History of Korean Alphabet

Chinese writing has been known in Korea for over 2,000 years. It was used widely during the Chinese
occupation of northern Korea from 108 BC to 313 AD. By the 5th century AD, the Koreans were starting
to write in Classical Chinese - the earliest known example of this dates from 414 AD. They later devised
three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal, Gukyeol and Idu. These
systems were similar to those developed in Japan and were probably used as models by the Japanese.
The Idu system used a combination of Chinese characters together with special symbols to indicate
Korean verb endings and other grammatical markers, and was used to in official and private documents
for many centuries. The Hyangchal system used Chinese characters to represent all the sounds of Korean
and was used mainly to write poetry.The Koreans borrowed a huge number of Chinese words, gave
Korean readings and/or meanings to some of the Chinese characters and also invented about 150 new
characters, most of which are rare or used mainly for personal or place names.The Korean alphabet was
invented in 1444 and promulgated it in 1446 during the reign of King Sejong (r.1418-1450), the fourth
king of the Joseon Dynasty. The alphabet was originally called Hunmin jeongeum, or "The correct sounds
for the instruction of the people", but has also been known as Eonmeun (vulgar script) and Gukmeun
(national writing). The modern name for the alphabet, Hangeul, was coined by a Korean linguist called Ju
Si-gyeong (1876-1914). In North Korea the alphabet is known as 조선글 (josoen guel).The shapes of the
consonants are based on the shape the mouth made when the corresponding sound is made, and the
traditional direction of writing (vertically from right to left) most likely came from Chinese, as did the
practice of writing syllables in blocks.Even after the invention of the Korean alphabet, most Koreans who
could write continued to write either in Classical Chinese or in Korean using the Gukyeol or Idu systems.
The Korean alphabet was associated with people of low status, i.e. women, children and the uneducated.
During the 19th and 20th centuries a mixed writing system combining Chinese characters (Hanja) and
Hangeul became increasingly popular. Since 1945 however, the importance of Chinese characters in
Korean writing has diminished significantly.Since 1949 hanja have not been used at all in any North
Korean publications, with the exception of a few textbooks and specialized books. In the late 1960s the
teaching of hanja was reintroduced in North Korean schools however and school children are expected to
learn 2,000 characters by the end of high school.In South Korea school children are expected to learn
1,800 hanja by the end of high school. The proportion of hanja used in Korean texts varies greatly from
writer to writer and there is considerable public debate about the role of hanja in Korean writing.Most
modern Korean literature and informal writing is written entirely in hangeul, however academic papers
and official documents tend to be written in a mixture of hangeul and hanja.

Alphabet

Here’s another consonant: It's pronounced somewhere between the k in king and the g in guess.

This tutorial will follow the Korean government’s official guidelines for romanization (writing Korean
words with a Latin alphabet). These guidelines are based on the standard Korean pronunciation of the
letters rather than a simple letter-to-letter correspondence. That means we’ll use the letter g for the
Romanized version of this consonant when it takes that sound, and k when that’s the sound you would
normally hear.We can use this consonant to write the Korean word for a persimmon: “gam.” It’s a one-
syllable word, but if we put all its sounds next to each other we won't have a square box any more:

This problem is easy to solve: we stack up the and on top of the so that it all fits into a square
box:

, pronounced like the o in oh!

 , pronounced like the oo in moon. [The standard way of writing Korean using English letters, known
as Romanization, uses the letter u to stand for this oo sound, and that's what we'll use from now on.] Now
we have to stack our consonants and vowels on top of each other if we wish to stay within the square box:
This syllable: is pronounced mok with a long o, and it's the word for neck or throat.

, meaning door, is pronounced mun with a long u.

