second provision ("disambiguate by location…") would be the way to go. Dantus21 (talk) 18:52, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm yeah maybe you're right. I recommended range first strictly to try and adhere to the WP Mountains guideline, but it's just a guideline, and this just adds bureaucracy and more thinking for little gain. seefooddiet (talk) 18:57, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Side note: for a mountain like Gayasan (North Gyeongsang/South Gyeongsang), should we rename it to Gayasan (North and South Gyeongsang) or Gayasan (North Gyeongsang and South Gyeongsang? I think that "North and South" is a whole lot more logical (and can also be seen at North and South Brother Islands (New York City)), but I’m not sure what the usual approach is. Dantus21 (talk) 18:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

North and South; think justification is also concision. I can write all this in the mountains guideline btw; currently rewriting it. seefooddiet (talk) 18:59, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good 👍 Dantus21 (talk) 19:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Recent changes, Aug 7 (UTC)

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I've recently made some significant changes so want to slow down and give a high-level summary of them.

• Rewrote lead
• Shortened prose for explanations/policies that exist on other pages. I tried to display prominent links to those pages instead.
• Completely rewrote the Hanja section.
  • Mostly kept existing logic, made some additions
• Mostly rewrote Article layout section.
  • Added significant amount of guidelines; I don't suspect they are/hope they aren't controversial. They're already common practice for our articles.
• Created a Naming guidelines section
  • Rules that apply to all Naming conventions, unless overridden in the Naming conventions section.
  • Check out the Avoid redundant English names section. I'm not sure we should keep this; it's more just a pet peeve.
• Overhauled Naming conventions other than the people name section
  • People name section is pending discussion.
  • Logic should mostly be the same, except for province names. I'll make a separate post about that.
  • Moved formatting titles of works into this section from Romanization section.
• Rewrote Wiktionary links section with help of the original author (172 IP user)

I recommend you reread the sections I described above to understand what has changed. I tried to make everything uncontroversial. If you see anything you disagree with, please let me know ASAP so we can address it or potentially revert to an earlier version. I'm trying hard to balance not stepping on any toes while still writing quickly.

TODO:

• Templates section
• Misc copyediting
• Discuss Romanization conventions and people naming conventions
• Copyedit or revise both those sections depending on discussion

Sorry for my disorganized editing style; just kind of the way I write 😓 seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Nonabelian Dantus21 Paper9oll. Paper9oll, as you edit a lot on pop culture, I'd appreciate some of your insights on the article layout section. To my understanding it should be mostly what's already practiced right now. seefooddiet (talk) 07:38, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Is there a particular aspect you feel is missing and would like to see improved? I couldn't think of any at the moment, but I can add more if there is a direction provided. Otherwise, I have no objection to the current state of the Article Layout section. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:24, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Not particularly, the goal was actually to be minimally intrusive and reflect current practice, so hearing that you think it's acceptable is a relief! seefooddiet (talk) 17:59, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Having did a readthrough of most of it, here's what I have to say.

• English word section looks good, but maybe make a more explicit guideline for what words should be italicized (or not) as I feel this could be a slippery slope for interpretation. For example, you could specify dictionaries to check (like Cambridge or Oxford) and specifying a ratio of dictionaries with the word (like 3:2) that could indicate to not italicize. Perhaps I'm overcomplicating stuff
  • Added guidance seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Merge use korean language terms section to english words section
  • Will think through how to regroup, article layout still needs work overall. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• What does "topics related to korea as a whole" mean for RR? Does it mean for names like Joseon? Why single out personal names for MR?
  • I was not the primary author of this section, and haven't touched it much. Pending discussion as I'm also uncertain about parts of it. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• By the romanization template, does that mean that an article will have a consistent romanization throughout (I think I might not understand the extent of it)?
  • Likewise with above; has complicated implications. Like in a MR article, should we write "Soŭl" for Seoul? Is that desirable? seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

    • I’m still unsure what to do here (I might make a post about romanizations soon), but whatever it is Seoul should be the exception, because according to this ngrams Soul was/is almost never used, even in cases before RR existed. Dantus21 (talk) 05:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      The situation is quite complicated; I'm currently researching the situation and discussing it actively with the IP user. I'm currently working on Romanization of Korean to share what I've learned with others.

      I'm considering publishing an WP:ESSAY on the situation for future readers. Still doing the background research though.

      We're joining into a debate that has lasted over a century, and how we rule on may have a significant impact on how others spell Korean terms. Complicated situation, but fun given the real impact we may have seefooddiet (talk) 05:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      By any chance where are you discussing this with the IP (if you want to share)? I’d be interested in helping out too, although my Korean is admittedly not too great. Dantus21 (talk) 06:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Via email; we're discussing in a mix of Korean and English. Most things of substance we discuss on Wiki directly for public viewing; it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. This talk page and links to other discussions match our current understanding of romanization. seefooddiet (talk) 06:44, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Interesting disclosure here. I'm concerned on the statement it's usually questions about Wiki policy that we discuss privately. For transparency and accountability, could you please elaborate on the types of policy discussions that occur privately? Are these primarily clarifications, or do they involve substantive (regardless of depthness) discussion about changes to Wikipedia's policy? Do they align with the Wikipedia's policy on consensus pertaining to off-wiki discussions? — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:14, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      Yes they do. It's usually questions about how policies work. They're usually shallow questions; when there's anything of substance we go to wiki. I would hope there's no reason to be suspicious; you know me and intentions here are clearly good seefooddiet (talk) 07:33, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      I'm a little saddened by your comment. What even would either of us have to gain by conspiring here? Neither of us benefit from these policy changes and I've welcomed disagreement, and I've disagreed with the IP user both publicly and privately. I disclose my process as much as needed out of good faith. There's no "gotcha aha" moment here to be found. I'm remarkably boring; I'm reading 90 year old papers about linguistics. seefooddiet (talk) 07:41, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

