George M. McCune

George M. McCune (1908–1948) was an American historian and Presbyterian missionary in Korea. He developed the McCune–Reischauer system of Korean romanization with Edwin O. Reischauer.

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Edwin O. Reischauer: An American scholar of Japan and diplomat who co-developed the McCune–Reischauer system with George M. McCune. Their joint romanization system is McCune’s best-known scholarly contribution.
McCune–Reischauer: A system for writing Korean in the Latin alphabet, devised by George M. McCune and Edwin O. Reischauer. This is the joint system most directly associated with McCune.
Hangul: The Korean alphabet, created in the fifteenth century and used to write the Korean language. McCune–Reischauer renders Hangul forms in Latin letters rather than replacing the Korean script.
Revised Romanization of Korean: The South Korean government’s official Korean romanization system, adopted in 2000. It replaced McCune–Reischauer as South Korea’s official system.
Horace Grant Underwood: An American Presbyterian missionary who helped establish modern Protestant institutions and education in Korea. Underwood belonged to the earlier missionary network that shaped Protestant scholarship in Korea.
Korean romanization: The representation of Korean sounds and words using the Latin alphabet. McCune’s system is one influential approach within the broader practice.
Korean phonology: The study of the sound system and pronunciation patterns of the Korean language. The system’s spellings were designed to reflect Korean pronunciation for English-language users.
Yale Romanization of Korean: A Korean romanization system used chiefly in linguistic scholarship, especially in North America. Its scholarly conventions differ from McCune–Reischauer’s pronunciation-oriented spellings.
James Scarth Gale: A Canadian missionary in Korea who translated the Bible and wrote influential works on Korean language and history. Gale’s linguistic and historical work offers a precedent for missionary scholarship on Korea.
Korean language: The language spoken primarily on the Korean Peninsula and by Korean communities worldwide. The sounds and spelling of Korean are the subject his romanization system represents.