Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles

The Manual of Style/Korea (MOS:KO) is a style guideline for Wikipedia articles or content related to Korea.

This guideline is complimentary to the overall Wikipedia:Manual of Style. It provides extra guidance for Korea topics that the main MOS does not cover. MOS:KO should not contradict the main MOS; if you believe it does, please post on the talk page. It should also harmonize with other relevant manuals of style, particularly the Japanese MOS and Chinese MOS.

See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) (WP:NCKO), which provides further guidance on how to render the names of Korea-related concepts in English.

English words of Korean origin

See also: WP:ENGLISH and List of English words of Korean origin

Some Korean-language terms have been adopted into the English language. If such a term can be found in at least one major reliable English-language dictionary (e.g. the famous traditional dictionaries) from a primarily English-speaking country, we consider it an English-language word. For example, "kimchi" and "chaebol".

Sometimes these terms have a WP:COMMONNAME spelling that differs from the output of typical romanization systems. As we are on the English Wikipedia, spell these terms using the most common spellings used in English sources. For instance, "chaebol" and not "jaebeol" (Revised Romanization) or "chaebŏl" (McCune–Reischauer). Also, do not italicize these words per MOS:FOREIGNITALIC. For how to pluralize such words, check what English dictionaries recommend. These words are often not pluralized; e.g. "kimchis" is uncommon.

Nationality and ethnicity labels

If a concept is specific to North or South Korea, be specific about which Korea is being referred to; do not only use "Korea" or "Korean" to describe it.

YNaver is a South Korean online platform.

NNaver is a Korean online platform.

Avoid the use of "Korean", "Korean-American", "Korean-Canadian", "Zainichi Korean", etc in the infobox and lead (often in the § First sentence) to describe people from North Korea, South Korea, or the Korean diaspora (see below for historical Korean people). These labels are ethnicities and not unambiguous nationalities (i.e. citizenships). Instead, list nationalities that can be verified to reliable sources. An exception to this is if their ethnicity is significantly related to their notability (MOS:INFONAT, MOS:ETHNICITY).

YKrystal Jung is a South Korean and American singer.

NKrystal Jung is a Korean-American singer.

For historical Korean people of the Joseon and Goryeo periods, it is permissible to describe them as "Korean" in the lead, although you should also identify during which period they lived. For people of other historical Koreanic states, avoid describing them as Korean in the lead; instead refer to them by the state they came from.

YYi Hwang was a Korean scholar of the Joseon period.

NBidam was a Korean politician of the Silla period. (Do not describe him as "Korean"; instead describe him as a "Silla politician")

Birth and death places

For birth and death places in article bodies and in variations of {{Infobox person}}, default to the name of the place at the time of birth or death. However, per WP:MODERNPLACENAME and WP:KO-CONSISTENT, do not use the contemporary spelling or name; default to the spelling used in the most relevant article for that place.

For example, for a South Korean person born in 1947 in occupied southern Korea:

Ybirth_place = [[Busan]], [[United States Army Military Government in Korea|southern Korea]]

Nbirth_place = [[Pusan]], South Korea ("Pusan" was the common spelling for "Busan" until Revised Romanization was introduced in 2000. However, the common spelling and article title is now "Busan". Also South Korea did not exist in 1947; it was established in 1948.)

There is generally no need to list the modern equivalent location of the place inside the infobox.

Ybirth_place = [[Busan]], [[Joseon]]

Nbirth_place = [[Busan]], [[Joseon]]<small>(now in South Korea)</small>

Do not put the birthplace in the first parentheses of the lead, per § First parentheses.

Romanization

Many of the romanization decisions below are explained on the companion essay Wikipedia:WikiProject Korea/Romanization of Korean on Wikipedia.

When to romanize

See also: MOS:NOTLATIN and WP:ACCESSIBILITY

If a Korean term does not have a clear WP:COMMONNAME spelling or translation in English (see WP:KO-TRANSLATENAME), you must romanize it.

