chaaklau
commented
4 years ago This was implemented as bgn-kor-Hang-Latn-1939, based on "BGN/PCGN 1945 Agreement".
The only difference between the two documents that I could spot, is on how they handle the initial ㄹ (rieut / r)
This letter is used to write out Sino-Korean words which was historically pronounced /r/. This initial ㄹ had been dropped in the spoken language before it was removed from the orthography in 1933 [1]. Before this reform, this letter R used to be pronounced as /n/ or dropped in the word-initial position. After the reform, the written form would be consistent with the actual pronunciation. Any word-initial R, for decades after 1933, would have been either loanwords or old spelling.
In the 1962 guide, this sound is transcribed as n or dropped, following the pre-reform convention. I suppose this is a way to handle pre-reform written work, i.e. if one sees this word-initial R, then follow the pre-reform phonological rule for transliteration.
In the latest guide, this rule has been removed, and R is always transliterated as is. This is because the traditional spelling was restored in DPRK in 1966, and since then all ㄹ is supposed to be pronounced and transliterated as r under this DPRK standard.
A related note from the latest BGN/PCGN guide is quoted below:
As a result of 조선말규범집 (‘Standard Korean Language’ guidelines published in North Korea in 1966), unlike the Korean spoken in the Republic of Korea, the language spoken in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea maintains and pronounces the word-initial ᆯ (‘r’). The use of the word- initial ᄅ ('r') can be seen in official news reports as well as native mapping. Since such examples exist, the word initial ᄅ ('r') is reflected as an option in the tables given above.
[1] Here is the original text from Wikisource
ronaldtse
Original spec: BGN_Romanization_Guide_1962_korean.pdf
@chaaklau could you please help check this too? Thanks!