History of Hangul(zkorean.com)
zkorean.com
History of Hangul
https://zkorean.com/hangul/history_of_hangul
55 comments
The data representation is fairly straightforward once you're familiar with the composition rules, at least for modern Korean.
Unicode simply lists all possible combinations in dictionary order starting from U+AC00. So you can take any code point and split out the 초성, 중성 and 종성 using simple arithmetic, just like you can figure out Latin alphabets from their ASCII codes.
Unicode simply lists all possible combinations in dictionary order starting from U+AC00. So you can take any code point and split out the 초성, 중성 and 종성 using simple arithmetic, just like you can figure out Latin alphabets from their ASCII codes.
초성 = initial sound (consonant)
중성 = middle sound (vowel)
종성 = final sound (consonant)
My understanding is that there are two possible unicode encodings of Korean, one of which (MacOS) is sound by sound instead of syllable by syllable (Windows). This is why Korean UTF-8 filenames from MacOS appear broken on modern Windows machines.
My understanding is that there are two possible unicode encodings of Korean, one of which (MacOS) is sound by sound instead of syllable by syllable (Windows). This is why Korean UTF-8 filenames from MacOS appear broken on modern Windows machines.
Yeah, it's stupid that Windows can't normalize the two completely valid ways of expressing Hangul in Unicode. If they can process e + acute accent = é, they should be able to do ㄱ + ㅏ = 가.
Having said that, MacOS also made the strange choice of expressing Hangul using the Hangul Jamo (by sound) Unicode block even when there are equivalent precomposed symbols in the Hangul Syllables block. Encoding each sound individually takes up 2-3 times more storage, just like with accented characters in Latin. Besides, if you just list sounds and rely on them to be combined automatically, what do you do when you legitimately want to write a sequence of uncombined sounds, like ㄱㅏㅁ instead of 감?
Having said that, MacOS also made the strange choice of expressing Hangul using the Hangul Jamo (by sound) Unicode block even when there are equivalent precomposed symbols in the Hangul Syllables block. Encoding each sound individually takes up 2-3 times more storage, just like with accented characters in Latin. Besides, if you just list sounds and rely on them to be combined automatically, what do you do when you legitimately want to write a sequence of uncombined sounds, like ㄱㅏㅁ instead of 감?
Rare WalterBright L taken in that thread.
Sure, Unicode isn't the Platonic ideal of a character encoding. It has warts, legacy features, and.. and it is a universal encoding of all human writing. What an exceptional and incredible accomplishment.
Could you replace it with something better designed?
No. No, you cannot. You can in principle design something better, but that's a completely different, quixotic, and useless task.
It's also far from impossible to implement Unicode 'correctly', folks not only can, but do, routinely. It's extensively well documented, there's example code, it's just work.
Also, if your game plan for Unicode-D includes removing the most beloved and consistently demanded feature, emoji: then no, that person in particular is not capable even in principle of designing something better. That game has been lost before it began.
Sure, Unicode isn't the Platonic ideal of a character encoding. It has warts, legacy features, and.. and it is a universal encoding of all human writing. What an exceptional and incredible accomplishment.
Could you replace it with something better designed?
No. No, you cannot. You can in principle design something better, but that's a completely different, quixotic, and useless task.
It's also far from impossible to implement Unicode 'correctly', folks not only can, but do, routinely. It's extensively well documented, there's example code, it's just work.
Also, if your game plan for Unicode-D includes removing the most beloved and consistently demanded feature, emoji: then no, that person in particular is not capable even in principle of designing something better. That game has been lost before it began.
> and it is a universal encoding of all human writing
It isn't (and never can be).
> Could you replace it with something better designed? No. No, you cannot. You can in principle design something better,
Something that some people fail to consider, is that one character set is not suitable for all purposes. Unicode is not very good for most purposes though. I think Extended TRON Code has many advantages, although trying to use Extended TRON Code (or some other alternative) for everything would be almost as bad as using Unicode for everything, but in different ways.
> Also, if your game plan for Unicode-D includes removing the most beloved and consistently demanded feature, emoji
I think that colourful emoji should not belong in the character set for text. I also do not want colourful emoji on my computer.
It isn't (and never can be).