      I'm just caught off-guard by such disclosure hence raising some alarms. Don't worry, this is all good-faith. Thanks for the clarification. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:49, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• Hangul section looks good
• Already commented on Hanja section
• Article layout section looks good
• Template section looks good; maybe say something about not putting in context=old? Hunminjeongeum is barely used anyway and imo that name will cause more confusion; perhaps it might just be a pet peeve of mine
  • I need to expand guidelines around this infobox, will look into this and more. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Naming guidelines look good; We should definitely keep the avoid redundant English names; most of the names are so uncommon that we should avoid tautologies when we can.
  • I'm still a little on the fence about it; I visited Gyeongbukgung a few weeks ago and they put "Gyeongbukgung Palace" all over the place. "Namsan Mountain" is also reasonably common. However, maybe this just falls under common name and are exceptions rather than a trend. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Possible to break up naming conventions section or maybe even make a separate page?
  • I'm thinking the same thing; we originally intentionally tried to merge WP:NCKO into MOS:KO, but it's becoming so long that maybe unmerging is best. For now will keep on the same article, likely will split off later. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
• Do common modified romanizations apply to ancient people and North Koreans?
  • Not primary author, I'm not sure about this part too. seefooddiet (talk) 20:09, 7 August 2024 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. FWIW I would support modified for South Koreans, but not for ancient people or North Koreans since I don’t think they generally use those modified spellings. Dantus21 (talk) 04:28, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
• I haven’t looked at administrative divisions yet, will look at soon.
• Geographic features, temples, and works in naming conventions section look good.
• I am ambivalent to the dates, wiktionary, and references section, but they generally look good.

I'll admit I didn't look at your specifications before rereading, so forgive me if I accidentally addressed something that you already planned to! Dantus21 (talk) 09:00, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback 🙂 I'll edit your comment with subbullet responses seefooddiet (talk) 20:03, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Provinces titles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Per above, I rewrote the province naming convention section, and while doing so realized that our guidance is based on shaky ground. I ended up changing it to just be prescriptivist ("Here are the current titles, use them").

The reason for this is because it's hard to explain/justify our title formats otherwise. Look at Provinces of South Korea#List of provinces, "Official English name" column. There's so much inconsistency with official names, and I'm not sure WP:COMMONNAME has been established for all the provinces. I have a gut feeling that people just decided to weigh WP:TITLECON and WP:USEENGLISH higher.

Making things more confusing, the NK titles don't use diacritics (ŏ), which likely means some flavor of WP:COMMONNAME is being applied.

And to make matters 100x worse, what do we do about historical provinces? See Provinces of Korea; I just have no clue. There's so many unknowns here. How do we handle the "-mok" provinces of Goryeo? How do we spell the provinces of Joseon? What about the 1895–1896 provinces, where they redid all the provinces then reverted them? What about the provinces of colonial Korea? Should we refer to them using their Japanese names? Should we include parenthetical glosses for their current or Joseon-era analogues?

I honestly have no clue; each one of these issues merits a long conversation. If anyone's brave enough to discuss this with me I'll join you, but I suspect people won't want to. I've already thought about these questions for hours and am still struggling. seefooddiet (talk) 07:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Romanization guideline for titles

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Right now, the guideline for article titles seemingly suggests MR (McCune-Reischauer) for North Korean stuff and pre-1945 people, while it suggests RR (Revised Romanization) for South Korean stuff and everything else pre-1945. While this guideline is technically "stable", I feel that having the pre-1945 people be MR while everything else pre-1945 be RR seems fairly arbitrary; why have names for people be MR but everything else RR? I will note that scholarly precedent is to use MR for everything pre-1945 (as far as I’m aware). However, most of the pre-1945 articles (for instance state names) still use RR. I think there are 3 options here for how this guideline can go forward.

• A. All pre-1945 articles (including people) titled with MR. Consistent and follows scholarly precedent, although such a massive upheaval in moving makes me a little nervous.
• B. All pre-1945 articles (including people) titled with RR. Does not follow scholarly precedent, but would be much more stable Wikipedia-wise (less moving than MR) while also being consistent.
• C. Status-quo guideline. Most stable, as it requires the least moving, but inconsistent as singling out people's names seems relatively arbitrary.

What do you think of this? Dantus21 (talk) 00:03, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

P.S. Concerning ngrams (which goes up to 2022 now), MR still seems to win for most pre-1945 topics, such as Buyeo, Balhae, Baekje, Goguryeo, and Joseon. However, back in March of this year, Britannica changed their pre-1945 Korean articles to fit RR, as seen here, here, and here, and while Wikipedia isn’t obligated to follow Britannica, it might be something to consider. Dantus21 (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Seefooddiet Paper9oll Nonabelian courtesy ping (feel free to ping others who might be interested too) Dantus21 (talk) 00:09, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, I will abstain on this. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 07:07, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm still heavily brainstorming what to do; I think about it a lot each day, and I'm still not sure. I'd like more time to think if others will allow it, I plan on reading a bunch of papers about the romanization debate. Complicated and lengthy history that should be explained with rigor on Wikipedia, not just for this MOS, but also for public viewing so readers understand why the romanization situation is complicated.

For whether academic literature uses MR or RR, the vast majority of academic journals use MR. I think a couple of South Korean journals use RR (off the top of my head, [11], but I think there's more). For books, in my experience (I've read around 30ish books about mostly 19th century and onwards history, a couple of broad histories too) is that most books about pre-1945 history use MR.