Letter-stacking rule: vowels that are "vertical", like , go to the right of the first consonant in your
syllable. Vowels that are "horizontal", like , go under the first consonant in your syllable. All of this
is done to make sure that syllables fit into a square box. Let's look at a word that has both horizontal and
vertical vowels in it: This word: , meaning elder sister, is pronounced nu-na. Here's another word:
. It means tree. Can you figure out how it's pronounced? (Answer on next page). A syllable that
consists of a consonant and a "vertical vowel" is written with the consonant on the left and the vowel on
the right:

+ =
n a na

A syllable that consists of a consonant and a "horizontal vowel" is written with the consonant on top and
the vowel underneath:

+ =
m o mo

If a syllable has a consonant, vowel, and consonant, the final consonant, called patch'im (meaning
"supporting floor" in Korean) goes to the bottom -- or floor -- of that syllable.

+ + =
m a n man

+ + =
m o k mok

Notice that all these examples follow the basic rule that all syllables must begin with a consonant.

We have a slight problem with one of our rules for writing syllables. What if we want to write the Korean
word for afternoon, which is "ohu"? If we split it into syllables, o-hu, we see that the first syllable begins
with a vowel, and that violates rule 1, which says that all syllables begin with a consonant.

To solve this problem, Korean uses this letter: . When it starts a syllable, it is a silent placeholder
consonant.

This lets us write o-hu as: . The first syllable now begins with a consonant that doesn't get
pronounced.
Here are some other Korean words that use the placeholder:

, meaning inside and pronounced an (that's the ah sound for the vowel, remember?)

, meaning "right" (as in right-hand) and pronounced u (that's the u sound in June).

, meaning "grace, suavity," and , meaning "peace" or "well-being."

Korean has a very well-organized alphabet. To change an a sound to a ya sound, and o to yo (and so on),
you just add one extra small line to the vowel, as shown below:

With one
This vowel sounds like: it sounds like:
extra line
a in father ya in yacht
o in home yo in yolk
English word you, and is
long u in sue
Romanized as yu
And one new vowel with its y-counterpart:
aw in lawn, and is yaw in yawn, and is
Romanized as eo Romanized as yeo

We have two more simple vowels in Korean that don't have "y-versions."

sounds like the u in put and is Romanized as eu. In words of foreign origin, it is used to "fill in" a
syllable and is barely pronounced; hence "Smith" would become "Seu-mi-seu"

sounds like the ee in meet and is Romanized as i. This is because the letter i sounds like ee in most
European languages.

etter Romanization Sound

a father
eo lawn
o home
u moon
eu put
i meet
Letter Romanization Sound
 ya yacht
yeo yawn
yo yolk
yu y

At the beginning of a word (the initial position) or at the end of a word (the final position), this letter:
sounds like the k in kiss. However, when you put it between two vowels (the medial position), it changes
to sound like the letter g in guess. This is a general rule, and there are sub-rules and exceptions, which I'm
not covering here.) This means that , meaning baby, is pronounced a-gi , not a-ki, and ,
meaning who, is pronounced nu-gu . Please note: The new rules for Romanization of Korean, issued by
the Korean government, say that this letter should be written as “g” when it appears at the beginning of a
word, even though it sounds like “k.” Focus on the written form and the pronunciation, not the
Romanization.When you get to the grammar section that covers verbs, you'll be introduced to another
significant sound shift. Remember the letter , the placeholder that's silent when it appears at the
beginning position of a syllable? When it appears at the end of a syllable, it's pronounced like the ng at
the end of king. That means that , the word for peacefulness or well-being, is pronounced an-
nyeong. Now let's move on to some new consonants. Here are some new consonants, all of which have
sound shifts. The shifts shown here correspond to the Romanization guidelines, and there may be specific
exceptions.

Followed by consonant or
Letter Before a vowel
end of word
d as in day t as in toy
b as in boon p as in pan
Romanized as r,
l at the end of ill
closest to soft d in American water

The letter sounds like s as in sigh, except in the combination , which is pronounced like the
English word she, wherever it appears in a word.

At the end of a word, the letter sounds like t at the end of wet.

Click the Korean words at the left to hear them pronounced.

, meaning to go, is romanized as ga-da.

Please note: although the sound is “k”, we are writing “g” here because the new rules for romanization
issued by the Korean government require this letter to be Romanized as “g” when it’s at the beginning of
a word. Focus on the pronunciation and the native letter form, not the Romanization.