> Could you replace it with something better designed? No. No, you cannot. You can in principle design something better,
Something that some people fail to consider, is that one character set is not suitable for all purposes. Unicode is not very good for most purposes though. I think Extended TRON Code has many advantages, although trying to use Extended TRON Code (or some other alternative) for everything would be almost as bad as using Unicode for everything, but in different ways.
> Also, if your game plan for Unicode-D includes removing the most beloved and consistently demanded feature, emoji
I think that colourful emoji should not belong in the character set for text. I also do not want colourful emoji on my computer.
This has led to work showing that models can do better sometimes if you decompose these into their constituent characters, e.g.: https://aclanthology.org/2022.emnlp-main.472.pdf
A paper on Korean where the main acronym is BTS has got to be intentional, right?
> We hope that our BTS will light the way up like dynamite[9] for future research on Korean NLP.
This article is so poor.
Could be 2 sentences.
Language designed by a king.
Also its sad that they put the years 1393-1897 first. As if it took 500 years.
On page 3 we learn that 4 characters are not used anymore. We dont learn which characters, or why just uslesss knowledge.
Was this written by AI?
Could be 2 sentences.
Language designed by a king.
Also its sad that they put the years 1393-1897 first. As if it took 500 years.
On page 3 we learn that 4 characters are not used anymore. We dont learn which characters, or why just uslesss knowledge.
Was this written by AI?
Some interesting niche bits: there was an attempt at Linear Hangul; there is an Indonesian language (Cia-Cia) that has nothing to do with Korean that uses Hangul; the original script had many more letters (such as a triple dot or triangle) than are currently common.
Looks like it was more a political stun than anything really wanted or useful to the population: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jrca/15/0/15_KJ00009911... (when reading the conclusion)
As a Korean, I second this assessment. The "Cia-cia" project is widely viewed as a misguided attempt to sell an unusual writing system to a tribe living in a sea of other tribes, all using Latin alphabets. Just imagine how much technical issues these poor people would face, should they actually adopt Hangul, when the entire remainder of Indonesia uses Latin alphabets.
Surely, Japanese article must be trustworthy when it comes to things related to Kotea! lol
I expected that kind of remarks. Contrary to Western and Korean beliefs, Japanese researchers aren't obsessed with shitting on South Korea 24/7. There's a lot of individuals genuinely interested other languages and cultures, studying things like the Korean speakers in China's Yanbei province. In the article I linked, there are more references to research articles on the topic written by Japanese than what exists in English.
I can't blame them because it sure looks that way to people who's exposed to Japanese online culture. The ever-growing netto-uyoku (far right trolls) and the general public's reluctance to challenge their views is a problem that's been allowed to continue for far too long since the 2 chan days. Japan needs to find a way to de-radicalize these trolls. Even more so now that corrupt politicians are manipulating them to escape justice [1][2].
[1]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15513092
[2]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15519504
[1]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15513092
[2]: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/15519504
Yeah, that was related to technological limitations of the time in addition to the politics of North/South.
Another alternate form is SKATS (Standard Korean Alphabetic Transliteration System) which is used for representing Korean in Morse Code.
https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/3417/morse-code-w...
(apparently the Wikipedia article was taken down --- that discussion captures the salient points)
Another alternate form is SKATS (Standard Korean Alphabetic Transliteration System) which is used for representing Korean in Morse Code.
https://korean.stackexchange.com/questions/3417/morse-code-w...
(apparently the Wikipedia article was taken down --- that discussion captures the salient points)
Anyone know if there is a particularly great app/website out there for learning Korean? Ideally opinionated, low/no "figure out what to learn yourself", Anki + AI-powered for maximum gain/seamless review/ease of getting more reading + writing variety, and easy to use on-the-go/on-mobile.
Anki for vocabulary building, Ryan Estrada's comic for learning to read Hangul (https://www.ryanestrada.com/learntoreadkoreanin15minutes/) as it sticks true to its promise. Over 8 years ago I spent 15 minutes learning how to 'read' Hangul. To this day I can still slowly sound things out and, at the least, read people's names. It truly is a fantastic writing system although I do sometimes struggle with which vowel is which that's 100% an issue of only having spent 15 minutes learning.
Unfortunately I can't help much with learning grammar as I never dove into actually learning Korean due to a dislike of how it sounds. There's the "Tae Kim Japanese Grammar"-like approach for a Korean grammar guide at: https://www.howtostudykorean.com/ although I'm not a big fan of how overly simplified (and sometimes wrong due to the simplification) Tae Kim's approach for Japanese was. So I can't attest as to whether How To Study Korean makes the same mistakes or not.
