# What's the reason for changing "Corea" into "Korea"?



## cheshire

I think the name "Korea" was changed from "Corea" around 1900. What's the reason for the change?


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## Outsider

cheshire said:


> I think the name "Korea" was changed from "Corea" around 1900.


You mean in English? (In Portuguese, we still write it with a "C". )


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## Lello4ever

Outsider said:


> You mean in English? (In Portuguese, we still write it with a "C". )


In Italian too.


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## borgonyon

In Spanish it's always spelled with a "C".


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## Hakro

In Finnish it's absolutely 'Korea'.

If this word (or any other word) is spelled with 'C' you always have to see the next vowel to know if you should pronounce 's' or 'k'. So it's most logical to spell it 'Korea'.


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## Anatoli

It seems more natural to write East Asian names with a K, since names are transliterated phonetically.

However, I found this in Wikipedia:



> Because of the coexistence of "Corea" and "Korea" in the 19th century English publications, some Koreans believe Japan, around the time of the Japanese occupation, *intentionally standardized the spelling on "Korea," so that "Japan" would appear first alphabetically. *


Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Korea#Western_usage


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## cheshire

Hakro said:


> In Finnish it's absolutely 'Korea'.
> 
> If this word (or any other word) is spelled with 'C' you always have to see the next vowel to know if you should pronounce 's' or 'k'. So it's most logical to spell it 'Korea'.


If that's the logic in Finnish, is there no word beginning with the letter "c" that is pronounced "k" except for foreign words?


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## Talib

Finnish doesn't use C in native words.


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## Hakro

cheshire said:


> If that's the logic in Finnish, is there no word beginning with the letter "c" that is pronounced "k" except for foreign words?


As Talib said, we don't use C at all except in foreign names and words; in loan words we usually have changed C to S or K depending on the pronunciation (some scientific terms are an exception).

There are many Finnish jokes about mispronouncing the letter C, but I'm afraid you wouldn't understand...


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## indigoduck

cheshire said:


> I think the name "Korea" was changed from "Corea" around 1900. What's the reason for the change?


 
The name *Korea (Corea)* was derived from *Goryeo* period of Korean history.

I assume the decision to change it to "K" in english was a linguistic decision.
To have the english name be a trans-literation of the Korean name rather than via another language.
Accented vs Non-accented

K vs G


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