In general, per MOS:NON-ENG, you should use non-English terms sparingly. Korean terms can be used if they significantly add to understanding. E.g. don't write "He drank maekju", instead write "He drank beer".

What Korean romanization to use

When romanizing a term:

1. Check to see if/how it is covered in WP:NCKO. That page may prescribe modifications to the strict romanizations dictated here.
2. Refer to the table below, and select the most appropriate romanization system based on when or where the term is primarily notable. If notable in multiple categories, prioritize recency.

Primary notability	Romanization system	Example	Notes
Before the division of Korea in 1945 Northern and North Korea	McCune–Reischauer (MR)	kwagŏ (과거)	Use diacritics per WP:DIACRITICS, unless you can demonstrate that no diacritics is more popular for that term per WP:COMMONNAME. Follow the 1961 version of the system.
Southern and South Korea Linguistics examples for contemporary Korean	Revised Romanization (RR)	jeongnang (정낭)	RR officially discourages the use of hyphens to disambiguate pronunciation and in personal names. We also discourage hyphens for disambiguating pronunciation. For hyphens in people names, see WP:KO-STRICT and WP:KOREANNAME. We prohibit indicating optional hyphens like so: Hong Gil(-)dong or Haeundae (Hae-undae). Use the original pronunciation-based romanization, not the letter-by-letter romanization. Note that Google Translate produces letter-by-letter romanizations; do not use these.
Linguistics examples for historical Korean	Yale romanization	itwu (이두)

Italicization of romanized terms

See also: MOS:NONENGITALIC

For the first time you use a romanized term, you should wrap it in the {{transliteration}} template, with parameters set to indicate which romanization system is being used. This will automatically italicize the term. Subsequent mentions of the term should not be wrapped, and just be italicized. Examples:

• RR: {{transliteration|ko|rr|tteokbokki}} → tteokbokki (try hovering your mouse over the term)
• MR: {{transliteration|ko|mr|ttŏkpokki}} → ttŏkpokki
• Yale: {{transliteration|ko|yaleko|ttekpokki}} → ttekpokki

If the term is a proper noun, you should not italicize. In the transliteration template, you can disable italicization by setting italic=no.

Capitalization of romanized terms

Except for romanized titles of WP:KO-WORKS, which should be in sentence case, capitalization should generally follow MOS:CAPS. Notably for us, if a romanized term is not a proper noun, you should not capitalize it; there may be exceptions based on what is commonly done in reliable sources, however.

Full-width forms of Roman characters

Full-width forms of Roman letters (Ａ-Ｚ, ａ-ｚ), Arabic numerals (０-９), certain punctuation (！＂＃＄％＆＇（）＊＋，－．／：；＜＝＞？＠［＼］＾＿｀｛｜｝～￠￤￥￦) and spaces (　) should not be used; ASCII equivalents should be used instead, even when mixed with CJK characters.

Hangul

See also: MOS:NOTLATIN

When to use Hangul

Hangul can be helpful in clarifying what Korean concepts are being discussed in the Latin script. Romanizations can sometimes be identical for different Hangul, be irreversible, or be unorthodox. Furthermore, for English-language terms that are translations or official names for Korean terms, it can be difficult to understand what the original Korean name was, which possibly hinders researching or linking the concept being discussed.

Korean term as main subject of article

When the main subject of an article is a Korean-language term, you should display Hangul in the first sentence of the lead per § First parentheses. You can also display Hangul in § Infobox Korean name.

Gloss

For any term that isn't the main term of the article, when a romanized or translated Korean term is used for the first time, you should display Korean text for it in parentheses or a footnote using {{Korean}}. If the term already has its own article, link it.

If the term already has its own article, do not provide Korean text for it except for if it adds significant understanding.

YDol hareubang are also called janggunseok (장군석).

