Conclusion:

The Great King Sejong’s proclamation of “ the Instruction the People; the Correct Sounds” ( hun min ‘jo^ng u^m ) in 1446 is the invention of the Korean Alphabet (28 letters). The writing system of these phonemic alphabets is called “han gu^l”. To describe this language for non-native speakers, several Romanization systems are used. Because both “han ‘gu^l” and “the systems” have similar characters of phonologic values, pre-conceptions may prevent the logical approach to design this language. Among them, the McCune-Reischauer system is adapted by libraries including the Library of Congress, journals, and other academic and governmental publications. This system helps the English-speaking readers to approximate a pronunciation that would be recognizable to Korean ears using additional symbols. The Yale system, preferred by many linguists, reflects a one-to-one correspondence with “han ‘gu^l” spellings without using any symbols. The revised system released by Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2000 was designed for the computer without using symbols similar to the McCune-Reischauer system. All of these systems are required for a singer to grasp basic Korean language, and based on written language rather than spoken. The author’s method emphasized the allophones as spoken, which would be very close to Korean ears as well as non-native singers and speakers. To visualize the sounds first and to reproduce the Korean sounds are the method in this study. This paper will help to clarify the Korean sounds easily for non-native singers and speakers for any genre of Korean vocal music.

This diction study (Figure 5) or other systems could be included in vocal music publications for non-native singers to share the Korean vocal music in the future.

(Figure 5) Simplified Korean Sound System (Diction Study)

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