As for writing - Korean is simple enough to read/write that you can simply find any Korean news source and practice writing the sentences as you read them.
You could also try checking the Korean-learning subreddit out as they have a lot of resources in one of their pinned threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/Korean/comments/hw4gy0/the_ultimate...
Unfortunately I can't help much with learning grammar as I never dove into actually learning Korean due to a dislike of how it sounds. There's the "Tae Kim Japanese Grammar"-like approach for a Korean grammar guide at: https://www.howtostudykorean.com/ although I'm not a big fan of how overly simplified (and sometimes wrong due to the simplification) Tae Kim's approach for Japanese was. So I can't attest as to whether How To Study Korean makes the same mistakes or not.
As for writing - Korean is simple enough to read/write that you can simply find any Korean news source and practice writing the sentences as you read them.
You could also try checking the Korean-learning subreddit out as they have a lot of resources in one of their pinned threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/Korean/comments/hw4gy0/the_ultimate...
> Unfortunately I can't help much with learning grammar as I never dove into actually learning Korean due to a dislike of how it sounds.
Ha, one of my main motivations for wanting to learn Korean is how beautiful it sounds to me. Funny how that goes, diametrically different subjetive perceptions.
Ha, one of my main motivations for wanting to learn Korean is how beautiful it sounds to me. Funny how that goes, diametrically different subjetive perceptions.
It's amazing that something that can look so alien to Western eyes is actually pretty straightforward once you try to learn it. I did the same and learned Hangul so I can at least sound things out and do some basic Internet searches etc.
You can do exactly the same with other scripts, e.g. Japanese hirigana and katakana, which are fairly easy to learn, and also Arabic, which looks difficult, but is definitely learnable in an hour.
You can do exactly the same with other scripts, e.g. Japanese hirigana and katakana, which are fairly easy to learn, and also Arabic, which looks difficult, but is definitely learnable in an hour.
I started learning Korean but never really got the far. But, straight after learning Hangul you get into sound mixing (https://www.missellykorean.com/korean-sound-change-rules-pdf...). Trust humans to invent something simple and then make it complicated over time!
Japanese has similar stuff with their u-dropping, but not as complicated as Korean.
Japanese has similar stuff with their u-dropping, but not as complicated as Korean.
So this is why some words sound nothing like the romanized spelling. This has been confusing me to no end when learning Hangul with Duolingo.
It's such a common aspect of languages too that many people don't even realize when they're doing it in their native language!
People get lazy - especially natives who don't get confused because it's how most natives will talk. For example, every word ending in "ing" in your comment could drop the "g" sound when spoken. Plenty of English speakers do that when speakin' and not many people would think anythin' of it until a frustrated person learnin' English asks why nobody is pronouncin' the endin' "g". Droppin', changin', and blendin' sounds is why learning a language by listenin' to natives speakin' is so important instead of crammin' textbooks all day.
Some might consider this a regional thing/accent and I'd argue that it both is and isn't. To the extent I tried to illustrate it would likely get seen as an accent but the occasional droppin' of it is somethin' I've heard across so many different English accents that I'd argue it isn't only an accent thing.
In the US it's mostly associated with a Southern accent and in England it would be the English Midlands like Brummie or Mancunian.
People get lazy - especially natives who don't get confused because it's how most natives will talk. For example, every word ending in "ing" in your comment could drop the "g" sound when spoken. Plenty of English speakers do that when speakin' and not many people would think anythin' of it until a frustrated person learnin' English asks why nobody is pronouncin' the endin' "g". Droppin', changin', and blendin' sounds is why learning a language by listenin' to natives speakin' is so important instead of crammin' textbooks all day.
Some might consider this a regional thing/accent and I'd argue that it both is and isn't. To the extent I tried to illustrate it would likely get seen as an accent but the occasional droppin' of it is somethin' I've heard across so many different English accents that I'd argue it isn't only an accent thing.
In the US it's mostly associated with a Southern accent and in England it would be the English Midlands like Brummie or Mancunian.
> Anyone know if there is a particularly great app/website out there for learning Korean?