NDol hareubang (돌하르방) are also called janggunseok (장군석). (Do not need Korean text for dol hareubang, as it has its own article already)

Sometimes, even if a term has its own article, the original Hangul may be worth including anyway. In particular, if discussing etymology:

YBulgogi is compounded of the Korean words bul (불; lit. fire) and gogi (고기; lit. meat).

NBulgogi is compounded of the Korean words bul, which means "fire", and gogi, which means "meat".

Formatting Hangul

Example

Markup	Renders as
{{transliterate|ko|rr|[[Bibimbap]]}} is compounded of the words {{transliterate|ko|rr|bibim}} ({{korean|비빔|lit=mixed}}) and {{transliterate|ko|rr|bap}} ({{korean|밥|lit=rice|labels=no}}).	Bibimbap is compounded of the words bibim (Korean: 비빔; lit. mixed) and bap (밥; lit. rice).

Hangul should be wrapped in preferably the {{Korean}} template. There are multiple reasons why Hangul should be wrapped like this. Translations can also be included using the |lit= parameter.

Avoid repeated language labels

After the first time you display a language label, you should disable subsequent labels in order to reduce visual clutter. In {{Korean}}, this is done by setting labels=no. An exception to this is if there are other non-English languages in the article; in which case enable labels when helpful. Consider hiding labels if the language is already introduced inline before the text (e.g. The Korean word for restaurant is ''sikdang'' ({{korean|hangul=식당|labels=no}}).).

If you don't need to put Hanja, romanization, or translation right next to Hangul, you can alternatively use {{Lang|ko|...}}.

Italics and bolding for Hangul

Do not use italics or bold for Hangul, per MOS:BADITALICS. The templates {{nobold}}, {{noitalic}}, and {{normal}} can be used to remove this formatting in places where it is the default, such as within infoboxes.

Sourcing Hangul

You should provide sources for Hangul text, except for if the Hangul is unambiguous (namely if a romanization is perfectly reversible). Avoid inventing your own Hangul spellings for concepts.

Hanja

When to use Hanja

In contemporary North and South Korea, Hanja is rarely used. However, it has a number of uses on Wikipedia, especially for concepts that are significant before 1945.

Hanja for main topics

For the main topic of an article, you should display the Hanja for the topic generally only once or twice. For a concept with significance before the division of Korea in 1945, display the Hanja in both the first sentence of the lead per § First sentence and in the {{Infobox Korean name}}. For concepts mostly significant after the division, display the Hanja only in the Infobox Korean name; Hanja tends to be less important after that time, and we wish to minimize the amount of less important information in the first sentence.

Examples:

Y Goguryeo (Korean: 고구려; Hanja: 高句麗) was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea.

Goguryeo is a pre-division concept and Hanja is frequently used for studies on it.

N Park Chung Hee (Korean: 박정희; Hanja: 朴正熙; November 14, 1917 – October 26, 1979) was the third President of South Korea.

Park Chung Hee is a person whose notability is mostly after the division, and Hanja is otherwise not particularly important for understanding who he was. Do not provide his name's Hanja in the first sentence, only provide it in the infobox.

Hanja for other terms

For terms that aren't the main subject of the article, follow similar principles to those used for Hangul in § Gloss. Additionally, if the topic is mostly relevant after the division, consider not displaying the Hanja at all if the Hangul is sufficient for grasping what is being discussed.

Providing Hanja alongside Hangul is helpful for disambiguation, explaining etymology, and for topics relating to time periods where the use of Hanja was widespread.

Formatting Hanja

The principles in § Formatting Hangul also apply to Hanja.

In general, you should display Hanja and a corresponding Hangul reading together using the {{Korean}} template. If you wish to display only Hanja, use {{lang|ko|put Hanja here}}. We recommend against the use of the parameters ko-Hani and ko-Hant; dealing with them adds complication for little practical gain.

Partial Hanja

In some cases, only parts of Korean terms and names have corresponding Hanja. For example, a person's name with a native Korean given name: "Kim Da-som". In such cases, you can display Korean mixed script as Hanja: Korean: 김다솜; Hanja: 金다솜. Note that mixed script should match the spacing of the pure Hangul term, per § Spaces for Hanja.

