Hangul

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

For other uses, see Hangul (disambiguation).

This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article
by introducing more precise citations. (November 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message )

Korean alphabet

한글 / 조선글

韓㐎 / 朝鮮㐎

Hangul (Hangeul) / Chosŏn'gŭl

"Chosŏn'gŭl" (top) and "Hangul" (bottom)

Script type Featural 

alphabet

Creator Sejong of Joseon

Time period
1443–present

Direction Hangul is usually written horizontally, from left to right and classically from right to left. It is

also written vertically, from top to bottom and from right to left.

Languages Korean and Jejuan (standard)

Cia-Cia (limited use)
 ISO 15924

ISO 15924 Hang (286), Hangul (Hangŭl, Hangeul)  Jamo (for the jamo subset)

Unicode

Unicode alias
Hangul

U+1100–U+11FF
Unicode range

U+3130–U+318F

U+A960–U+A97F

U+D7B0–U+D7FF

 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA

symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Korean writing systems

Hangul

Chosŏn'gŭl (in North Korea)

Hanja

 Gukja (Yakja)

 Gugyeol

 Idu (Hyangchal)

Mixed script

Braille
 Transcription

 McCune–Reischauer

 Romanization of Korean (North)

 Revised Romanization (South)

 Kontsevich  (Cyrillic)

 Kholodovich system [ru] (Cyrillic)

Transliteration

 Yale (scholar)

 ISO/TR 11941

 SKATS (coding)

 v

 t

 e

Writing systems

Abjad

  Perso-Arabic

  Hebrew

Abugida

  Canadian syllabic

  Ethiopic

  North Indic

  South Indic

  Thaana

Alphabetical

  Armenian

  Cyrillic
   Georgian

  Greek

  Hangul

  Latin

Logographic

and Syllabic

  Hanzi [L]

  Kana [S] / Kanji [L]  

 v

 t

 e

The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul  (English: /ˈhɑːnɡuːl/ HAHN-gool ) in South [a] [1]

Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for

the Korean language.  The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the
[2][3][4]

speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to
indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for
related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system.  It has been described as a [5][6][7]

syllabic alphabet as it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems,

although it is not necessarily an abugida. [6][8]

Hangul was created in 1443 CE by King Sejong the Great in an attempt to

increase literacy by serving as a complement (or alternative) to the logographic Sino-
Korean Hanja, which had been used by Koreans as its primary script to write the
Korean language since as early as the Gojoseon period (spanning more than a
thousand years and ending around 108 BCE), along with the usage of Classical
Chinese.  As a result, Hangul was initially denounced and disparaged by the Korean
[9][10]

educated class. The script became known as eonmun ("vernacular writing", 언문, 諺文)

and became the primary Korean script only in the decades after Korea's independence
from Japan in the mid-20th century. [11]

Modern Hangul orthography uses 24 basic letters: 14 consonant letters  and 10 vowel [b]

letters.  There are also 27 complex letters that are formed by combining the basic
[c]

letters: 5 tense consonant letters,  11 complex consonant letters,  and 11 complex
[d] [e]

vowel letters.  Four basic letters in the original alphabet are no longer used: 1 vowel
[f]

letter  and 3 consonant letters.  Korean letters are written in syllabic blocks with the
[g] [h]

alphabetic letters arranged in two dimensions. For example, the Korean word for
"honeybee" (kkulbeol) is written as 꿀벌, not ㄲㅜㄹㅂㅓㄹ.  The syllables begin with a [12]

consonant letter, then a vowel letter, and then potentially another consonant letter called
a batchim (Korean: 받침). If the syllable begins with a vowel sound, the
consonant ㅇ (ng) acts as a silent placeholder. However, when ㅇ starts a sentence or
is placed after a long pause, it marks a glottal stop.
Syllables may begin with basic or tense consonants but not complex ones. The vowel
can be basic or complex, and the second consonant can be basic, complex or a limited
 number of tense consonants. How the syllable is structured depends if the baseline of
the vowel symbol is horizontal or vertical. If the baseline is vertical, the first consonant
and vowel are written above the second consonant (if present), but all components are
written individually from top to bottom in the case of a horizontal baseline. [12]

As in traditional Chinese and Japanese writing, as well as many other texts in East Asia,

Korean texts were traditionally written top to bottom, right to left, as is occasionally still
the way for stylistic purposes. However, Korean is now typically written from left to right
with spaces between words serving as dividers, unlike in Japanese and Chinese.
 Hangul is the official writing system throughout Korea, both North and South. It is a co-
[7]

official writing system in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai

Korean Autonomous County in Jilin Province, China. Hangul has also seen limited use
in the Cia-Cia language.

