Registration forms for description changes

[Mark Crispin]

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Doug Ewell wrote:
> (The ISO 3166 
> names are not always what "real people" would use; I don't know anyone who 
> says "Korea, Democratic People's Republic of" instead of "North Korea.")

As far as I know, the use of "North Korea" and "South Korea" as proper 
names is a western affectation.

Actually, Communists and Communist sympathizers refer to that country as 
"the Democratic People's Republic of Korea" or "DPRK" in English.  I have 
never seen "North Korea" used in any Communist-origin publications.

North Korea's official name is 朝鮮民主主義人民共和国.  I don't know how 
to say it in Korean, but in Japanese it is "Chousen Minshu-shugi Jinmin 
Kyouwakoku" -- quite a mouthful!

What they use for the nation in the southern half of Korea depends upon 
whether or not they have diplomatic relations.  For example, for many 
years China used "south Korea" (note the capitalization), but after they 
established diplomatic relations with Seoul they started to use "ROK".

For what it's worth, South Korea's official name is 大韓民国; "Daikan 
Minkoku" in Japanese and "Tae-Han Min-Guk" in Korean.

North Korean publications always use "DPRK" and "south Korea" (typically 
with some insult), unless there's some all-Korea lovefest going on (as 
when the South Korean president visited Pyongyang) in which case they'll 
use "ROK".

South Korean publications in English seem to use "NK" which appears to be 
a US military abbreviation.

-- Mark --

http://panda.com/mrc
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to eat for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.