, meaning shoes, is romanized as gu-du.

 , which means five, is pronounced da-seot. (Remember, the eo sounds like the aw in lawn.)

, which means rib, is romanized as gal-bi.

Great Aspirations
Here's an experiment for you to try. Put your index finger in front of your mouth. Say the word pin. Now
say the word spin. Feel the difference? You probably felt a little puff of air on the p of pin, but the p in
spin didn't have that extra air. [If you want to actually see the difference, take a strip of tissue paper and
hold it in front of your mouth as you repeat the experiment, pronouncing pin and spin.] The technical
term for that little puff of air is aspiration. In English, it doesn't make any difference whether a consonant
is aspirated or not -- most people aren't even aware that the difference exists. In Korean pronunciation,
however, it does make a difference if a consonant is aspirated or not. This is reflected in their alphabet

The Three Faces of P

We already know this letter: which is pronounced pretty much the way we pronounce the letter p.
There’s some air behind it, but not much. It’s romanized as p or b, depending upon its sound.. This letter,
has an extra-strength puff of air behind it. It’s always romanized as p. In older versions of Korean
romanization, this letter was romanized as p’; now it’s just p. This is why you really have to learn the
alphabet, and cannot rely on Romanization. If you see the letter p in a Romanized word, you can’t tell if
you have a or a . And this letter, has no air; it's the p of spin. Your throat sort of tightens up
when you say it; the technical term for this is that the letter is glottalized. It is romanized as pp.

Writing Korean
The Korean alphabet is just as easy to write as it is to read. One thing we need to know about in Korean is
called stroke order. This term comes from the times when Korean was written with a brush. It was
customary to make the brushstrokes for each letter in a specific order. It's much the same in English; when
you print a capital N, you draw the lines in this standard way.

You could get the same result with this stroke order:

but we seriously doubt your grade school teacher would have approved, and it just wouldn't feel right.
The next page uses Java to show you the stroke order for the Korean letters. The general rule is that
characters are written from top to bottom, left to right.

Writing Korean (2)

Below is a chart showing the main character forms in Korean. Click on a character to see the stroke order
in the large square at the right. Note that lines are drawn from top to bottom, and left to right. his tutorial
introduces the letters in an order that makes sense for learning the alphabet, which is not necessarily the
same as alphabetical order. If you're serious about Korean, though, you'll eventually buy a dictionary and
will find alphabetical order useful when looking up words. You can also do one of these two exercises:
The table below shows Korean alphabetical order. The top row of table shows the consonants in
alphabetical order; the first column shows the vowels in alphabetical order.

Combined Syllables

If you read the following table from top to bottom, left to right, you will see the consonant-and-vowel
syllables in alphabetical order. Note that there are empty entries in the table; these are syllables that don't
exist in Korean words. This chart is not a chart of all possible Korean syllables (the ones that include a
final consonant), as there are over 2500 of them. Here are some new consonants, all of which have sound
shifts. The shifts shown here correspond to the Romanization guidelines, and there may be specific
exceptions.

Followed by consonant or
Letter Before a vowel
end of word
d as in day t as in toy
b as in boon p as in pan
Romanized as r,
l at the end of ill
closest to soft d in American water

The letter sounds like s as in sigh, except in the combination , which is pronounced like the
English word she, wherever it appears in a word.

At the end of a word, the letter sounds like t at the end of wet.

Sample words
Click the Korean words at the left to hear them pronounced.

, meaning to go, is romanized as ga-da.

Please note: although the sound is “k”, we are writing “g” here because the new rules for romanization
issued by the Korean government require this letter to be Romanized as “g” when it’s at the beginning of
a word. Focus on the pronunciation and the native letter form, not the Romanization.

, meaning shoes, is romanized as gu-du.

, which means five, is pronounced da-seot. (Remember, the eo sounds like the aw in lawn.)

, which means rib, is romanized as gal-bi.