It’s extremely unfortunate but in the year 2024, there are still close to no language learning apps that will actually help you acquire a foreign language. I’ve been in this space for about 6 years and the only I can recommend are Anki (which isn’t even a LL app) and some more obscure ‘comprehensible input’ sites. Outside of that, there’s Netflix, Spotify, Audible and real life human interaction (but none of those are LL apps!)
It’s extremely unfortunate but in the year 2024, there are still close to no language learning apps that will actually help you acquire a foreign language. I’ve been in this space for about 6 years and the only I can recommend are Anki (which isn’t even a LL app) and some more obscure ‘comprehensible input’ sites. Outside of that, there’s Netflix, Spotify, Audible and real life human interaction (but none of those are LL apps!)
Every now and again a site exists that has a massive community, tons of resources, ways to speak with other learners, ways to meet language exchange partners, and are greatly successful. Then all of that gets gutted for what is essentially a worse version of Anki but for the web when the company runs out of funding and has to start turning a profit somehow. This burns the community and the people providing most of the value move elsewhere.
It's happened to italki (now iKnow), Memrise, DuoLingo, and a few sites that were so short-lived I no longer remember what they were called.
My takeaway is that language learning apps are a lot like dating apps. They profit less if people actually learn a language and so can't be too good at their job because they'll bleed users faster than they can gain them - similar to dating apps. It needs to work just well enough that users are tricked into believing it is working but not so well that it actually works for most people.
It seems like the ETA before enshittification begins is about 2~3 years. If you're an early enough adopter you might actually benefit from it but you have to be willing to jump ship and not fall for the engagement/gamification tactics that keep you sticking around after it has stopped providing any value.
I spent way too long 'watering my garden' on Memrise before I looked around and noticed all of the once useful community-providing mnemonics were gone, you couldn't correct bad definitions anymore, it was difficult to actually speak to anyone else in the community (unless you could find them on the forums), and eventually I stopped using it altogether. The community I had signed up for and was a huge part of Memrise's success no longer existed.
It's happened to italki (now iKnow), Memrise, DuoLingo, and a few sites that were so short-lived I no longer remember what they were called.
My takeaway is that language learning apps are a lot like dating apps. They profit less if people actually learn a language and so can't be too good at their job because they'll bleed users faster than they can gain them - similar to dating apps. It needs to work just well enough that users are tricked into believing it is working but not so well that it actually works for most people.
It seems like the ETA before enshittification begins is about 2~3 years. If you're an early enough adopter you might actually benefit from it but you have to be willing to jump ship and not fall for the engagement/gamification tactics that keep you sticking around after it has stopped providing any value.
I spent way too long 'watering my garden' on Memrise before I looked around and noticed all of the once useful community-providing mnemonics were gone, you couldn't correct bad definitions anymore, it was difficult to actually speak to anyone else in the community (unless you could find them on the forums), and eventually I stopped using it altogether. The community I had signed up for and was a huge part of Memrise's success no longer existed.
"They profit less if people actually learn a language and so can't be too good at their job because they'll bleed users faster than they can gain them - similar to dating apps."
This might be why some of the best language-learning content I have seen is from national broadcasters like YLE in Finland. There, once a foreigner learns the language from that material, they then become a consumer of the broadcaster’s main content.
This might be why some of the best language-learning content I have seen is from national broadcasters like YLE in Finland. There, once a foreigner learns the language from that material, they then become a consumer of the broadcaster’s main content.
My thought on this is LLMs will replace all this stuff within the next 5 years. Skilled conversation partners work better than these apps do anyway.
> a worse version of Anki but for the web
This is actually a remarkably common failure pattern for a lot of language learning apps. Devs see Anki and think "I'm gonna do it better! I'm gonna build Anki, but for a specific language and make it a web app." ... I've lost count how many of these I've seen over the years!
> It seems like the ETA before enshittification begins is about 2~3 years
It's funny, I actually learned the term "enshittification" specifically from friends of mine who were Memrise users. It's honestly a textbook example of the phenomena.
Negativity aside though, I'm actually pretty optimistic about this space despite all that I've seen so far. I think that there's genuinely room to build great language learning software that people will really benefit from. I'm just really pessimistic about most of the people working in the space. Without trying to exagerrate, I'd estimate that probably less than 10% of people working in the language learning industry are actual language learners (at best, they might've learned English as a kid). When you're not actively, seriously learning a language, you become numb to the problems of people who actually care about becoming fluent and just end up building tinder-esque games to addict people with.
