KoreanRomanisation

KoreanRomanisation is a C# library for correctly romanising Korean text (taking Korean characters, and replacing them with a representation of their pronunciation using the English alphabet). It can romanise Korean text using any of four systems of romanisation: the McCune-Reischauer Romanisation, the Revised Romanisation, the Simplified Romanisation, and the Yale Romanisation.

Table of Contents

• Usage
• Testing

Usage

To romanise some Korean text, simply create an instance of the relevant romanisation class, and then call the RomaniseText() function.

var romanisation = new McCuneReischauerRomanisation();

var koreanText = "안녕 하세요";
var romanisedText = romanisation.RomaniseText(koreanText);

Console.WriteLine(romanisedText); // annyŏng haseyo

The other romanisation classes are RevisedRomanisation, SimplifiedRomanisation, and YaleRomanisation. The Revised Romanisation is the official one for South Korea, so probably most often the one you want to use, but the McCune-Reischauer Romanisation is the most accurate, the Simplified Romanisation is the easiest for non-Korean-speakers, and the Yale Romanisation is for academia.

Any non-Korean text will, by default, be preserved. If you want to remove any non-Korean text, set the PreserveNonKoreanText property on the romanisation class to false.

var romanisation = new McCuneReischauerRomanisation();

romanisation.PreserveNonKoreanText = false;

Additionally, it's often convenient to romanise ㅅ as sh and ㅆ as ssh when they are followed by ㅣ i. The romanisation classes do this by default. If you don't want them to do this, set the UseSh property to false.

var romanisation = new McCuneReischauerRomanisation();

romanisation.UseSh = false;

You can also choose to romanise ㅚ as oi instead of oe, which, although a less accurate representation of the pronunciation, tends to be less confusing for non-Korean-speakers.

var romanisation = new McCuneReischauerRomanisation();

romanisation.UseOi = true;

The Simplified Romanisation of Korean

The Simplified Romanisation of Korean is a system of romanisation created by me (B. T. Milnes). It's designed to be easier to read for people who have no knowledge of Korean whatsoever. The Revised Romanisation uses some digraphs that often confuse non-Korean-speakers, such as eo and eu. The Simplified Romanisation of Korean uses digraphs that should be more intuitive for those unfamiliar with the language.

Testing

This library is covered by 1263 unit tests, all passing as of the latest release.

The majority of these tests are of the four main romanisation classes (McCuneReischauerRomanisation, RevisedRomanisation, SimplifiedRomanisation, and YaleRomanisation), and they simply check: if the romanisation class is given some Korean text, does it return the correct romanised text.

There are also a small number of unit tests for the KoreanLetter and KoreanSyllable structs.