Hangul

Hangul (??) is the native alphabet used to write the Korean language, as opposed to the Hanja system borrowed from China. For other Romanized spellings of "Hangul", please see Names below.

Jamo

Jamo (??; ??) or natsori (???) are the letters that make up the Hangul alphabet. Ja means letter or character, and mo means mother, so the name signifies that the jamo are the building-blocks of the script.

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There are 51 jamo, of which 24 are equivalents to letters of the Roman alphabet. The other 27 are clusters of two or sometimes three jamo. Of the 24 simple jamo, fourteen are consonants (ja-eum ??, ??: literally "child sounds") and ten are vowels (mo-eum ??, ??: literally "mother sounds"). Five of the simple consonants are doubled to form the five tense consonants (see below), while another eleven clusters are formed of two different consonants. The ten vowel jamo can be combined to form eleven diphthongs. Here is a summary:

Related Topics:
Letter - Roman alphabet - Consonant - Vowel - Diphthong

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• 14 simple consonants: ??????????????, plus obsolete ??????
• 5 double consonants: ?????, plus obsolete ????
• 11 consonant clusters: ???????????, plus obsolete ????????????????????, and obsolete triple clusters ????
• 6 simple vowels: ??????, plus obsolete ?
• 4 yotized simple vowels: ????
• 11 diphthongs: ???????????, plus obsolete ???????

Four of the simple vowel jamo are derived, with a short stroke that signifies yotization (a preceding y): ? ya, ? yeo, ? yo, and ? yu. These four are counted as part of the 24 simple jamo because the yotizing stroke taken out of context does not represent y. In fact, there is no separate jamo for y.

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Of the simple consonants, ? chieut, ? kieuk, ? tieut, and ? pieup are aspirated derivatives of ? jieut, ? giyeok, ? digeut, and ? bieup, respectively, formed by combining the parent consonant with an extra stroke representing aspiration.

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The doubled consonants consist of two identical consonants placed beside each other horizontally. They are: ? ssang-giyeok (kk: ssang- ? "double"), ? ssang-digeut (tt), ? ssang-bieup (pp), ? ssang-siot (ss), and ? ssang-jieut (jj). Double jamo do not represent geminate consonants, but instead are tense.

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The sounds represented by the single and double consonantal jamo cannot be pronounced alone in normal speech.

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There are three formal categories of jamo:

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• Initial (??, ?? choseong): The syllable onset of consonant(s) before the vowel(s). These include all five doubled jamo. The lack of an initial is indicated by the silent placeholder jamo ?.
• * Position: Placed at the top, left, or upper-left corner of the syllabic block.
• * See: Hangul consonant and vowel tables#Initials
• Medial (??, ?? jungseong): The vowels comprising the syllable nucleus.
• * Position: The middle of the syllable block if there's a final, otherwise at the right or bottom.
• : For a list of the medials, see #Vowel jamo design
• Final (??, ?? jongseong): The syllable coda of consonant(s) after the vowel(s). All basic jamo can occur as finals, and the silent initial ㅇ is pronounced ng in final position. However, the only doubled jamo that can occur finally are ? (ss) and ? (kk).
• * Position: Placed at the bottom, right or lower-right corner of the block.
• * See: Hangul consonant and vowel tables#Finals

Jamo design

Hangul is unique among the world's scripts in being featural. Scripts may indicate morphemes (so called logograms like hanja), syllables (like kana), or segments (an alphabet of consonants and/or vowels, like the one you're reading here). Hangul goes further than this, in indicating individual distinctive phonetic features such as place of articulation (labial, coronal, velar, glottal) and manner of articulation (plosive, nasal, sibilant, aspirated) for consonant jamo, and yotization (a preceding y- sound), harmonic class, and umlaut for vowel jamo.

Related Topics:
Featural - Morpheme - Logogram - Hanja - Syllable - Kana - Alphabet - Place of articulation - Labial - Coronal - Velar - Glottal - Manner of articulation - Plosive - Nasal - Sibilant - Aspirated - Harmonic class - Umlaut

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For instance, the jamo ? t is composed of three strokes, each one meaningful: the top stroke indicates it is a plosive, like ? ?, ? g, ? d, ? b, ? j, which have the same stroke (the last is affricative, a plosive-fricative sequence); the middle stroke indicates that it is aspirated, like ? h, ? k, ? p, ? ch, which also have this stroke; and the curved bottom stroke indicates that it's coronal, like ? n, ? d, ? l. Two consonants, ? and ?, have dual pronunciations, and may be composed of two elements to represent these ({{IPA|}}/silent and {{IPA|}}/{{IPA|}}, respectively).