This is actually a remarkably common failure pattern for a lot of language learning apps. Devs see Anki and think "I'm gonna do it better! I'm gonna build Anki, but for a specific language and make it a web app." ... I've lost count how many of these I've seen over the years!
> It seems like the ETA before enshittification begins is about 2~3 years
It's funny, I actually learned the term "enshittification" specifically from friends of mine who were Memrise users. It's honestly a textbook example of the phenomena.
Negativity aside though, I'm actually pretty optimistic about this space despite all that I've seen so far. I think that there's genuinely room to build great language learning software that people will really benefit from. I'm just really pessimistic about most of the people working in the space. Without trying to exagerrate, I'd estimate that probably less than 10% of people working in the language learning industry are actual language learners (at best, they might've learned English as a kid). When you're not actively, seriously learning a language, you become numb to the problems of people who actually care about becoming fluent and just end up building tinder-esque games to addict people with.
What is sad, is that there are already whole generations who think one must learn with an app, and are completely unaware of self-teaching textbooks from traditional publishers like Routledge, Assimil, Teach Yourself, etc. These books don’t work for everyone because learning styles are different, but they do work well for some segment of learners, yet with the decline of the physical bookshop, many young people may have never seen them.
(Hardcore linguaphiles are aware of these books, and have been one of the major demographics in the ebook filesharing scene that led to LibGen and Anna’s Archive. But I’m talking about the ordinary people you constantly see on e.g. Reddit who are just moving to another country, have to learn the language, and assume that one uses an app for that.)
(Hardcore linguaphiles are aware of these books, and have been one of the major demographics in the ebook filesharing scene that led to LibGen and Anna’s Archive. But I’m talking about the ordinary people you constantly see on e.g. Reddit who are just moving to another country, have to learn the language, and assume that one uses an app for that.)
I've been successful in learning a foreign language using an app that basically consisted of reading increasingly complex stories.
I don't want to recommend the specific app I used, because it's the only one I tried, and I don't know how well it compares to other, similar apps. But there are a bunch of story-based language learning apps on App Stores. My suspicion is that most of them work relatively well, particularly compared to more typical modern language learning apps like Duolingo.
Unlike gamified apps like Duolingo, you do need to actually have the motivation to regularly use them, though. They're not going to entice you with funny animations and points and leaderboards and notifications and all of those things.
I don't want to recommend the specific app I used, because it's the only one I tried, and I don't know how well it compares to other, similar apps. But there are a bunch of story-based language learning apps on App Stores. My suspicion is that most of them work relatively well, particularly compared to more typical modern language learning apps like Duolingo.
Unlike gamified apps like Duolingo, you do need to actually have the motivation to regularly use them, though. They're not going to entice you with funny animations and points and leaderboards and notifications and all of those things.
> you do need to actually have the motivation to regularly use them, though. They're not going to entice you with funny animations and points and leaderboards and notifications and all of those things.
That's the gist of it. Never in history there was so much content in foreign languages and education material available that easily and for free, including not only writing but audio too (songs, movies). The thing is one has to go through it, and it's taking effort over a long time to get good, which is why most quit.
That's the gist of it. Never in history there was so much content in foreign languages and education material available that easily and for free, including not only writing but audio too (songs, movies). The thing is one has to go through it, and it's taking effort over a long time to get good, which is why most quit.
Can you share the name of the app for others who might be interested in trying it out?
It's called "Du Chinese," but if you search for something like "story language learning German" (or whatever your language of choice is) and scroll past all the ads for Duolingo and Babbel, you'll find a lot of other options. I'm not sure which are the best ones, or how to figure that out.
Out of these 4 basic components reading, listening, writing and speaking, it's speaking that is by far the hardest. But there's no computer that can accurately detect nuances in pronunciation and tone much like a native teacher can. This also applies to vacabulary choices and grammar.
I'm building https://tolearnkorean.com/ , but it's far from finished currently, only meaningful content is an introduction to Hangul so far.
Making it because I believe there's lots of opportunity for high quality Korean learning content.
Also found it annoying that the majority of content out there does not mention other quality resources since they want to keep you in their own (lacking) ecosystem to sell you on their books, coaching sessions, Anki vocabulary cards or whatever it is.
Want to improve my own Korean by teaching it to others.
Also making a site currently that aims to gamify the learning with flashcards, similar to some(!) questions you might see on Duolingo but with your flashcards as a base. Making learning with flashcards more fun and efficient.