I'm currently considering if there are more options than just the A, B, and C that you listed. One idea I'm still developing is that just as there is flexibility for choosing what MOS:DATEFORMAT to use for when there are no strong MOS:DATETIES, we could consider allowing Wikipedia article authors to use whichever format they prefer for pre-1945 articles (not for NK or SK articles). However, I'm still working on developing this idea; need to weigh consistency vs flexibility. I feel that there's maybe other alternatives too, and want to continue thinking about those. seefooddiet (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Others might support it, but I strongly disagree with the idea of allowing others to pick and choose romanizations. While stable within the article, I feel it'd be super haphazard for stability across Wikipedia (emphasis for clarity). Why should one article use MR and another use RR? I get that MOS:DATEFORMAT basically does the same thing but I'm not a fan for bringing it here as it also affects article titles, which would be more apparent to readers. Dantus21 (talk) 00:33, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, what are some themes you've noticed in the romanization debate? Clearly your work isn't done over there but I think that if I and other users can get a general grasp it might be helpful in considering how to move forward. I've heard some themes of Koreans not liking MR but foreigners liking it but that is probably an oversimplification. Dantus21 (talk) 00:36, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

If it's ok, I'd rather not discuss my ideas before I'm done thinking of them. It's easy to reject half-baked ideas, but good ideas sometimes start half-baked, and it takes time to develop them into something viable. If you'd like you can dive into the literature yourself as well; I'll likely be reading the same things you find.

I feel like this MOS may possibly take two to three months more before it gets put into action; considering this is arguably the most important part of the MOS I think we should take our time on it. seefooddiet (talk) 00:43, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t really see any issues with discussing so-called "half baked" ideas; outside input can help develop them, but if you don’t want to share them now you don’t have to. Dantus21 (talk) 00:55, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I am dead-set against Option B. Common name should trump consistency. Another problem is that in many cases the MR and RR romanizations are not visually similar. Most people end up finding the common MR romanization, search for the subject in Wikipedia and not get a result. Someone without the knowledge of converting between MR and RR, would not realize that Koryŏ general Chŏng Chung-bu that they read about in a book would be the same person titled as Jeong Jung-bu via Option B. I do think the status-quo is somewhat ridiculous only pertaining to people's names, there's definitely room for expansion for other topics besides people names. MR should be used for other historical subjects such as historical texts like the Jewang ungi, historical government positions such as sang changgun (supreme general), and historical government offices such as the Seungjeongwon or the Hongmungwan. Based on the NGrams, I think that there is an argument for moving historical states to MR as well. I'm not sure yet if Option A would be the best bet so far, due to the ramifications of moving countless articles. My current worry is that there could potentially be pre-1945 topics commonly well-known in RR that could be overlooked. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 01:00, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

A couple of running thoughts:

• I'm leaning towards A, although still need to think about implications and read more into the debate.
• I'm not sure if ngrams also consumes academic papers, which overwhelmingly use MR.
• If we do end up approving A, I can build up a log of moves, and once enough occur I can use WP:AWB to change all WP:KOREA articles to use the same MR spellings. We should probably do this in batches to minimize the quantity of edits made.

seefooddiet (talk) 01:09, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Ngrams does not search through academic journals, only books. For academic works, use google scholar to look for usage. I agree that the guideline should be A, but I disagree with mass moving articles. Each article should still be discussed on a case by case basis (or in small batches) before they are moved. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 18:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Writing in case I forget: we should mention how to handle Korean diaspora names as well. Think in general it should follow standard ordering of common name, personal pref, then romanization.

Then there's other ambiguities, like which language version of their name to use (Russian etc for Koryo-saram? Japanese for Zainichi Koreans?). Also complicated due to alignment with NK/SK; for Zainichi Koreans who support the SK-aligned Mindan, should probably prefer RR. And for Zainichis who support the NK-aligned Chongryon should probably prefer MR. seefooddiet (talk) 21:20, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Option B should not be considered. It's not in line with reliable sourcing. MR should be used in pre-1945 (and potentially even later) topics unless the WP:COMMONNAME is found to be different. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 18:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Re-naming on Joseon grand princes

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

(I also posted on the WP:KOREA talk page.)
Any thoughts on changing the MoS for Grand Princes from <Grand Prince (title)> to <(birth name), Grand Prince (title)>?

For example:
Grand Prince Yeongchang --> Yi Ui, Grand Prince Yeongchang
Grand Prince Uian --> Yi Hwa, Grand Prince Uian
Grand Prince Neungwon --> Yi Bo, Grand Prince Neungwon

Btw, the titles(작호) of Joseon grand princes (unlike Europe) were not passed down to the next prince, they were given by the king himself and were unique.

Currently WP:NCKO's #Novelty section does not specify on how the names of nobility other than monarchs should be titled. It seems like there aren't much English sources on how the names of Joseon grand princes should be formatted, but the changes will surely make them more consistent with European royalties per WP:NCROY. Korean sources seem to use both styles, but more of the status quo. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Still thinking. Do the specific 호 (Yeongchang, etc) count as "substantive titles" per NCROY? I think the "Grand Prince" part probably counts. Per the Royals with substantive titles section. Because these seem to just be names given to people rather than specific titles (which also exist in the West; not sure of how those kinds of names are handled for Westerners on Wikipedia).

If we did align Korean titles with NCROY, not sure how we'd do it.

Also, I have a gut feeling that part of the reason NCROY recommends titles like this is because some of the names are quite generic and overlap a lot, so maybe disambiguation is coming into play here. Do these 작호 names overlap to a notable degree? seefooddiet (talk) 05:10, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Another question; how commonly-used are the personal names of these people? If they rarely go by their personal names, maybe it'd be better to stick with just their titles? seefooddiet (talk) 09:01, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The specific titles (작호) are definitely substantive, as that is how they were addressed in formal situations and in historical texts. Birth names (휘, also called true names) were avoided when addressing a person posthumously, and were used in limited ways.

In many Korean-language sources both styles are used (i.e. 영창대군 vs 영창대군 이의), but title-only is used more than title and birth name, as it's more succinct.

I'm not sure how many 작호 names overlap, though.

