Hyun Bok Lee

Hyun Bok Lee^[1] (Korean: 이현복; Hanja: 李炫馥;^[2] born October 26, 1936^[3]) is a South Korean linguist.

Biography

Lee was born on October 26, 1936, in Boryeong, Korea, Empire of Japan. He graduated with a bachelor's degree and master's degree in linguistics from Seoul National University (SNU) in 1959 and 1961 respectively. He planned to study abroad in the United States and had even received a Fulbright Scholarship to do so, but decided against this due to his mother dying from illness around this time. He instead went to the United Kingdom, where he received a master's degree and PhD in linguistics from University College London (UCL) in 1965. After doing research elsewhere, he returned to UCL as a research fellow from 1969 to 1970. He returned to South Korea and SNU in 1970, where he was appointed an assistant professor. From 1977 to 1978, he was a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. He was a visiting professor at UCL from 1985 to 1986. In 1999, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He retired from SNU in 2002 and was made a professor emeritus.^[3]

In 1962, Lee created a Hangul orthography similar to the International Phonetic Alphabet that was intended for transcribing every language. It is called the International Korean Phonetic Alphabet (IKPA; 한글음성문자).^[4]

Lee has had an interest in spreading Hangul abroad. In 1994, he began studying the Lahu language, which is spoken by the Lahu people of China and Southeast Asia.^[4] In 2001, he developed a Hangul orthography for Lahu.^[3] For almost a decade, Lee taught Hangul to the Lahu.^[5] The script saw limited adoption, with missionaries preferring to use the Latin script to transcribe their language.^[4]

References