I liked BillyGo's videos as a resource in the beginning. The apps I have on my phone to learn are Naver Dictionary, Anki and Migii. Didn't like any other apps I found.
Making it because I believe there's lots of opportunity for high quality Korean learning content.
Also found it annoying that the majority of content out there does not mention other quality resources since they want to keep you in their own (lacking) ecosystem to sell you on their books, coaching sessions, Anki vocabulary cards or whatever it is.
Want to improve my own Korean by teaching it to others.
Also making a site currently that aims to gamify the learning with flashcards, similar to some(!) questions you might see on Duolingo but with your flashcards as a base. Making learning with flashcards more fun and efficient.
I liked BillyGo's videos as a resource in the beginning. The apps I have on my phone to learn are Naver Dictionary, Anki and Migii. Didn't like any other apps I found.
Self-promo: I'm working on www.flashka.ai , the Anki + AI that you might be looking for :)
It shines mainly if you have PDFs of the content you are learning from which to write flashcards. The best part for language learning is that, while doing reviews, you have some options to generate mnemonics and examples, it was super-helpful to me while learning Georgian!
It shines mainly if you have PDFs of the content you are learning from which to write flashcards. The best part for language learning is that, while doing reviews, you have some options to generate mnemonics and examples, it was super-helpful to me while learning Georgian!
I think LingoDeer is generally considerrd a very good app to learn CJK. You can start with no prerequisites at all.
In my opinion, hangul is the most logical and rational of all the writing systems. Very few surprises when reading something unfamiliar.
It would be nice if the original design (with dots etc) was preserved, rather than trying to make it look more like Chinese.
It's also unfortunate that what was originally a purely phonemic script was gradually transformed into a morphophonemic system. The changes that happened to the language post Sejong were also accommodated in a much more ad-hoc manner than the original elegant design.
(To be fair, the original took years of research to get that final design! But, all the more reason to keep it up to date, no?)
It's also unfortunate that what was originally a purely phonemic script was gradually transformed into a morphophonemic system. The changes that happened to the language post Sejong were also accommodated in a much more ad-hoc manner than the original elegant design.
(To be fair, the original took years of research to get that final design! But, all the more reason to keep it up to date, no?)
What is the original design with dots etc?
Here's an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Hangul#/media/File:K...
Here's another one that shows standalone jamo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Hangul#/media/File:H...
So, basically, all the consonant jamo were simple geometric shapes, with more straight lines and fewer curves. For vowels, what is today treated as a line with a stroke was actually a combination of a line and a dot (the dot itself being a glyph for a vowel that has since disappeared from the language).
Here's another one that shows standalone jamo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_Hangul#/media/File:H...
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So, basically, all the consonant jamo were simple geometric shapes, with more straight lines and fewer curves. For vowels, what is today treated as a line with a stroke was actually a combination of a line and a dot (the dot itself being a glyph for a vowel that has since disappeared from the language).
Hangul’s logic and rationality are what make it stand out among writing systems
I did not realize this site was still in operation- I used to use it quite a bit in college over a decade ago. Sidenote that if you are a tech minded person who has a strong interest in Korean, feel free to reach out. I am pretty easy to find online and I’m working on some Korean language related projects.
For those wondering why OP linked to the first part of the history page instead of the main page, the history is indeed one of the distinguishing features of Hangul.
It's one of the few writing systems currently in use that was deliberately designed, instead of occurring naturally over time. This means that any similarities and relationships between symbols that you might find are probably intended, not accidental. Noticing these similarities is key to quickly learning Hangul, as it greatly reduces the number of distinct patterns you need to memorize. It's also fun for programmers who like puzzles. :)
It's one of the few writing systems currently in use that was deliberately designed, instead of occurring naturally over time. This means that any similarities and relationships between symbols that you might find are probably intended, not accidental. Noticing these similarities is key to quickly learning Hangul, as it greatly reduces the number of distinct patterns you need to memorize. It's also fun for programmers who like puzzles. :)
> This means that any similarities and relationships between symbols that you might find are probably intended
Specifically, the symbols reflect phonological features like place-of-articulation.
In general, such a writing system is called featural:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featural_writing_system
Specifically, the symbols reflect phonological features like place-of-articulation.
In general, such a writing system is called featural:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Featural_writing_system
There are a few other writing systems that were deliberately created. My favorite is the Cherokee syllabary [1].