I don't really support this change. My original rationale was that it may help with WP:CONCISE as English-speaking readers may not be familiar with Asian titles. rn I'm really just curious on what other editors might think of this since I'm no expert on Joseon Korea either. Nevertheless, we should still decide on a single format and specify it in the #Novelty section. Various titles such as Gong, Hu, or Baek, which are often translated as Duke, Marquess, or Count in English, were used since the Korean Three Kingdoms period, until they were all united into Daegun (Grand Prince) in the early 1400s according to EKC, so those titles should follow the same style as well. 00101984hjw (talk) 02:28, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Hm now that I read Substantive title closer, is this even an analogue to that system? I think it's different.

And I agree, we should develop broad guidance for these misc. royal names. Do you think you could develop a ruleset? Even in the worst case, you could just describe the most common current practice (if you think it's acceptable), and that can pass as our guidance. seefooddiet (talk) 02:42, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Ughh...

As a disclaimer, my background knowledge on Korean history mostly stems from highschool history class, so I probably wouldn't be the best person for the job. Do you know any prominent editors from WP:CHINA? Since many of these titles were uniform throughout the sinosphere (I think Daegun was unique to Korea) they might be able to provide some guidance.

I'll try looking into Korean sources and think of something when I have the time. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 03:02, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know many Wikipedian Chinese history experts personally; we could post on WT:CHINA for advice, but I suspect many will not be sure about the intricacies of Korea's titles.

But it's probably better that we abstain from creating guidance until we have someone who is a subject matter expert. seefooddiet (talk) 03:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

If you want to follow the Chinese example, then via looking at Category:Chinese princes, most of the Chinese princes are titled only via their names, and in the case of the Manchu Qing, only their personal names. However, we should not follow their example for Korean princes, as most English language sources seem to only refer to Korean princes by just their titles. It is Prince Suyang that steals the throne from his nephew, Crown Prince Sohyŏn that died suddenly from returning from the Qing, and Prince Yeongchang that was murdered by his kingly half-brother. I agree with @Seefooddiet that the Korean princely titles aren't exactly the equivalent of a substantive title from the UK. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 23:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Much thanks for the input. I updated the draft with a broad guideline on article names. However, there is one last issue.

What should be do with deposed princes and queens? Current article names seem to suggest that royalties who died with their deposed status have "deposed" in their articles (Example: Deposed Queen Shin and Deposed Crown Prince Yi Hwang) while previously deposed monarchs whose status were recovered don't (Example: Princess Hwisin). Some of these articles seem to follow the WP:COMMONNAME in Korean sources, while others aren't even consistent with their corresponding articles in the kowiki. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 23:47, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Article names on queens seem pretty consistent ("Queen Posthumous Name" for most queens / "Deposed Queen surname" for queens who were deposed, as deposed queens did not receive a posthumous title). But according to the Deposed Queen Yun article apparently Western references are rather using Deposed Lady Yun as in. --- 00101984hjw (talk) 23:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Using your example of Deposed Queen Yun, there's definitely some English sources that use Deposed Queen Yun as well, such as The Lives and Legacy of Kim Sisŭp (1435–1493) and "An Annotated Translation of Daily Records of King Yeonsangun, Chapter One (the 25th Day to the 29th Day of the 12th Month of 1494)". I would say more English sources simply omit the adjective of "deposed" and simply refer to her as Queen or Lady Yun. However, since you would need to disambiguate her from the other queens and consorts surnamed Yun, you might as well keep the adjective "deposed" as a form of WP:NATDIS. Regarding the deposed crown princes, I don't recall any mentions of them in English. We could potentially just keep the status quo, and revise later when a more common name arises in English. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Districts?

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Does anyone know the reason we translate "-gu" to "District" for autonomous districts, but not for non-autonomous districts? Only discussion I could find is this one, but it doesn't explain the rationale.

Thoughts: I know autonomous districts are a level above non-autonomous; if the intent is to differentiate the two, this seems to be a little arbitrary of a method to do so. I haven't verified, but my impression is that the WP:COMMONNAME practice is to use "-gu" in both scenarios. If we wanted to make a WP:NCCS/WP:USEENGLISH argument, we should be consistent about the use of "District" in both scenarios. I'm trying to brainstorm alternate methods of differentiating the two types of districts (and whether we need to differentiate at all).

But I feel like maybe I'm missing something? @Sawol @Kanguole or anyone else, any thoughts? As a heads up we're currently working on rewriting both MOS:KO and WP:NCKO. seefooddiet (talk) 23:22, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Translating "-gu" as "District" in all cases would be more helpful to the English-speaking readership of this wiki. It seems particularly counter-intuitive to use partial translation to mark a distinction that, though real enough, is not made in the Korean names. The use of a hyphen indicates that "gu" is being treated as a separate element, so handling it separately from the main name seems appropriate. The distinction should be made in the opening sentence of each article. Kanguole 09:48, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment, I think I agree with your take. Will wait for more participation before moving to change it. seefooddiet (talk) 20:31, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

@Kanguole one additional question; what's your thoughts on North Korean districts? Those are a bit of a mess; we ask them to use "-guyok", but not to use "-ku" (equivalent to SK's "-gu") or "-chigu" at all. On the other hand, we ask them to use " County" for NK's "-kun"/"-gun", so clearly some level of WP:NCCS/WP:USEENGLISH is being applied.

I admittedly don't know much about administrative divisions in NK, though. I don't know if these are truly at the same admin level as each other, nor what the common name convention is for these. seefooddiet (talk) 22:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful if there's a hatnote that describe the native name, something like

In this article, the native name of this place is Jeju-do, and the place should be referred to as Jeju Island. The word -do means Island

might need rephrasing but that's all I can suggest 27.125.249.50 (talk) 15:50, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. See Template:Family name explanation#Footnotes vs. hatnotes for a related discussion. I think some people believe that hatnotes should be reserved for navigation purposes, and not article title explanations. I don't necessarily have a stance on this debate, just noting why some might argue no hatnote is better.

