ISO/TR 11941

ISO/TR 11941:1996 (Information and documentation — Transliteration of Korean script into Latin characters) is a Korean romanization system used in International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It is mainly used in character names in Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646.

The technical report was withdrawn in December 2013.

Transliteration rules

Consonants Hangul Latin Method I (North Korea) Method II (South Korea) ㄱ k g ㅋ kh k ㄲ kk gg ㄷ t d ㅌ th t ㄸ tt dd ㅂ p b ㅍ ph p ㅃ pp bb ㅈ c j ㅊ ch c ㅉ cc jj ㅅ s ㅆ ss ㅎ h ㅇ '/ng ㄴ n ㄹ r/l ㅁ m

Vowels Hangul Latin ㅏ a ㅓ eo ㅗ o ㅜ u ㅡ eu ㅣ i ㅐ ae ㅔ e ㅚ oe ㅑ ya ㅕ yeo ㅛ yo ㅠ yu ㅒ yae ㅖ ye ㅘ wa ㅝ weo ㅟ wi ㅙ wae ㅞ we ㅢ yi

Apostrophe

The apostrophe (') is used for resolving ambiguity. It is used in the following cases.

• Both Method I and Method II:
  • When ㅇ appears at the initial position of a non-initial syllable of a polysyllabic word (e.g. 앉아라 anc'ara/anj'ara)
  • When ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅉ, or ㅆ appears at the initial position of a non-initial syllable of a polysyllabic word (e.g. 아까 a'kka/a'gga)
• Method I only:
  • When ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, or ㅊ appears at the initial position of a non-initial syllable of a polysyllabic word (e.g. 애타다 ae'thata)

In fact, the above rules are always applied; they are applied even when there is no ambiguity (e.g. 아이 a'i, 흰떡 hyin'tteok/hyin'ddeog).

In character names in Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646

In Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646, both Method I and Method II are used for character names.

• Method I: characters in the Hangul Jamo and Hangul Compatibility Jamo blocks (e.g. U+1103 ᄃ HANGUL CHOSEONG TIKEUT (디귿), U+3148 ㅈ HANGUL LETTER CIEUC (지읒))
• Method II: characters in the Hangul Syllables block (e.g. U+AF43 꽃 HANGUL SYLLABLE GGOC)

As the apostrophe is not allowed in character names, it is always omitted. For example, 옛이응 is yes'i'eung in ISO/TR 11941, but YESIEUNG in Unicode and ISO/IEC 10646 (e.g. U+114C ᅌ HANGUL CHOSEONG YESIEUNG).

External links

• ISO/TR 11941:1996