Apparently Hangeul is the best Asian writing system to use if you want to fuck up English words the least.

Or at least according to the National Museum in Seoul. Pardon the quality of this minute-long video, titled "explanation of the superiority of korean konglish," I didn't take it.



Like the guy who uploaded it said, screwing up English the least in all of Northeast Asia isn't something to be proud of. However, you have to question the methodology that led to that designation. Is 커피 (kaw-pee) any better than コーヒー (ko-hee) or 珈琲 (kah-fay)? Hardly, and Koreans don't actually romanize it "kaw-pee," but rather "keopi," a word that's unrecognizable to those not accustomed to Korean or its romanization. And you have to throw out the last one: Koreans don't call England "잉글랜드" (Eng-geul-raen-deu), they call it 영국 (Yeong-guk). Regardless, are y'all seriously proud enough of 잉글랜드 that you'd brag about it in a museum?

Hangeul is neat, and ideal for pronouncing the sounds of the Korean language. But not only do foreigners get sick of hearing about it---"Korean is the most scientific language" (sic) is something heard almost as often as "Korea has four distinct seasons"---and we roll our eyes at talk of its superiority. Here's an extreme example from a textbook:

Language is the first precious intangible cultural properties in this world.
Writing is the first valuable tangible cultural propertie in this world.
Amog the rest, The Korean Language and Korean Writing are the greatest cultural inheritance of everything in the world.
Of course, there are only their language and writing in other country, too.
But their language and writing cannot express perfectly each and every.
The Korean Language and Korean Writing can express perfectly everything, everysound, all of thinking, and all of feeling of this world.
Like this, The Korean superior culture be Known to the general public, the foreigners are learning The Korean Language and writing, is getting more and more many.
This book is wrote for the sake of them.

That kind of talk, about being superior for rendering non-Korean words and about Koreans having better English pronunciation than other Asian learners, isn't that uncommon even though Hangeul lacks letters to represent many of English's sounds. Here's a blog entry that goes through ways of rendering "hamburger," and here's part of an anti-Japanese rap song big a few years back that mocks Japanese for their pronunciation of "love."

I am Korean! (I am a Japanese!)
Hey, you, try saying “Al lo byu!” (I rob you!) *1
No! It’s “I low byoo!” (I rob you!)
Are you retarded? Can’t you even pronounce that? (Hai!)
Are you really retarded? (Hai!)
Isn’t your country just fundamentally retarded? (Hai!)

Inexplicable if you've ever heard Koreans approximating English. *sigh* Take comfort, my dear readers, in knowing that I wrote this back in early December, and am currently on vacation in a sunnier Asian country.