I think this section (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)#First parentheses) should be reasonably clear enough. E.g. South Jeolla Province (Korean: 전라남도; RR: Jeollanam-do) is a province of ... Once this MOS passes I can go ahead and try to standardize this for all the provinces. seefooddiet (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Surnames

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm very happy there's an effort to modernize and improve the MOS guidelines for Korean articles. I'll add a few comments as I see fit here.

If the author presents their family name first (e.g. "Hong Gil-dong"), this should be preserved using an author-mask parameter.

This does not seem to match best practices by academic sources and style guides. Most Korean academic sources with English translations go by the format Moon, Jae-in, not Moon Jae-in, when listing authors (Koreascience does this, for example). This is also the case in the major style guides which all add a comma after the surname. See this guide on citing Korean surnames according to the Chicago, MLA, and APA style guides [12] which all retain the comma after the surname. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 16:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

MLA is more complicated, recommending a comma if the name appears on the title page of the source with the surname last and not otherwise. Still, I agree: Wikipedia is a generalist publication, and should, like such generalist publications as Science and Nature, mark author surnames in citation lists in a uniform way, which the comma does. Not in prose of course. After all, we don't write Western names in citation lists in the same way we do in prose. We certaily shouldn't be mandating |author-mask=. Kanguole 17:39, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It's nice to have you here editing the MOS, thank you!

I think I align with no comma. But for Kanguole's suggestion, I want to provide some nuance on |author-mask. While I don't think we necessarily need to mandate it all the time, I think we should recommend its use when the author's name was originally in Korean (particulary if it was in Hanja) and has been romanized, in order to show the original Korean text. seefooddiet (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

"Avoid redundant English names"

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

This section appears to suggest that Gyeongbokgung Palace or Bulguksa Temple are incorrect because they are tautologies. That's not how language works. Both of these see very high levels of usage if you check ngrams, and they follow hundreds of different examples in the English language - (River Avon, La Brea Tar Pits, Mount Maunganui, etc.). The guide shouldn't recommend removing these tautologies as a default, when they are very frequently the common name. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 16:17, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

It should be made clear that common English-language takes precedence. If a name isn't found in English there might be a case for this guidance. Kanguole 17:41, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Common English-language names taking precedence is the current guideline.

I think F4U makes a compelling case that the practice is probably common enough that maybe we remove the section altogether. However, I'll note that in practice, our current naming conventions de facto follow this guidance. Unless those naming conventions are altered, effectively nothing will change I think. The section was previously just providing a foundation for the rest of the naming conventions. But I think F4U makes a good argument that the foundation is probably incorrect. seefooddiet (talk) 22:02, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

You are right about tautologies not necessarily being "incorrect" and also being used frequently, but I’d still support keeping the redundancy section on the grounds of WP:CONCISE.

Also, would you say "Gyeongbokgung Palace" and "Bulguksa Temple" are used much more frequently than "Gyeongbokgung" and "Bulguksa" alone? Dantus21 (talk) 02:01, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I think one could argue that because of Wikipedia's general preference for reflecting common practice, if the common practice was to do something long we should follow the common practice regardless of concision considerations. Granted, we haven't rigorously established that this kind of partial redundancy is truly the common practice.

For "Gyeongbokgung Palace" etc, those need to be researched and decided on a case-by-case basis; but I wouldn't be surprised if a reasonable number of places use that kind of partial redundancy. Again, I visited Gyeongbokgung last month and that phrasing was used in the signage of a number of places (although I recall there being inconsistency). seefooddiet (talk) 05:38, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I probably wasn’t clear enough, but I wasn’t trying to contradict concision with WP:COMMONNAME, which your first paragraph seemed to addresss (forgive me if my interpretation was wrong). Dantus21 (talk) 05:46, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I think I wasn't clear enough either lol. I meant the step after WP:COMMONNAME. I.e. assuming no known common name exists, if in general people tend to render names in a lengthy manner... etc seefooddiet (talk) 05:55, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that’s what you meant. My fault for the misunderstanding 😅 Dantus21 (talk) 06:21, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Names hyphenation

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Freedom4U, could you give rationale/evidence for no hyphenation for North Korean names? seefooddiet (talk) 06:05, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

That's what the AP style guide recommends and I haven't seen anything to contradict that guidance. It's also the style that North Korean English-language publications use. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 06:06, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Confirmed that's the AP's recommendation, may try to look into NK's official recommendation to confirm. But also hm. Looking at the 2022 edition AP style guide I can get access to, it says The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference.

I need to do more research, but to my knowledge SK actually officially recommendations against hyphenation for personal names. [13] As a rule, syllables in given names are not seperated by hyphen, but it is admitted to use a hyphen between syllables.

It may not matter that AP may be technically incorrect in this, as so many English-language publications hyphenate regardless. seefooddiet (talk) 06:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Ooh yeah I'm aware of the South Korean government's recommendation not to hyphenate, honestly don't know what's up with that. But I can confidently say that the majority of news outlets I'm aware of spell North Korean names like that (without the hyphen). As for North Korean publications, you can pretty quickly confirm that's the case looking at KCNA Watch—a North Korean news aggregator run by NK News ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 06:54, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Right, I think probably safe to accept NK no hyphen, although finding the govt's recommendations would be a nice bonus. I may research the SK situation further. seefooddiet (talk) 07:08, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

@F4U As a heads up, NK's situation is, at least officially, more complicated than we just discussed [14]. Someone had pointed this out to me before, but it slipped my mind.

If names are Sino-Korean, then they are spaced, else no spaces. Needlessly complicated rule... I'm not sure whether we should ask people to do this too. I'm not sure if this rule is enforced in NK. May try looking into it now, but may be hard to verify.

Edit:I'm leaning towards not asking them to do it. It's too complicated for such little marginal gain. seefooddiet (talk) 03:22, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Ack, thank you for finding that! Did you mean that they are not spaced? The examples they give are

1. 김꽃분이 Kim KKotpuni

2. 박동구 Pak Tong Gu

3. 안복철 An Pok Chŏl

None of which are hyphenated. Still, I think by their spelling conventions basically no names used in North Korea are spelled without a space (since basically all given names seem to be composed of hanja). You can look through some of these [15] [16], I couldn't find any examples otherwise. ~ F4U (talk • they/it) 03:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I edited my comment afterwards but you probably didn't see. And I agree, functionally most two-char personal names are rendered with spaces in them.