Do not use hyphens or other placeholder text to indicate when a term has no Hanja, e.g. Korean: 놀아주는 여자; Hanja: ---- 女子. Instead, use mixed script.

Spaces for Hanja

While Hangul and Korean mixed script (Hangul and Hanja together) use spaces between words, text written only in Hanja is usually written without spaces. E.g. Korean: 고속화 도로; Hanja: 高速化道路; RR: gosokhwa doro; lit. freeway; the Hangul has a space while the Hanja does not.

Hanja vs. other Chinese characters

There are differences between Hanja and the Chinese characters used elsewhere in the Sinosphere that should be reflected on Wikipedia. The following should not be considered Hanja:

• In some cases, Chinese-language sources transcribe Korean words into Chinese. For example, transcribing the native Korean name Da-som (다솜) as Duoshun (Chinese: 多順).
  • In some cases, when a Korean person already has a Hanja name that is not widely known, Chinese-language sources may invent their own Chinese spelling of the name.
  • Furthermore, some sources (particularly those from mainland China) use simplified Chinese characters, which often do not overlap with contemporary Hanja.
• Japanese sources use kanji, another set of Chinese characters that also sometimes differs from those used in Korea. For example, the Hanja name for South Korea, 大韓民國, is rendered as 大韓民国 in Japanese.
  • However, Japan tends not to invent kanji for people when unknown; it tends to rely on phonetic spellings in katakana instead.
• South Korea has also developed its own Chinese-language transcriptions for Korean terms; for example xinqi (Chinese: 辛奇) for kimchi (originally a native Korean word without Hanja). Unless explicitly accepted as such in dictionaries, such words should also not be considered Hanja.

Unless particularly relevant (e.g. a person is significantly linked to both China and Korea), there is generally no need to mention Chinese transcriptions or romanizations for Korean terms on articles primarily about Korea, for the same reason that listing a Chinese transcription of U.S. President Jimmy Carter's name is not particularly helpful. For example, do not write: Kim Ku (Korean: 김구; Hanja: 金九; pinyin: Jīn Jiǔ).

Sourcing Hanja

If you provide Hanja, you must provide a source for it.

• Chinese-language sources are less reliable for determining Hanja, per § Hanja vs. other Chinese characters. Instead, prefer the use of Korean-language sources, especially reliable dictionaries.

• Do not cite other wikis, such as the Korean Wikipedia or Namuwiki, because they are unreliable sources.

Even if no source is known for their Hanja name, sometimes the meaning of a person's name is known; this may be sufficient for inferring what their Hanja are. You should provide a source for the description of the meaning and describe in a footnote ({{Efn}}) how you derived their Hanja name.

Article layout

See also: MOS:LAYOUT

First sentence

Family name footnote or hatnote

For articles about people, if the article title displays family name before given name (as is common in Korean names), you should provide either a {{Family name footnote}} or {{Family name hatnote}}, but not both. The family name footnote should be placed just after the bolded mention of the person's name, with no space in between. If the family name comes after (i.e. the Western ordering), neither templates are needed.

First parentheses

See also: MOS:LEADSENTENCE

Examples

Markup	Renders as
'''Lee Myung-bak''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|l|iː|_|ˌ|m|j|ʌ|ŋ|_|ˈ|b|ɑː|k}}; {{Korean|hangul=이명박|rr=I Myeongbak}}; {{IPA|ko|i mjʌŋbak|lang}}; born 19 December 1941)	Lee Myung-bak (/ˌliː ˌmjʌŋ ˈbɑːk/; Korean: 이명박; RR: I Myeongbak; Korean: [i mjʌŋbak]; born 19 December 1941)
'''National Institute of Korean Language''' ('''NIKL'''; {{Korean|hangul=국립국어원}})	National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL; Korean: 국립국어원)

In general, follow this order in the first parentheses. These elements are not all mandatory; see the notes for descriptions of when and how to use each item.

