Hangeul

The Korean alphabet is called 'Hangeul'. Each letter in Hangeul indicates an individual sound or phoneme. Hangeul is an alphabetic system and was created by King Sejong in 1443 during the Joseon Dynasty. It was originally called ‘Hunmingeongeum’ and means the ‘right sound to teach the common people’.

Challenges

Before that time, Korean had an oral language but not a native alphabet, instead Chinese characters, which were sometimes modified according to the structure of Korean sounds, were used. However, it was not well suited to the structure of Korean and made writing very inconvenient.

King Sejong the Great

He ruled Korea from 1418 to 1450 CE as the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty. One of only two Korean kings called 'the Great' today, Sejong had a major impact on Korea and Koreans. His greatest achievement was creating Hangul, the Korean alphabet, but his patronage of science, technology, literature, and medicine all had a large impact on Korea and Koreans.

Structure

King Sejong conducted linguistic research to develop an alphabet that matches the structure of Korean and is easy to learn and write. The alphabet was made up of a total of 28 alphabets which consisted of 11 vowels and 17 consonants. Since that time, unused letters were removed and new letters were added, now there are 21 vowels and 19 consonants currently being used in contemporary Korean.

Consonants

  • ㄱ [k/g] - It is a gee-yok. ㄱ sounds [Kh] in beginning, [G] in middle and [K] in last position (placed).
  • ㄴ [n] - It is a nee-eun. ㄴ sounds [N] in beginning, middle and in last position (placed).
  • ㄷ [t/d] - It is a dee-gut. ㄷ sounds [Th] in beginning, [D] in middle and [T] in last position (placed).
  • ㄹ [r/l] - It is a lee-eul. ㄹ sounds [R] in beginning, in middle position and [L] in last position (placed).
  • ㅁ [m] - It is a mee-eum. ㅁ sounds [M] in beginning, in middle and in last position (placed).

Consonants

  • ㅂ [p/b] - It is a bee-eup. ㅂ sounds [Ph] in beginning, [B] in middle and [P] in last position (placed).
  • ㅅ [s] - It is a see-ot. ㅅ sounds [S] in beginning, [S/Sh] in middle and [T] in last position (placed).
  • ㅇ [ng] - It is a iung. ㅇ sounds Nothing in beginning, in middle position and [ng] in last position (placed).
  • ㅈ [j] - It is a jee-eut. ㅈ sounds [Jh] in beginning, [J] in middle and [T] in last position (placed).
  • ㅍ [p] - It is a pee-eup. ㅍ sounds [Ph] in beginning, in middle position and [P] in last position (placed).
  • ㅎ [h] - It is a hee-heut. ㅎ sounds [H] in beginning, in middle position and [T] in last position (placed).

Emphasized Consonants

  • ㅊ [chh] - It is a chee-eut. ㅊ sounds [Chh] in beginning, in middle position and [T] in last position (placed).
  • ㅋ [kh] - It is a kee-euk. ㅋ sounds [Kh] in beginning, in middle position and [T] in last position (placed).
  • ㅌ [th] - It is a tee-gut. ㅌ sounds [Th] in beginning, in middle position and [K] in last position (placed).

Double Consonants

  • ㄲ [keh] - It is a ssang gee-yok.
  • ㄸ [deh] - It is a ssang dee-gut.
  • ㅃ [peh] - It is a ssang bee-eup.
  • ㅆ [seh] - It is ssang see-ot.
  • ㅉ [jeh] - It is jee-eut.

    • Vowels

    • ㅏ- It sounds aa (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅓ- It sounds eo (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅗ - It sounds o (always placed below consonants).
    • ㅜ - It sounds u (always placed below consonants).
    • ㅡ - It sounds eu (always placed below consonants).

    Vowels

    • ㅣ- It sounds ee(i) (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅑ- It sounds ya (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅕ- It sounds yeo (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅛ - It sounds yo (always placed below consonants).
    • ㅠ - It sounds yu (always placed below consonants).

    Complex Vowels

    • ㅐ - It sounds ae(i) (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅔ - It sounds e (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅒ - It sounds yae (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅖ - It sounds ye (always placed after consonants).
    • ㅘ - It sounds wa (always placed below consonants).

    Complex Vowels

  • ㅙ - It sounds wae (always placed below consonants).
  • ㅚ - It sounds wi (always placed below consonants).
  • ㅝ - It sounds weo (always placed below consonants).
  • ㅞ - It sounds we (always placed below consonants).
  • ㅟ - It sounds wui (always placed below consonants).
  • ㅢ - It sounds ui (always placed below consonants).

    • Numbers

    • 0 - It sounds 영 (yeong).
    • 1 - It sounds 일 (il).
    • 2 - It sounds 이 (i).
    • 3 - It sounds 삼 (sam).
    • 4 - It sounds 사 (sa).

    Numbers

    • 5 - It sounds 오 (o).
    • 6 - It sounds 육 (yuk).
    • 7 - It sounds 칠 (chil).
    • 8 - It sounds 팔 (pal).
    • 9 - It sounds 구 (gu).
    • 10 - It sounds 십 (sip).