|
|
|
|
|
GOLDSEA |
ASIAMS.NET |
ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
KOREA OR COREA?
(Updated
Wednesday, Jan 22, 2025, 06:38:55 AM.)
e at GoldSea choose to honor the more natural rendering commonly used in the English-speaking world prior to the Japanese annexation and colonialization of Corea beginning in 1905.
American and English books published during the latter half of the 19th century generally referred to the nation as "Corea" as recently as the years immediately preceding Japan's formal annexation of Corea in 1910. An 1851 map of East Asia by Englishman John Tallis labels the nation Corea. The same spelling is used in The Mongols, a 1908 history of the Mongol race by Jeremiah Curtin, the world's foremost Asia scholar of the day, as well as in several books by American missionaries published between 1887 and 1905.
Japan's annexation of Corea didn't become formal until 1910, but for all practical purposes Japan had become the power that regulated Corea's relations with the outside world in 1897 when it defeated China in a war over Japan's ambition to exercise control over Corea. The only other power willing to contest Japan's supremacy in the Corean peninsula was Russia. When it was easily defeated by Japan at Port Arthur in 1905, the annexation of Corea became a fait accompli. Anxious to avoid a costly Pacific conflict, President Wilson ignored the pleas of a delegation of Corean patriots and their American missionary supporters and turned a blind eye to Japan's acts of formal annexation and colonization of Corea. During that period Japan mounted a campaign to push for the "Korea" useage by the American press. Why? For one of Japan's prospective colonies to precede its master in the alphabetical lineup of nations would be unseemly, Japanese imperialists decided.
Japan's colonial rule over Corea ended on August 15, 1945 when it lost World War II. Now that Corea is eagerly shedding the last vestiges of the colonial period, even demolishing public buildings erected by the Japanese (for example, the monstrously immense colonial governor's mansion), forward-thinking Corean and Corean American journalists, intellectuals and scholars are urging the American media to revert to the original, more natural rendering of Corea.
The changeover will pose a problem only in English-speaking nations as other western nations never accepted the "K" spelling. For example, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, among many others, use the "C" rendering.
English convention, too, is on the side of the Corea rendering. Non-European names are romanized with a "C" (Cambodia, Canada, cocoa, Comanche, Congo, and even old Canton, for example) except where the first letter is followed by an "e" or an "i", (as in Kenya). Other than that, the "K" spelling is used only in connoting childlike ignorance of spelling conventions ("Kitty Kat" and "Skool", for examples).
Therefore, the American "K" spelling is
- offensive from a historical standpoint (remember "Peking" and "Canton"?);
- violates western rendering conventions;
- suggests a lack of sophistication toward Corea; and
- by connoting naiveté, imputes a lack of sophistication to Corea and its people.
The Corea rendering will ultimately become universal when more Americans are educated as to the offensive and relatively recent origin of the "Korea" rendering. The English-speaking world was responsible for agreeing to Japanese efforts to change the spelling of Corea's name in English useage. Who better than concerned Asian Americans to help change it back?
This interactive article is closed to new input.
Discussions posted during the past year remain available for browsing.
CONTACT US
|
ADVERTISING INFO
© 1996-2013 Asian Media Group Inc
No part of the contents of this site may be reproduced without prior written permission.
|
|
|
|
WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
to: chinalova
Everyone has their cross to bear ;-).
In spite of my best efforts, my second generation, K-A son and daughter are: color blind, loving and respectful of people of all races - the stuff they teach in the public schools about tolerance and racism seems to actually work!
It's my opinion that historically/culturally, K's social view was based on whether one is higher or lower than the other - to lead or follow as opposed to in the west, being "equal". This may have some part to with the perceived snobbyness.
I have worked with both many Chinese and Koreans, one admirable trait of the Chinese is they way they work or partner with each other, whereas the Koreans are more opinionated.
xrossed id in NYC
Tuesday, May 07, 2002 at 12:09:06 (PDT)
Garbage beneath my feet...well, take a look at this. I don't know if this website allows links, but the URL is as follows:
http://www.postmuseum.go.kr/English/cpe/cpe120w_mr.asp?Opt=2&pYear1=2000&pYear2=1884&pYear3=1910&pPeriod=
This is a Korean postal website featuring stamps issued through the Choson Dynasty (1884 - 1897) and the Han Empire (1897 - 1910). You can clearly see that the Korean government issued stamps with the word "Korea" in 1895, and that there is no stamp issued since 1884 that bears the word "Corea" in the English language. I found a stamp from 1903 with the French "Coree'," but that's about it.
According to the article, Japan began to formally push for the K spelling in 1905. They weren't being very original - the Korean government had been doing it for ten years! So was the Korean government already bending to Japanese will in 1895, or did they simply adopt a different spelling with no intent of degrading themselves?
BCL
Tuesday, May 07, 2002 at 12:06:20 (PDT)
[We see that you have decided to ignore our question about your intentions toward those "bigger" issues that need "worrying" about. Instead, it appears you'd rather expend your valuable energies on trying to discredit the "little" crusade in which we have chosen to participate.
The link you provide was posted quite a while back by other valiants of the CRM (Corea Resistance Movement). As we've pointed out, the formal annexation of Corea wasn't the beginnings of Japan's efforts at dominating Corea's relations with the outside world. Do more reading and you will see that Japanese had begun exerting a dominant influence over Corea as early as the 1870s, especially in the sphere of commerce and contact with the western world. One faction of the Corean court was already in Japanese pockets by the end of the 1870s. This quest for domination of the peninsula was the major reason for Japan's wars with both China and Russia. By the time Japan began making it formal, no nation was in a position to challenge its claim.
Don't forget that our spelling policy is directed at the English-speaking world. American and British scholars had been using primarily the C-spelling since the beginning of contacts with the hermit kingdom. Japan's policy was to change the English useage to influence ordinal primacy in international circles. --Ed]
NEWEST COMMENTS |
EARLIER COMMENTS
|