• English pronunciation
• English acronym for the topic
• Hangul and sometimes Hanja
• Strict romanization(s)
• Korean pronunciation
• Birth date and death date for people or individual organisms (like a dog or tree)

Do not include:

• Birthplace, per MOS:BIRTHPLACE
• Korean-language acronyms for the topic
• Beginning and end dates for a non-living thing or event
• Alternate names, if more than one

If the parentheses become too crowded, consider putting less important information in one or more explanatory footnotes, preferrably variations of {{efn}} or {{NoteTag}}. We recommend you do not use normal reference tags (<ref></ref>) for explanatory footnotes. We would like to keep those reserved for citations.

Infoboxes

Infobox Korean name

For North Korean topics, the parameter |context=north should be set. If the article topic significantly involves other countries from the Sinosphere, consider using {{Infobox Chinese}} instead, which has parameters for Korean and other Sinosphere languages.

If there is another infobox in the article (e.g. {{Infobox person}}), we recommend you merge the name infobox into the other infobox. This is usually accomplished by adding the |child=yes parameter to the name infobox, then adding the name infobox code to a |module= (or sometimes |embedded=) parameter of the other infobox. For the parameter name, check the documentation for the main infobox (e.g. Template:Infobox person#Parameters).

Birth and death places in infoboxes

See § Birth and death places.

Nationality and ethnicity in infoboxes

See § Nationality and ethnicity labels.

Dates and numbers

See also: MOS:NUM

Date format

Main page: MOS:DATEFORMAT

We allow either the month-day-year (March 1, 1919) or day–month–year (1 March 1919) format. Consider choosing either of those formats if the article has strong national ties with another English-speaking country that uses that format. Year–month–day (1919-03-01) can be used in tables, infoboxes, and references—if brevity is helpful—but should otherwise be avoided. The date format used in an article should be consistent and should not be changed without good reason or consensus.

Calendars

Prior to the 20th century, Korea used a lunisolar calendar: the Korean calendar. Per MOS:OSNS, you must provide Gregorian calendar dates for dates on and after October 15, 1582, or a Julian calendar date for before then. If you do use the Korean calendar, you must clearly indicate which dates use which calendar.

If only the lunisolar year is known, it is impossible to know for certain the Julian or Gregorian year. In this case, put a brief note (preferrably using {{Efn}}) identifying which calendar is in use and why conversion is not possible.

Units of measurement

See also: Korean units of measurement

Per MOS:UNIT, prefer the use of SI units. If other Korea-related units are used in your sources, such as the li (ri) or pyeong, it is permissible but less preferred to use such units on Wikipedia. If you do use such units, you should link to relevant articles about the units and then provide conversions of them to SI units. Currently, {{Convert}} supports conversion from pyeong to other SI units for area.

Number ranges

Main page: MOS:DASH

To express ranges between numbers, dates, and other things, use an en dash (January 1950 – September 1953 or 1950–1953). Do not use tildes (January 1950 ~ September 1953 or 1950~1953), as is done in South Korea. Note that this does not apply to the titles of works in references; use the original format verbatim. However, the |trans_title= should use the en dash format.

Links

No direct links to the Korean Wikipedia

Per MOS:INTERWIKI, do not directly link to the Korean Wikipedia in articles. If the topic doesn't have an article on the English Wikipedia, use {{Interlanguage link}}s instead.

Y{{Interlanguage link|Hyeon Sun|ko|현순}} → Hyeon Sun

N[[:ko:현순|Hyeon Sun]] → Hyeon Sun (misleading blue link; gives impression English Wikipedia has article)

If the topic already has an article on the English Wikipedia, do not link to the Korean Wikipedia version at all. If you think the Korean version has information that would be useful on the English version, put the {{Expand Korean}} banner at the top of the article being linked.