Side note, the KKotpuni example is illustrative of >2 char given names not using spaces (and their weird double capitalization rule), so that's something. The >2 rule and double capitalization aren't hard to do/understand, so may include in guideline to just do that. seefooddiet (talk) 03:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC) Edit: This part of the comment was incorrect and I no longer agree with it. seefooddiet (talk) 07:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

People name section

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

My proposed version:

1. WP:COMMONNAME
2. Personal preference
3. Split based on pre-1945+NK, post-1945 SK, and diaspora.
   • If pre-1945 or North Korea, use MR with no hyphenation or spaces between syllables in given name, assimilate spelling of personal name (한복남 -> Han Pongnam, not Han Poknam), do not assimilate between surname and given name (백락준 -> Paek Nakchun, not Paeng Nakchun), and do not convert surname to modern common modified transliteration. Recommend (but not mandate) that 이 -> "Yi" and not "I" for surnames.
   • If SK, use RR. Hyphenate given name, do not assimilate spelling of given name (e.g. 김복남 -> "Kim Bok-nam", not "Kim Bong-nam"), and also convert surname to South Korean common spelling (currently given in the table; I may prune the table to only include the names with unambiguous common spellings).
   • For diaspora, determine which language name is most appropriate (Russian, English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, etc) based on primary nationality/where most notable. If non-Korean language name is most appropriate, romanize per those language guidelines. If their notability is strongly tied to Korea, determine which of the above two options they are most tied to, and follow the option's guidance.

For explanations, see this WIP essay. seefooddiet (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

As an update, this section is pending a decision on NK romanization. seefooddiet (talk) 06:53, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet, for MR romanization, I think there might be a good case for hyphenation for personal names. The no hyphenation rule for MR seems to come from the 1961 guide, however, there are more modern revisions of McCune–Reischauer (2009 Library of Congress version) that do use hyphenation. From what I've seem most Western Korea Studies programs and academic libraries also use the ALA/LC revision of MR. Examples: [17][18][19][20][21]. I would also point out that romanization of North Korean names tend to either have a hyphen or a space, having neither is pretty rare. For example, most media romanized 장성택 as either Jang Song-thaek or Jang Song Thaek, but not Jang Songthaek. ⁂CountHacker (talk) 09:38, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

We may need to more thoroughly research what version of MR is most commonly applied in practice. Hard to do, given that I've spotted papers with romanization mistakes in them and people almost never specify what version of MR they follow. Anecdotally I think the books and papers I've read that used MR didn't tend to use hyphens in names.

For NK names, while that is true, my main concern was the consistent application of some MR version. If we decide that 1961 is most common, I would be skeptical of (but would not completely rule out) ad-hoc modifications to 1961 to resemble more common NK practices.

You're welcome to research the topic; I'll try to work on it too. seefooddiet (talk) 09:55, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

The ALA-LC (Library of Congress) system is just yet another separate romanization system. It is not appropriate to treat that as MR. (In fact, the ALA-LC system does things that the original MR explicitly prohibits/discourages.)

Anyone can come up with a new romanization system by modifying an existing system, but that should not be regarded as a newer version of that existing system.

For North Korean names, following North Korea's official romanization system (NKR) might be an option, but this idea is already discarded. 172.56.232.137 (talk) 05:25, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Whether it's a version of MR or not has little impact on what we do. We just need something to use. If that version/system ends up being the most commonly used, we should consider following it. Either way, the Library of Congress itself considers it a version of MR ("The Library of Congress will continue to follow the McCune-Reischauer system to romanize Korean with the exceptions noted in this document."), and other sources seem to call it a version. seefooddiet (talk) 05:47, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, now that we've decided not to use NKR, this proposal is ready.

The broad strokes of it are very similar to what is currently done; I'm hoping this won't be surprising. seefooddiet (talk) 06:43, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

@Dantus21 @Freedom4U @CountHacker @00101984hjw Sorry for tags; looking for feedback on the proposal so we can keep this moving. Nearing the finish line. seefooddiet (talk) 20:30, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Overall the proposal looks good. Although I did fix up the common surname spelling to be SK only, I'm a little skeptical about it now since I'm not sure how often it is used in reliable sources. If other users like it though I'm okay with it.

Another note: do Wikipedia essays typically use first person plural? I noticed a lot of use of "we" and it seemed a little jarring to me; granted if it is used in other essays I can let it be. Dantus21 (talk) 14:57, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to be almost entirely rewriting that section btw. The common surnames table needs to be trimmed to just names for which there's overwhelming consensus on the common spelling. These consensuses are shared in nearly all RS and even in passports; some evidence can be found here: Korean name#Romanization and pronunciation.

E.g. "Kim" easily should almost always be romanized that way. On the other hand, more ambiguous cases like 정/Jung/Jeong/Chung shouldn't.

I'll look into revising the use of "we"; was just a passive decision that I'm not attached to. Is the skepticism on sounding like it's speaking for the community? seefooddiet (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

By the way, this is what I wrote about that surname list:

this surname list may not be sufficient. What about surnames like 문 and 신, which are commonly written as "Moon" and "Shin" (instead of "Mun" and "Sin") in English-language text? 172.56.232.246 (talk) 00:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I think we should be conservative about which names to add to the surname list. Before a spelling is included, evidence should be provided of a widespread acceptance of that spelling.

Examples (made-up numbers), if you can prove that 95% of people spell their surname "Kim", then we recommend that spelling. However, if the spelling is 60% "Kim" and 40% "Gim", we shouldn't recommend any spelling; too divided.

