South Korea standardizes food names

SEOUL, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- South Korean officials say they are standardizing the names of the country's traditional dishes for restaurants around the world.

The country's Agriculture Ministry said it has created standardized menus for 124 dishes in English, Japanese and Chinese, and will add French and Spanish menus in the near future, Yonhap news agency reported Thursday.

The ministry said the list, which was created by a team of linguists, government officials and tourism experts, will first be rolled out at domestic restaurants frequented by tourists. Efforts will then be made to spread the spellings and descriptions to Korean restaurants around the world.

"There has been a considerable need to establish a uniform list of names for traditional Korean dishes, as restaurants both in Korea and abroad have been using whatever names they saw appropriate, without following correct Romanization or phonetic conversion processes or trying to concisely explain the meaning," a ministry official said.