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With vowel jamo, what was originally a dot (now a short connected line) indicates that it may be yotized; this dot is then doubled to indicate actual yotization (y-). The position of the dot indicates which harmonic class the vowel belongs to ("light" or "dark"). In the modern jamo, an additional vertical stroke indicates umlaut, deriving ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}} from ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}. However, this is not part of the intentional design of the script, but rather a natural development from what were originally diphthongs ending in the vowel ?. (e.g. ? {{IPA|}}, ? {{IPA|}}, etc.) Indeed, in many Korean dialects, including the standard dialect of Seoul, some of these may still be diphthongs.

Related Topics:
"light" - Umlaut - Diphthong - Korean dialects - Dialect of Seoul

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Although the design of the script may be featural, for all practical purposes it behaves as an alphabet. The jamo ? isn't read as three letters coronal plosive aspirated, for instance, but as a single consonant t. Likewise, the former diphthong ? is read as an independent vowel e.

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Beside the jamo, Hangul originally employed diacritic marks to indicate pitch accent. A syllable with a high pitch was marked with a dot (·) to the left of it (when writing vertically); a syllable with a rising pitch was marked with a double dot, like a colon (:). These are no longer used. However, although vowel length is phonemic in Korean, it was never indicated in Hangul, except that syllables with rising pitch necessarily have long vowels.

Related Topics:
Diacritic mark - Pitch accent - Vowel length

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Although some aspects of Hangul are shared with Phagspa (and thus Indic phonology), such as the relationships among the jamo and the alphabetic principle itself, other aspects are shared with Chinese writing, such as syllablic blocks and the basic consonants. Tenuis (non-voiced, non-aspirated) plosives, g for ? {{IPA|}}, d for ? {{IPA|}}, and b for ? {{IPA|}} were considered basic in Chinese, but not Indic languages; as well as the sibilant s for ? {{IPA|}} and the liquid l for ? {{IPA|}}. (Korean ㅈ was pronounced {{IPA|}} in the 15th century.)

Related Topics:
Alphabetic principle - Tenuis

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The Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye explains the designs and derivations of the consonants according to articulatory phonetics; and the vowels according to the principles of yin and yang and vowel harmony.

Related Topics:
Articulatory phonetics - ''yin'' and ''yang'' - Vowel harmony

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Consonant jamo design

The letters for the consonants fall into five groups, each with a basic shape, and one or more letters derived from this shape by means of additional strokes. The basic shapes model the articulation the tongue, palate, teeth, and throat take when making these sounds.

Related Topics:
Tongue - Palate - Teeth - Throat

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The Korean names for the groups are the traditional Sino-Korean phonetic terminology.

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• Velar consonants (??, ?? a-eum: "molar sounds"):
• ? g {{IPA|}}, ? k {{IPA|}}
• Basic shape: ? is a side view of the back of the tongue raised toward the velum (soft palate). (For illustration, access the external link below.) The ? is derived from ?, with an extra stroke for the burst of aspiration.
• Coronal consonants (??, ?? seol-eum: "lingual sounds"):
• ? n {{IPA|}}, ? d {{IPA|}}, ? t {{IPA|}}, ? r/l
• Basic shape: ? is a side view of the tip of the tongue raised toward the alveolar ridge (gum ridge). The letters derived from ? are pronounced with the same basic articulation. The line topping ? represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The middle stroke of ? represents the burst of aspiration. The top of ? represents a flap of the tongue.
• Bilabial consonants (??, ?? sun-eum: "labial sounds"):
• ? m {{IPA|}}, ? b {{IPA|}}, ? p {{IPA|}}
• Basic shape: ? represents the outline of the lips in contact with each other. The top of ? represents the release burst of the b. The top stroke of ? is for the burst of aspiration.
• Sibilants (??, ?? chieum: "dental sounds"):
• ? s {{IPA|}}, ? j {{IPA|}}, ? ch {{IPA|}}
• Basic shape: ? was originally shaped like a wedge ?, without the serif on top. It represents a side view of the teeth. The line topping ? represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The stroke topping ? represents an additional burst of aspiration.
• Glottal consonants (??, ?? hueum: "throat sounds"):
• ? ng {{IPA|}}, ? h {{IPA|}}
• Basic shape: ? is an outline of the throat. Originally ? was two letters, a simple circle for silence (null consonant), and a circle topped by a verticle line, ?, for the nasal ng. A now obsolete letter, ?, represented a glottal stop, which is pronounced in the throat and had closure represented by the top line, like ???. Derived from ? is ?, in which the extra stroke represents a burst of aspiration.

The phonetic theory inherent in the derivation of glottal stop ? and aspirate ? from the null ?is more accurate than modern IPA usage. In the IPA, the glottal consonants are posited as having a specific "glottal" place of articulation. However, recent phonetic theory has come to view the glottal stop and to be isolated features of 'stop' and 'aspiration' without a true place of articulation, just as their hangul representations based on the null symbol assume.