So far, I only have evidence for Kim, Lee, Park, and Choi, so that's all I'll include in the table for now. Do you have any evidence for "Moon"? seefooddiet (talk) 01:13, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Should we use this study as a reference? (the stats are at the end) It’s from 2007 but I don’t know how much it would’ve changed since then. The data from that has "Moon" at 73.5% Dantus21 (talk) 01:20, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

More recent studies are preferred; the ratios do indeed change. seefooddiet (talk) 02:00, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I think I wrote that after seeing the 2011 South Korean passport statistics (see page 172 (207th page in PDF) of this document): MOON(14815) 70.28%, MUN(6158) 29.21%, ... 172.56.232.246 (talk) 01:29, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Arhg complicated... Is 70% enough? I'm not sure, but I think it is.

• If we accept 70% as enough, we can expect to be correct 70% of the time and incorrect 30%.
• If we don't accept, we get 70% incorrect. That's objectively worse.

A counterargument to the above is that defaulting to consistent romanization systems when there's uncertainty yields more recognizability. But if we want consistency, shouldn't we use pure RR, with no hyphens and surname modifications?

But if we went pure RR, I think "Bak" and "Gim" would be more confusing and obscure to the average person than "Park" and "Kim". It'd also be clearly more wrong: for "Bak" we'd be getting 99% of cases wrong for a small gain in recognizability for the few who actually know RR.

Summary: I think 70% is enough, and that we should keep modifying RR names using the hyphen and surname conversion. It feels the least confusing to the most amount of people. I don't know about 60% though. seefooddiet (talk) 02:28, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I’m a little skeptical of 70% being the bar. While it is true that it would have less damage than 30%, by that logic anything that has above 50% (like Jung) would be the ideal choice, which we’ve all (or at least you) agreed would be too divided. I’d say that an 80%—90% (honestly 90% in my personal opinion, but I can compromise) should be the bar. These modified spelling should only be used when they are nearly unanimous. Dantus21 (talk) 12:37, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

What are your thoughts on the tradeoff between precision and recognizability of RR? I initially had the same opinion as you, but then I thought about it and realized few people even recognize strict RR in the first place, so recognizability is hardly there anyway. So then I weighed precision (probability of being correct with a surname) higher.

In other words, you could argue a 50.1% name is not enough to merit the sacrifice in recognizability. I'd argue a 70% name gets closer to meriting that sacrifice because of the high precision. I'm still on the fence though. seefooddiet (talk) 17:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I finished the surname table and the people names section. The surname table is a headache; there's too many possible names. A huge lookup table would too much bureaucracy for little gain, so I decided to limit the table to the top 12ish most common surnames and only those with a >80% common spelling. Also, I added "Oh" and "Woo"; otherwise these are single-char names that are hard to read. This covers around 70% of the 2015 population of South Korea. Evidence is provided at the romanization essay. seefooddiet (talk) 02:36, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Romanization for North Korea articles...

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Realizing the Romanization situation for North Korea is on shaky ground. I want to avoid discussion fatigue, but this bit is important.

The Romanization of Korean (North) ("NKR") differs from McCune–Reischauer in a number of ways. See [22]. Some examples:

• 전라도 NKR: Jŏlla-do vs MR: Chŏlla-do.
• 찔레골 NKR: JJilre-gol or Jilre-gol vs MR: Tchille-gol. Notice the second capital "J" and optional removal of second "J".
• 김꽃분이 NKR: Kim KKotpuni vs MR: Kim Kkotpuni. Notice the second capital "K".

Currently, we blanket recommend MR for all NK-related topics. Yet, as discussed in #Names hyphenation, we're considering borrowing elements of the official North Korean style for people names, and applying them to MR, when really those style elements are a part of NKR. I don't think this works.

I think these are our options:

1. Use NKR for all NK-related concepts.
2. Use pure MR for all NK-related concepts (i.e. for names, no spaces or hyphens between syllables by default).
3. Use MR for all NK-related concepts, borrow elements of NKR style rules (as proposed in #Names hyphenation) and apply them to MR.
4. Use NKR for people names only, use MR for everything else.

I think we should do either 1 or 2; think 3 and 4 are too confusing and arbitrary.

I'm leaning towards 2. 2 is closest to the current status quo, and is closest to international academic writings on Korea. It also is asking less of our users; we're already asking them to learn MR and RR, adding NKR is a lot.

But also arguments for 1: news articles on KCNA Watch use NKR (example). [Edit: also, I emailed NK News and confirmed that their style guide asks for NKR.] It also may seem like a political move to not use NK's preferred system (although SK's systems have long been ignored by the academic community and seemingly nobody's been bothered by our use of MR for NK thus far). seefooddiet (talk) 07:36, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Freedom4U Yue Kanguole Dantus21 CountHacker Tagging users who may care about this issue. If you know other people who edit on North Korea, please tag them too. Sorry for so many discussions, we're getting closer to finishing this, just a few major open questions. seefooddiet (talk) 07:40, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Relevant past discussions: 2003, 2004 pt 1, 2004 pt 2, 2006.

For NK, MR has been in place since the first version of the MOS/NCKO. I couldn't really find an adequate discussion of why NKR isn't used, but I'm maybe missing something. seefooddiet (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

One key detail in the AP Stylebook I just noticed is this: The style and spelling of names in North Korea and South Korea follow each government’s standard policy for transliterations unless the subject has a personal preference. Technically, the AP is asking its staff to use NKR for people's names. I'm not sure how closely they follow that guidance. For place names, it seems like NKR isn't being consistently applied: e.g. NKR and MR ("phyongan" and "pyongan"; 13 results for "Phyongan" vs 19 for "Pyongan"). You can observe similar for NKNews: 170 results for "Pyongan", 208 for "Phyongan".

