A discussion on the Unicode list may be more appropriate here
(appended below in chrono order). It ends up asking about the
history of the letter K. One might equally well ask the history of C
as it can stand for a number of different sounds in different
languages or positions (s, k, ch, ts).

Don Osborn
Bisharat.net


1. Patrick Andries noted:

> Concerning CJK read somewhere Korea wanted to be named Corea in

English.

> http://www.onzetaal.nl/nieuws/opinternet/a0309.html
>

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-
zeitung/archiv/.bin/dump.fcgi/2003/0930/politik/0041/index.html?
keywords=Korea%20Corea;mark=korea%20corea

>

2. I (Don Osborn) reacted:
Although I admit to not quite understanding the motivation for this
suggestion, it seems first of all like a step backward to replace a K
with a C from a worldwide point of view - c has many different
pronunciations in different languages and positions; k is pretty
constant (so "Korea" from English can be very easily taken in similar
form in other languages whereas "Corea" would not). And besides, the
version with a c in English calls to mind chorea, which is not a
fortuitous resemblance.

3. Patrick replied:

> Although I admit to not quite understanding the motivation for this
> suggestion,

Request by 22 MPs that want to modify the English spelling by law.

Because according to the articles this was the original English
spelling before the occupying Japanese authorities changed the
initial C by a K so that Korea would follow Japan in alphabetical
order.

Apparently Nord and South Corea(s) want to participate in the 2004
Olympic Games under the letter C (» Sie geht so weit, dass die beiden
Länder bei den Olympischen Spielen 2004 gemeinsam mit dem C im Namen
antreten wollen. Überhaupt soll das Weltsportfest der eigentliche
Grund für die koloniale Buchstabensuppe sein. «)

4. Philippe Verdy offered:

> Request by 22 MPs that want to modify the English spelling by law.

Note that french has always written "Corée (la République de)": words
that start by a "K" or contain a "k" are extremely rare in french.

Almost all (if not all) french words with a "k" are imported from
foreign orthographs, such as "koala (un)" (the small animal), "rack
(un)" or "break (un)" or "week-end (un)" (imported from
english), "kurde" or "Kurdistan" (transliteration from Arabic script,
and similar phonetics).

It's simply because french does not mark the difference of
pronunciation between "c" and "k" (and uses instead the "ch" digraph
to mark the greek letter khi, or "qu" to mark the Arabic "q").
There's no tradition in French for East-Asian languages, so they are
written with the common french orthograph based or Latin or Greek
radicals.

I'm curious to know more about the history of "k" in English. I think
it may have been imported from Nordic languages which had some common
history with Uralic languages (which have spread in Eastern Europe
from Finland to Hungria, and may persist today within minority
languages of Southern Russia or in Siberia where Uralic peoples have
been deported by Staline). Am I wrong here?