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Vowel jamo design

Vowel letters are based on three elements:

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• A horizontal line representing the flat Earth, the essence of yin.
• A point for the Sun in the heavens, the essence of yang. (This becomes a short stroke when written with a brush.)
• A vertical line for the upright Human, the neutral mediator between the two.

Dots (now short lines) are added to these three basic elements to derive the other simple vowel jamo.

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• Simple vowels
• Horizontal letters: these are mid-high back vowels.
• ? o
• ? u
• ? eu (?)
• Vertical letters: these were once low or front vowels. (ㅓ eo has since migrated to the back of the mouth.)
• ? a
• ? eo (?)
• ? i
• Compound jamo. Hangul never had a w, except for Sino-Korean etymology. Since an o or u before an a or eo became a {{IPA|}} sound, which occurred nowhere else, {{IPA|}} could always be analyzed as a phonemic o or u, and no letter for {{IPA|}} was needed. However, vowel harmony must be observed: yin ? with yin ?; yang ? with yang ?. The compound jamo ending in ? i, on the other hand, were originally diphthongs. However, several have since evolved into pure vowels.
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• ? = ? + ?
• Yotized vowels: There is no jamo for Roman y-. Instead, this sound is indicated by doubling the stroke attached to the base line.
• ? = ? + a stroke
• ? = ? + a stroke
• ? = ? + a stroke
• ? = ? + a stroke
• ? = ? + a stroke
• ? = ? + a stroke

Two methods were used to organize and classify these vowels, vowel harmony and yotization.

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Of the seven vowels, four could be preceded by a y- sound ("yotized"). These four were written as a dot next to a line: ????. (Through the influence of Chinese calligraphy, the dots soon became connected to the line, as seen here.) Yotization was then indicated by doubling this dot: ????. The three vowels which could not be yotized were written with a single stroke: ???.

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The Korean language of this period had vowel harmony to a greater extent than it does today. Vowels alternated according to their environment, and fell into "harmonic" groups. This affected the morphology of the language, and Korean phonology described it in terms of yin and yang: If a word had yang ('bright') vowels, then most suffixes also had to have a yang vowel; and conversely, if the root had yin ('dark') vowels, the suffixes needed to be yin as well. There was a harmonic third group called "mediating" ('neutral' in Western terminology) that could coexist with either yin or yang vowels.

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The Korean neutral vowel was ? i. The yin vowels were ??? eu, u, eo; the dots are in the yin directions of 'down' and 'left'. The yang vowels were ???, ?, o, a, with the dots in the yang directions of 'up' and 'right'. As mentioned above, the Hunmin Jeong-eum states that the shapes of the non-dotted jamo ??? were also chosen to represent the concepts of yin, yang, and mediation. (The dot ? ? is now obsolete.)

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There was yet a third parameter for designing the vowel jamo: namely, choosing ? as the graphic base of ? and ?, and ? as the base of ? and ?. A full understanding of what these horizontal and vertical groups had in common would require knowing the exact sound values these vowels had in the 15th century. Our uncertainty is primarily with the jamo ???. Some linguists reconstruct these as {{IPA|*a, *?, *e}}, respectively; others as {{IPA|*ə, *e, *a}}. However, the horizontal jamo ??? do appear to have all been mid to high back vowels, {{IPA|}}.

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Ledyard's theory of consonant jamo design

Jamo order

The alphabetical order of Hangul does not mix consonants and vowels as the Western alphabets (Latin alphabet and Cyrillic alphabet) do. Instead, the order is of the Indic type, first velar consonants, then coronals, labials, sibilants, etc. However, the consonants come before the vowels rather than after as in Sanscrit and Tibetan.

Related Topics:
Latin alphabet - Cyrillic alphabet - Indic type - Sanscrit - Tibetan

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The modern alphabetic order was set by Choi Sejin in 1527. This was before the development of the Korean tense consonants and the double jamo that represent them. The conflation of the two letters ㅇ and ㆁ also occurred after the alphabetic order was set. Therefore, when the South Korean and North Korean governments implemented full use of Hangul, they ordered these letters differently, with South Korean grouping similar letters together, and North Korea placing the new letters at the end.

Related Topics:
Choi Sejin - 1527 - South Korea - North Korea

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South Korean order

The modern order of the consonantal jamo is:

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ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

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Double consonantal jamo are placed immediately after the simple jamo they are based on. No distinction is made between silent and nasal ㅇ.

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The order of the vocalic jamo is:

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ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ

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The modern monophthongal vowels come first, with the derived forms interspersed according to their form: first added i, then yotized, then yotized with added i. Diphthongs beginning with w- are ordered according to their spelling as ㅏ or ㅓ plus a second vowel, not as separate digraphs.

Related Topics:
Monophthong - Diphthong - Digraph

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North Korean order

North Korea maintains a more traditional order.

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The modern order of the consonantal jamo is:

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(null) ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? (null-?)