Wiktionary links

It is possible to link to the Wiktionary definitions of Korean words and phrases. This typically involves the use of {{linktext}} or an external wikilink, e.g. [[wikt:예]].

Use Wiktionary links for Korean text sparingly. They should generally only be used in the following circumstances:

• If the link offers significant understanding of the main topic of the article that cannot be easily communicated within the article
• Linguistic contexts (e.g. when the topic is about lexical items)

Do not do the following:

• Link each character without regard for where word divisions actually are.
  • E.g. {{linktext|기|다|리|다}} → 기다리다. The individual definitions of the characters cannot be used to tell you what the overall word means.
• Segment text incorrectly.
  • E.g. {{linktext|대학|생선|교회}} is incorrect; {{linktext|대학생|선교회}} is correct.
• Add Wiktionary links to
  • personal names (including art names, stage names, etc.). The meaning of a name does not describe a person, and the definition of a personal name is usually nothing more than "a personal name".
  • terms that are not suitable for dictionary entries (e.g. 새터데이 – merely a transcription of English "Saturday" and is not used as a word in Korean).

Two or more links in a row are discouraged per WP:SEAOFBLUE.

Families and family trees

See also: Help:Family trees

Lists of family members and family trees should have reliable sources given for them. Follow WP:KOREANNAME for how to render the names of people.

Avoid excessively detailed family trees, because of WP:NOTGENEALOGY and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. If you do give a family tree, default to only giving the immediate family (no in-laws, only biological and adopted parents, spouses, children, siblings). If there is a more distant relative who is interesting, you can consider mentioning them briefly, but avoid this if it does not impact their main notability. If you do so, avoid indiscriminate listing of all the relatives between these two people.

Exercise serious caution for whether to list the names of living people if they are not themselves notable or if their names are not useful for understanding the main article, per WP:BLPNAME.

Referencing Korean-language sources

For Korean-language sources, the following practices are encouraged:

• if you're using some variant of {{Citation}}, providing the original Hangul title in the script-title parameter (not the title parameter) with ko: just before the title.
• reproduce the Korean-language title verbatim; do not modify it using this MOS or WP:NCKO.
• providing a translated title of the work, e.g. in the trans-title parameter.
  • for these, follow the rules of this MOS and WP:NCKO; e.g. follow WP:KOREANNAME spellings, follow § Number ranges, etc.
• preferring the use of English for parameters if unambiguous (e.g. for place names or publishers with known English names, use the English names). If you translate or romanize text yourself, provide the original Korean text in the reference.
• not squeezing the entire Hangul name into the last parameter. If you'd like to avoid the comma appearing in the name, consider using the author-mask parameter as well.
• if you use a news aggregator, specify the original publisher and the aggregator, see WP:KO/RS#NA.

Markup	Renders as
{{cite news |last = 박 |first1 = 대로 |author-mask = 박대로 |script-title = ko:서울역 옆 서계동 재개발…최고 39층 2714세대 아파트 짓는다 |trans-title = Redevelopment of Seogye-dong, next to Seoul Station... Building 2,714 apartments with up to 39 floors each |newspaper = [[Newsis]] |via = [[Naver News]] |date = 2024-11-27 |access-date = 2024-12-01 |url = https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/003/0012925932}}	박대로 (2024-11-27). 서울역 옆 서계동 재개발…최고 39층 2714세대 아파트 짓는다 [Redevelopment of Seogye-dong, next to Seoul Station... Building 2,714 apartments with up to 39 floors each]. Newsis. Retrieved 2024-12-01 – via Naver News.
{{cite book |last = 이 |first = 성주 |author-mask = 이성주 |script-title = ko:청동기·철기 시대 사회 변동론 |trans-title = Social Transformation from the Bronze to Iron Ages |publisher = 학연문화사 |year = 2007 |location = Seoul}}	이성주 (2007). 청동기·철기 시대 사회 변동론 [Social Transformation from the Bronze to Iron Ages]. Seoul: 학연문화사.

See also

• Category:Korean multilingual support templates