A Consonant Table
Normal Aspirated Glottalized Here's a table of the consonants and their various forms and
romanizations. Notice the pattern? The aspirated consonants have
one extra horizontal line in them, and the glottalized ones are
g/k k kk
"doubled" versions of the normal consonant.
d/t t tt The row outlined in yellow is a new consonant that you haven't seen
before.
b/p p pp
Again, for pronunciation, the aspirated form is pronounced with an
j ch jj extra-heavy puff of air. The glottalized version is pronounced
without any release of air, but with "tightness" in the throat.
s ss

r/l

Some More Words

Now that you have all the consonants and most of the vowels, you can start learning a lot of new words.
Here are some words for food, beginning with one that everyone in Korea knows:

It’s romanized as gim-chi, and it’s the spicy pickled cabbage that is a staple with almost every Korean
meal. Of course, no meal would be complete without . That’s the Korean word for rice.

You can click the Korean syllables in the tables below to hear them.

Here are more things to eat: And here are things to drink:
bul-go-gi broiled beef hong-cha tea
gal-bi-jjim beef rib stew keo-pi coffee
man-du dumplings mul water
kol-la cola
u-yu milk
Consonant Clusters
You now have all the single Korean consonants. As you learn more Korean, you may see words like
these:

or

What's going on here? Up until now we've had only one consonant "in the basement." All of a sudden
we've shoehorned two consonants ( ) into the bottom of the syllable.

This is called a consonant cluster. Here's the general rule: if the syllable following a cluster starts with a
vowel sound, the second consonant attaches itself to the vowel; that means you pronounce:

as if it were

If there's a consonant starting the syllable after the cluster, well, there's a whole bunch of rules that tell
you what to do. The usual result is that only one of the two consonants is pronounced; the other one
vanishes.

My advice for now: recognize that consonant clusters exist, and consult a good book or a good teacher if
you need to know the pronunication rules.

The Diphthong Table

Korean Romanized Pronounced Here is the table of the remaining diphthongs.
wi as in we
Due to the loss of distinction between the vowel and , the
ui see note last three rows are all pronounced pretty much the same in
wa as in watt standard Korean speech.

weo as in wall You may click the Korean vowel to hear it pronounced.
wae as in wear
Here's some extra information about how vowels combine into
oe as in wet diphthongs.

we as in wet

Here are some useful Korean words with their Romanizations and meanings: (Click on the Korean word
to hear it pronounced.)

a-rae down
an-e in
yeo-bo-se-yo Hello (telephone)
dae-sa-gwan embassy
 gwan-gwang-gaek tourist
yeo-haeng trip
bae ship (noun)
ban-aek half-fare

ere's the way you say "Hello."

(The other person will probably say the same thing back to you.) By the way, the word means
"peacefulness" or "well-being"; this phrase means generally, "Are things peaceful for you?"

The next thing to ask, obviously, is "How are you?"

With its response of "Fine:"

f you are saying goodbye to someone who is staying (you're leaving their house or place of business, for
example), you say this:

This phrase means, "Stay in well-being."

If, on the other hand, you're saying goodbye to someone who is going away (they're leaving your house or
place of business), you say this:

It means "go in well-being." If you meet someone on the street, you're both leaving after the conversation
is done, so you use this second phrase.

No civilized person would even think of travelling without these phrases committed to memory!

Thank you You're welcome

Sorry That's all right

Excuse me
ere are the phrases you need to know when you meet people for the first time.

My name is ____

How do you do?

(Literally: We meet for the first time)

Pleased to meet you.

You might have noticed that the phrases for greeting and parting ended in , as with

The phrases when introducing oneself to people for the first time all end in , as with

The form is used when meeting someone for the first time because it is considered to be more
formal than the form. You need not worry about being unintentionally rude when using an
form; it is informal but still considered polite. This topic of levels of politeness and formality is deeply
knitted into the Korean language, and is covered in great detail in most Korean grammar books.

1. 9.
head arm
2. 10.
ear hand
3. 11.
forehead chest
4. 12.
eye waist
5. 13.
nose knee
6. 14.
mouth leg
7.
neck 15.
foot
8.
shoulder