Contents

 1Names
o 1.1Official names

o 1.2Other names

 2History
o 2.1Creation

o 2.2Opposition

o 2.3Revival

o 2.4Reforms and suppression under Japanese rule

o 2.5Further reforms

 2.5.1In South Korea

 2.5.2In North Korea

o 2.6Non-Korean languages

 3Letters
o 3.1Consonants

o 3.2Consonant assimilation

o 3.3Vowels

 4Alphabetic order
o 4.1Historical orders

o 4.2North Korean order

o 4.3South Korean order

 5Letter names
o 5.1In North Korea

o 5.2In South Korea

 6Stroke order

 7Letter design
o 7.1Consonant design

o 7.2Vowel design

 7.2.1Simple vowels

 7.2.2Compound vowels

 7.2.3Iotized vowels

 7.2.4Traditional account

 7.2.5Ledyard's theory of consonant design

o 7.3Hangul supremacy theory
 8Obsolete letters
o 8.1Most common

 9Restored letters

 10Unicode

 11Morpho-syllabic blocks
o 11.1Letter placement within a block

o 11.2Block shape

o 11.3Linear Korean

 12Orthography
o 12.1Mixed scripts

 13Readability

 14Style

 15See also

 16Notes

 17Citations

 18References

 19External links

Names[edit]
Official names[edit]
Korean name (North Korea)

Chosŏn'gŭl 조선글

Hancha 朝鮮㐎

Revised Romanization Joseon(-)geul

McCune–Reischauer Chosŏn'gŭl

IPA Korean pronunciation: [tso.sɔn.ɡɯl]

Korean name (South Korea)

Hangul 한글

Hanja 韓㐎

Revised Romanization Han(-)geul

 McCune–Reischauer Han'gŭl[13]

IPA Korean pronunciation: [ha(ː)n.ɡɯl]

The word "Hangul", written in the Korean alphabet

The Korean alphabet was originally named Hunminjeong'eum (훈민정음) by

King Sejong the Great in 1443.  Hunminjeong'eum (훈민정음) is also the document that
[10]

explained logic and science behind the script in 1446.

The name hangeul (한글) was coined by Korean linguist Ju Si-gyeong in 1912. The
name combines the ancient Korean word han (한), meaning great, and geul (글),
meaning script. The word han is used to refer to Korea in general, so the name also
means Korean script.  It has been romanized in multiple ways:
[14]

 Hangeul or han-geul in the Revised Romanization of Korean, which the South

Korean government uses in English publications and encourages for all purposes.
 Han'gŭl in the McCune–Reischauer system, is often capitalized and rendered
without the diacritics when used as an English word, Hangul, as it appears in many
English dictionaries.
 hān kul in the Yale romanization, a system recommended for technical linguistic
studies.
North Koreans call the alphabet Chosŏn'gŭl (조선글), after Chosŏn, the North
Korean name for Korea.  A variant of the McCune–Reischauer system is used there for
[15]

romanization.
Other names[edit]
Until the mid-20th century, the Korean elite preferred to write using Chinese
characters called Hanja. They referred to Hanja as jinseo (진서/真書) meaning true
letters. Some accounts say the elite referred to the Korean alphabet derisively
as 'amkeul (암클) meaning women's script, and 'ahaetgeul (아햇글) meaning children's
script, though there is no written evidence of this. [16]

Supporters of the Korean alphabet referred to it as jeong'eum (정음/正音) meaning

correct pronunciation, gungmun (국문/國文) meaning national script, and eonmun (언문/
諺文) meaning vernacular script. [16]
History[edit]
Main article: Origin of Hangul
Creation[edit]
Koreans primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing
systems that predate Hangul by hundreds of years, including Idu
script, Hyangchal, Gugyeol and Gakpil.  However, many lower class uneducated
[17][18][19][20]

Koreans were illiterate due to the difficulty of learning the Korean and Chinese
languages, as well as the large number of Chinese characters that are used.  To [21]

promote literacy among the common people, the fourth king of

the Joseon dynasty, Sejong the Great, personally created and promulgated a new
alphabet.  Although it is widely assumed that King Sejong ordered the Hall of
[3][21][22]

Worthies to invent Hangul, contemporary records such as the Veritable Records of King

Sejong and Jeong Inji's preface to the Hunminjeongeum Haerye emphasize that he
invented it himself. [23]

The Korean alphabet was designed so that people with little education could learn to
read and write. A popular saying about the alphabet is, "A wise man can acquaint
himself with them before the morning is over; even a stupid man can learn them in the
space of ten days." [24]

A page from the Hunminjeong'eum Eonhae. The Hangul-only column, third from the left (나랏말ᄊᆞ미), has pitch-accent diacritics to the left of the syllable blocks.

