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.

Style

Hangul may be written either vertically or horizontally. The traditional direction is the Chinese style of writing top to bottom, right to left. Horizontal writing in the style of the Roman alphabet was promoted by Ju Si-gyeong, and has become overwhelmingly preferred.

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In Hunmin Jeong-eum, Hangul was printed in sans-serif angular lines of even thickness. This style is found in books published before about 1900, and can be found today in stone carvings (on statues, for example).

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Over the centuries, an ink-brush style of calligraphy developed, employing the same style of lines and angles as Chinese calligraphy. This brush style is called myeongjo (Chinese mingcho), and is used today in books, newspapers, and magazines, and several computer fonts.

Related Topics:
Calligraphy - Myeongjo - Mingcho - Fonts

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A sans-serif style with lines of equal width has re-emerged with pencil and pen writing, and is often the default typeface of Web browsers.

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