A Cherokee man named Sequoyah ended up serving as a soldier in one of the early conflicts between English settlers and other Native American groups. In this case, his people were on the side of English settlers against rival tribes (see [2]), so he was serving alongside English soldiers in the conflict. He saw them reading and writing - something he couldn't do, since the Cherokee language had no written script at the time - and went "wait this seems like it would be pretty useful".
So Sequoyah, who until this point had never encountered a writing system, decides he's going to make one. He starts by trying to create a symbol for every word, but decides that's too difficult, so he switches to symbols for syllables instead. It took him ten years to finish it, but once he did, it was adopted by nearly every speaker of Cherokee within only a few years. It's still the primary writing system for the Cherokee language today.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creek_War
A Cherokee man named Sequoyah ended up serving as a soldier in one of the early conflicts between English settlers and other Native American groups. In this case, his people were on the side of English settlers against rival tribes (see [2]), so he was serving alongside English soldiers in the conflict. He saw them reading and writing - something he couldn't do, since the Cherokee language had no written script at the time - and went "wait this seems like it would be pretty useful".
So Sequoyah, who until this point had never encountered a writing system, decides he's going to make one. He starts by trying to create a symbol for every word, but decides that's too difficult, so he switches to symbols for syllables instead. It took him ten years to finish it, but once he did, it was adopted by nearly every speaker of Cherokee within only a few years. It's still the primary writing system for the Cherokee language today.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_syllabary
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creek_War
IMO Tolkien's Tengwar is the closest to Hangul. The shapes of the consonants represent the place and manner of articulation, such that similar sounds look similar on paper. Vowels are written as diacritics above the consonants, with the result that each complete letter represents a syllable.
There are other syllabaries, both naturally occurring and deliberately created, but most of them don't show subpatterns that represent the sounds that make up each syllable. Cherokee looks a lot like the Japanese kana. Which is not surprising, because both are syllabaries designed to overcome the difficulty of a fully ideographic writing system (kanji in the case of Japanese).
There are other syllabaries, both naturally occurring and deliberately created, but most of them don't show subpatterns that represent the sounds that make up each syllable. Cherokee looks a lot like the Japanese kana. Which is not surprising, because both are syllabaries designed to overcome the difficulty of a fully ideographic writing system (kanji in the case of Japanese).
Kind of amazing too that it was personally created by King Sejong himself. Even today there aren't many people who can do such thing, let alone a monarch whose handd would have been filled by other duties.
Admittedly most of my impressions are from watching K-dramas but I get the impression that the monarch is somewhat superfluous in bureaucracy-heavy systems like in Joseon and China — and that the government was generally happiest when the kings did nothing. All they have is free time and education.
Plus you should look at Hangul as a political action. Educating the commoners creates a bourgeoisie class that can be the king’s allies against the noble and bureaucratic classes. People who can read laws and write complaints are less subject to the whims of corrupt local officials.
Plus you should look at Hangul as a political action. Educating the commoners creates a bourgeoisie class that can be the king’s allies against the noble and bureaucratic classes. People who can read laws and write complaints are less subject to the whims of corrupt local officials.
There are ... speculations that King Sejong was not fully independent in the creation of Hangeul. He may have delegated parts of the task to courtly scholars. (But all the evidence either way has been lost to history, and so speculation it remains.) There are a few "historical" dramas which make this their premise.
In many ancient and medieval monarchies, any major project that occurred with the king's approval was attributed to the king personally, regardless of his level of participation. Kings built plenty of castles, but they probably didn't move a single stone with their own hands.
The academic consensus seems to be that Sejong had a lot of personal involvement in the creation of Hangul, though. He was a quintessential nerd, after all, who didn't have much patience with the conservative officials who got in the way of his nerdy projects.
The academic consensus seems to be that Sejong had a lot of personal involvement in the creation of Hangul, though. He was a quintessential nerd, after all, who didn't have much patience with the conservative officials who got in the way of his nerdy projects.
As someone who’s been trying to learn Korean, I have to admit that while Hangul is undeniably impressive in its design, I still found it challenging to fully grasp at first. Learning to recognize the shapes and sounds of the letters was relatively straightforward but putting it all together into readable syllables and understanding pronunciation rules took me longer than I expected.
I found this old comment that explains it better than I can: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28287811