The project was completed in late December 1443 or January 1444, and described in
1446 in a document titled Hunminjeong'eum (The Proper Sounds for the Education of
the People), after which the alphabet itself was originally named.  The publication date [16]

of the Hunminjeongeum, October 9, became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North

Korean equivalent, Chosŏn'gŭl Day, is on January 15.
Another document published in 1446 and titled Hunminjeong'eum
Haerye (Hunminjeong'eum Explanation and Examples) was discovered in 1940. This
document explains that the design of the consonant letters is based on articulatory
phonetics and the design of the vowel letters is based on the principles of yin and
yang and vowel harmony. [citation needed]
Opposition[edit]
The Korean alphabet faced opposition in the 1440s by the literary elite, including Choe
Manri and other Korean Confucian scholars. They believed Hanja was the only
legitimate writing system. They also saw the circulation of the Korean alphabet as a
threat to their status.  However, the Korean alphabet entered popular culture as King
[21]

Sejong had intended, used especially by women and writers of popular fiction. [25]

King Yeonsangun banned the study and publication of the Korean alphabet in 1504,
after a document criticizing the king was published.  Similarly, King Jungjong abolished
[26]

the Ministry of Eonmun, a governmental institution related to Hangul research, in 1506. [27]

Revival[edit]
The late 16th century, however, saw a revival of the Korean alphabet
as gasa and sijo poetry flourished. In the 17th century, the Korean alphabet novels
became a major genre.  However, the use of the Korean alphabet had gone
[28]

without orthographical standardization for so long that spelling had become quite

irregular. [25]

Songangasa, a collection of poems by Jeong Cheol, printed in 1768.

In 1796, the Dutch scholar Isaac Titsingh became the first person to bring a book written

in Korean to the Western world. His collection of books included the Japanese
book, Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu (An Illustrated Description of Three Countries)
by Hayashi Shihei.  This book, which was published in 1785, described the Joseon
[29]

Kingdom  and the Korean alphabet.  In 1832, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great
[30] [31]

Britain and Ireland supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French

translation. [32]
Thanks to growing Korean nationalism, the Gabo Reformists' push, and Western
missionaries' promotion of the Korean alphabet in schools and literature,  the Hangul
[33]

Korean alphabet was adopted in official documents for the first time in 1894.
 Elementary school texts began using the Korean alphabet in 1895, and Tongnip
[26]

Sinmun, established in 1896, was the first newspaper printed in both Korean and
English. [34]

Reforms and suppression under Japanese rule[edit]

After the Japanese annexation, which occurred in 1910, Japanese was made the official
language of Korea. However, the Korean alphabet was still taught in Korean-
established schools built after the annexation and Korean was written in a mixed Hanja-
Hangul script, where most lexical roots were written in Hanja and grammatical forms in
the Korean alphabet. Japan banned earlier Korean literature from public schooling,
which became mandatory for children. [35]

The orthography of the Korean alphabet was partially standardized in 1912, when the

vowel arae-a (ㆍ)—which has now disappeared from Korean—was restricted to Sino-
Korean roots: the emphatic consonants were standardized to ㅺ, ㅼ, ㅽ, ㅆ, ㅾ and final
consonants restricted to ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ. Long vowels were marked
by a diacritic dot to the left of the syllable, but this was dropped in 1921.[25]

A second colonial reform occurred in 1930. The arae-a was abolished: the emphatic

consonants were changed to ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ and more final consonants ㄷ, ㅈ, ㅌ, ㅊ,
ㅍ, ㄲ, ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅄ were allowed, making the orthography more morphophonemic.
The double consonant ㅆ was written alone (without a vowel) when it occurred between
nouns, and the nominative particle 가 was introduced after vowels, replacing 이. [25]

Ju Si-gyeong, the linguist who had coined the term Hangul to replace Eonmun or Vulgar
Script in 1912, established the Korean Language Research Society (later renamed
the Hangul Society), which further reformed orthography with Standardized System of
Hangul in 1933. The principal change was to make the Korean alphabet as
morphophonemically practical as possible given the existing letters.  A system
[25]

for transliterating foreign orthographies was published in 1940.

Japan banned the Korean language from schools and public offices in 1938 and
excluded Korean courses from the elementary education in 1941 as part of a policy
of cultural genocide.[36][37]

Further reforms[edit]
The definitive modern Korean alphabet orthography was published in 1946, just
after Korean independence from Japanese rule. In 1948, North Korea attempted to
make the script perfectly morphophonemic through the addition of new letters, and in
1953, Syngman Rhee in South Korea attempted to simplify the orthography by returning
to the colonial orthography of 1921, but both reforms were abandoned after only a few
years. [25]