I'm still leaning MR because of status quo and possible divided usage on MR/NKR. seefooddiet (talk) 07:16, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for my late response! I’m no expert, but I’d say Option 2 by a long shot, as it seems to be what the majority of reliable sources seem to use. I wouldn’t worry about it being a political statement, since we’re just following what the sources do. If someone has a different take I’d be interested in hearing it though. — Dantus21 (talk) 04:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm for option 2 too. --ChoHyeri (talk) 12:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

As an update I'm increasingly conflicted and need to do more research. I'm going to try and verify what other mainstream international newspapers use. So far I've verified that NK News and Associated Press both recommend NKR (with the latter recommending it for names). seefooddiet (talk) 08:17, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I’m sure you already were thinking this, but also keep in mind what the newspapers actually practice too, as it seems like AP and NK didn’t strictly follow their own recommendations. Dantus21 (talk) 11:26, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Going to investigate that as well. My example given was a possible common name situation seefooddiet (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I've been doing some more thinking. Our rules are already incredibly complicated, and we're already asking for knowledge of at least 2 romanization systems. I suspect NKR actually does see a good amount of usage, but I'm loathe to overload our rules even more. Complication drives people away, and we need more editors. seefooddiet (talk) 05:04, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Honorary titles and government office

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I've seen numerous articles on Joseon-era figures say stuff like "this person was a "jeong2pum ijopanseo"(정2품 이조판서) without elaborating on what that rank and office meant. That being said, should "정2품" be translated as "Senior 2" per styles and titles in Joseon, and ijopanseo as "Minister of Personnel" per Six Ministries of Joseon?

Currently the enwiki does not seem to have a comprehensive list of Joseon offices (관직) and ranks (품계). This might be a problem later on, especially when it comes to expanding articles like Yi Sun-sin.

Also, speaking of Yi Sun-sin, should honorary titles like Gong be translated into "duke"? (see "Duke_Chungmu") Titles of nobility in Korea and China were used in different ways from European ones. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 03:33, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

I think this should/could be handled by the current wording of this draft MOS, without the need to add anything to the draft.

It'd rely on #Translating non-people names to English. Essentially, the guidance would be "if you know with high confidence that there is a satisfactory English-language equivalent for a title, use the English-language equivalent. If you are not sure, do not translate." seefooddiet (talk) 03:50, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

We might want to provide some guidance on consistency with commonly-used English equivalents, like Yeonguijeong or Six Ministries of Joseon. I might consider creating a list on Joseon offices based on AKS's database ([23]) as well. -- 00101984hjw (talk) 04:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

That sounds good. We could potentially share a few relevant lists in the Naming guidelines section. seefooddiet (talk) 04:30, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Romanization section

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea (2024 Rewrite & Proposal)

 – seefooddiet (talk) 08:27, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Gave this section a rewrite. Before and after.

Change log:

• Most of the logic is the same, optimized for concision.
• Added Yale romanization to what we use.
• Changed examples for romanizations; I'm still not happy with them though. The previous examples referred to province names that are governed by our naming conventions and used English words mixed in, so wasn't 100% clear. They also didn't illustrate the use of diacritics. Please feel free to swap them out again, I'll be thinking of better examples.
• Added rules about the use of MR/RR.
• Added a section to Naming guidelines on strict romanization vs naming conventions; this affects the romanization guidelines.

I will make more additions to this in near future. As a heads up, I'm currently writing a companion essay for romanizing Korean on Wikipedia. It provides more detailed explanations of our various choices. When I complete the first draft of the essay, I'll move it under the WikiProject Korea namespace, so that it belongs to the community and can continue to be updated. seefooddiet (talk) 06:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Please add in observed WP:STATUSQUO also otherwise once this draft goes live, there may be unexpected misinterpretation causing issues, including but not limited to, article's content, moving of articles, etc. I'm not particular on anything unless concerning on South Korea BLP-related topics. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 08:29, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Could you rephrase? Sorry, I don't understand what your message means. seefooddiet (talk) 08:41, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet I meant other than emphasizing on WP:COMMONNAME on RR. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:33, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm still confused, sorry. Btw I saw that you thanked me for an edit; I've since changed that text that you thanked me for. You may want to check the page again, RR no longer mentions WP:COMMONNAME.

Are you requesting we mention what used to be done? There's so many changes in this MOS that I think mentioning the previous standards may be cumbersome. Furthermore, the MOS is about reflecting current consensus, not necessarily what used to be done. seefooddiet (talk) 09:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Oh ... didn't saw that changes. Saw that it's now pointing to "Strict romanization vs naming conventions" which included my intention above hence I don't think we need to mention as per observed status quo (within English Wikipedia) and/or current consensus. However, I still need thinks that mentioning WP:COMMONNAME may be beneficial ... then again, WP:RM often lumps together a bunch of policies hence mentioning COMMONNAME may be redundant. In case, I'm being confusing, my only concerns is including but not limited to, article titling, name in opening sentence, Infoboxes (including but not limited to |name=, |birth_name=, |other_names=. Excluding {{Infobox Korean name}}), name in list/list of. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 09:59, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The romanization section is about romanization, not about English-language spellings. The two topics are separate; WP:COMMONNAME is more about English-language spellings.

To clarify, this is what the updated guidance is for South Korean people:

• Unless a WP:COMMONNAME or personal preference name is known, use RR (with hyphen in given name) for the article title, article body (including in the opening sentence), and infobox header (both in the header for {{infobox person}} and any of its variants, and the header for {{Infobox Korean name}}). For parameters like birth_name=, you should use this spelling too.
  • This is the English-language spelling I'm talking about.
• However, any time a template asks you for RR (namely {{Korean}} or {{Infobox Korean name}}), do not include the hyphen in the personal name. Only strictly apply RR, which normally discourages such hyphens.
  • This is just romanization.

It's unfortunately confusing. Romanizing Korean sucks. seefooddiet (talk) 10:08, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

@Seefooddiet Yes correct, your understanding (particularly point 1, not much concern on point 2) is aligned with my concerns. — Paper9oll (🔔 • 📝) 10:34, 5 September 2024 (UTC)