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The first ? is the nasal ? ng, which occures in the final in the modern language. ? used at the initial, on the other hand, goes after ?, because it is a placeholder. A letter with no final consonant goes right before that letter with ? at the final, however.

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Note that the "new" letters, the double jamo, are placed at the very end of the alphabet, just before the null ㅇ, so as not to alter the traditional order of the rest of the alphabet.

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The order of the vocalic jamo is:

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? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

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All digraphs and trigraphs, including the old diphthongs ㅐ and ㅔ, are placed after all basic vowels, again maintaining Choi's alphabetic order.

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Jamo names

The Hangul arrangement is called "the ganada order" (??? ?), after the first three jamo (g, n, and d) affixed to the first vowel (a). The jamo were named by Choi Sejin in 1527. North Korea regularized the names when it made Hangul its official orthography.

Related Topics:
Choi Sejin - 1527

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Consonantal jamo names

The modern consonants have two-syllable names, with the consonant coming both at the beginning and end of the name, as follows:

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All jamo in North Korea, and all but three in the more traditional nomenclature used in South Korea, have names of the format of letter + i + eu + letter. For example, Choi wrote bieup with the hanja ? (bi) ? (eup). The names of g, d, and s are exceptions because there are no hanja for euk, eut, and eus. ? yeok is used in place of euk. Since there is no hanja that ends in t or s, Choi chose two hanja to be read in their Korean gloss, ? kkeut ("end") and ? os ("clothes").

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Originally, Choi gave j, ch, k, t, p, and h the irregular one-syllable names of ji, chi, ki, ti, pi, and hi, because they should not be used as final consonants, as specified in Hunmin jeong-eum. But after the establishment of the new orthography in 1933, which allowed all consonsants to be placed as the final consonants, the names were changed to the present forms.

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The double jamo precede the parent consonant's name with the word ? ssang, meaning "twin" or "double", or with ? doen in North Korea, meaning "strong". Thus:

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In North Korea, an alternate way to refer to the jamo is by the name letter + eu (?), for example, ? geu for the jamo ?, ? sseu for the jamo ?, etc.

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Vocalic jamo names

The vocalic jamo names are simply the vowel itself, written with the null initial ? ieung and the vowel being named. Thus:

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Obsolete jamo

Several jamo are obsolete. These include several that represent Korean sounds that have since disappeared from the standard language, as well as a larger number used to represent the sounds of the Chinese rime tables that were never used in Korean at all. The most frequently encountered of these archaic letters are,

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• ? or ? ? (arae-a ??? "lower a"): Pronounced as IPA {{IPA|}}, similar to modern eo.
• :? formed a medial of its own, or was found as the diphthong ? area-ae. The word ah? ("child"), which was originally written using this letter, has been changed to ai (??).
• ? z (bansios ???): A rather unusual sound, perhaps IPA {{IPA|}} (a nasalized palatal fricative). (If your browser doesn't show it, the jamo looks like an equilateral triangle.)
• ? ? (yeorin-hieuh ???? "light hieuh" or doen-ieung ??? "strong ieung"): A glottal stop, "lighter than ? and harsher than ?".
• ? ng (yet-ieung ???): The original jamo for {{IPA|}}; now conflated with ? ieung. (With some computer fonts, yet-ieung is shown as a flattened version of ieung, but the correct form is with a long peak, longer than what you would see on a serif version of ieung.)
• ? ? (gabyeoun-bieup ?????): IPA {{IPA|}}. This letter appears to be a digraph of bieup and ieung, but it may be more complicated than that. There were three other less common jamo for sounds in this section of the Chinese rhyme tables, ? w (IPA or ), a theoretical ? f, and ? ff {{IPA|}}.

There were two other now-obsolete double jamo,

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• ? x (ssanghieuh ??? "double hieuh"): IPA {{IPA|}} or {{IPA|}}.
• ? (ssang-ieung ??? "double ieung"): Another jamo used to represent the rime tables.

In the original Hangul system, double jamo were used to represent the "muddy" (murmured) Chinese consonants, and were not used for Korean. It was only later that a similar convention was used to represent the modern "tense" consonants.)

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The sibilant ("dental") consonants were modified to represent the two series of Chinese sibilants, alveolar and retroflex, a "round vs. sharp" distinction which was never made in Korean, and which was even being lost from northern Chinese. The alveolar jamo had longer left stems, while retroflexes had longer right stems:

Related Topics:
Alveolar - Retroflex

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There were also consonant clusters that have since dropped out of the language, such as ? bsg and ? bsd, as well as diphthongs that were only used to represent Chinese medials, such as ?, ?, ?, ?.

Related Topics:
Consonant cluster - Diphthong

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Some of the sounds represented by these jamo for "obsolete" Korean (as opposed to for Chinese) still exist in some dialects of Korean.

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