Both North Korea and South Korea have used the Korean alphabet or mixed script as

their official writing system, with ever-decreasing use of Hanja especially in the North.
In South Korea [edit]
Beginning in the 1970s, Hanja began to experience a gradual decline in commercial or
unofficial writing in the South due to government intervention, with some South Korean
newspapers now only using Hanja as abbreviations or disambiguation of homonyms.
However, as Korean documents, history, literature and records throughout its history
until the contemporary period were written primarily in Literary Chinese using Hanja as
its primary script, a good working knowledge of Chinese characters especially in the
academia is still important for anyone who wishes to interpret and study older texts from
Korea, or anyone who wishes to read scholarly texts in the humanities. [38]

A high proficiency in Hanja is also useful for understanding the etymology of Sino-
Korean words as well as to enlarge one's Korean vocabulary. [38]

In North Korea [edit]

North Korea instated Hangul as its exclusive writing system in 1949 on the orders
of Kim Il-sung of the Workers' Party of Korea, and officially banned the use of Hanja. [39]

Non-Korean languages[edit]
Systems that employed Hangul letters with modified rules were attempted by linguists
such as Hsu Tsao-te [zh] and Ang Ui-jin to transcribe Taiwanese Hokkien, a Sinitic
language, but the usage of Chinese characters ultimately ended up being the most
practical solution and was endorsed by the Ministry of Education (Taiwan). [40][41][42]

The Hunminjeong'eum Society in Seoul attempted to spread the use of Hangul to

unwritten languages of Asia.  In 2009, it was unofficially adopted by the town
[43]

of Baubau, in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, to write the Cia-Cia language. [44][45][46][47]

A number of Indonesian Cia-Cia speakers who visited Seoul generated large media
attention in South Korea, and they were greeted on their arrival by Oh Se-hoon,
the mayor of Seoul.  However, it was confirmed in October 2012 that the attempts to
[48]

disseminate the use of the Korean alphabet in Indonesia ultimately failed. [49]

Letters[edit]
See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables
Korean alphabet letters and pronunciation

Letters in the Korean alphabet are called jamo (자모). There are 19 consonants (자음)

and 21 vowels (모음) used in the modern alphabet. They were first named
in Hunmongjahoe, a hanja textbook written by Choe Sejin.
Consonants[edit]

The shape of tongue when pronouncing ㄱ (g)

The shape of tongue when pronouncing ㄴ (n)

The shape of teeth and tongue when pronouncing ㅅ (s)

ㅇ (ng) is similar to the throat hole.

ㅁ (m) is similar to a closed mouth.

The chart below shows all 19 consonants in South Korean alphabetic order
with Revised Romanization equivalents for each letter and pronunciation
in IPA (see Korean phonology for more).

Hangul ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

Romanizatio
g kk n d tt r m b pp s ss ' [i] j jj ch k t p h
n

Initial

/ / / silen /
IPA /k͈/ /t/ /t͈ / /ɾ/ /m/ /p͈/ /s/ /s͈/ /t͡ɕ/ /t͈͡ ɕ͈/ /t͡ɕʰ/ /tʰ/ /pʰ/ /h/
k/ n/ p/ t kʰ/

k k n t l m p t t ng t t k t p t

Romanizatio
– – –
n

g kk n d l m b s ss ng j ch k t p h
Final

/ /
IPA /k̚/ /t̚/ – /ɭ/ /m/ – /t̚/ /ŋ/ /t̚/ – /t̚/ /k̚/ /t̚/ /p̚/ /t̚/
n/ p̚/

ㅇ is silent syllable-initially and is used as a placeholder when the syllable starts with a

vowel. ㄸ, ㅃ, and ㅉ are never used syllable-finally.
Consonants are broadly categorized into either obstruents (sounds produced when
airflow either completely stops (i.e., a plosive consonant) or passes through a narrow
opening (i.e., a fricative)) or sonorants (sounds produced when air flows out with little to
no obstruction through the mouth, nose, or both).  The chart below lists the Korean [50]

consonants by their respective categories and subcategories.

Consonants in Standard Korean (orthography)[51]

Alveola
Bilabial Alveolo-palatal Velar Glottal
r

Lax p (ㅂ) t (ㄷ) k (ㄱ)

Tense p͈ (ㅃ) t͈  (ㄸ) k͈ (ㄲ)

Stop (plosive)

kʰ (ㅋ
Aspirated pʰ (ㅍ) tʰ (ㅌ)
)

Lax s (ㅅ) h (ㅎ)

Obstruent
Fricative

Tense s͈ (ㅆ)

Lax ͡tɕ (ㅈ)

Affricate Tense ͡t͈ ɕ͈ (ㅉ)

Aspirated ͡tɕʰ (ㅊ)

Nasal m (ㅁ) n (ㄴ) ŋ (ㅇ)

Sonorant

Liquid (lateral
l (ㄹ)
approximant)

All Korean obstruents are voiceless in that the larynx does not vibrate when producing
those sounds and are further distinguished by