The Korean Writing System

            Han’gul is the most widely used script on the Korean peninsula.  In North Korea, the other script, Hanja, is not used at all, and in South Korea, Hanja is treated much the same way cursive is in English speaking countries.  This is what Hanja looks like:

            In Korea, much like in Japan and Vietnam, the first writing was in an adaptation of the Chinese system.  This system, known as a logosyllabary, includes thousands of signs, each representing a different sound and concept.  The system works very well for the Chinese family of languages, as the most widely spoken of them tend to be isolating languages, meaning they don’t have a lot of conjugation.  However, this poses a problem for languages that try to borrow the script.  Korean and Japanese both are considered agglutinating languages, meaning that there are lots of prefixes and suffixes that get attached to words in order to change them.  The Chinese script has no way to handle those grammatical endings.  

            In order to deal with this problem of grammar and to increase literacy rates, the Korean alphabet, Han’gul, was created in 1443.  The creation is credited to King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty.  He said, of the script he created, that it was simple enough for a smart man to learn in ten minutes, and an unintelligent man could learn it in a week.  The Han’gul alphabet is really easy to learn and it has been around for a short enough time that spelling conventions still match the actual sound of the words, making it that much simpler.

            In South Korea today, Han’gul is everywhere, and it doesn’t usually mix with the Hanja.  It is also easily identifiable amongst the other scripts of the region.  The letters are organized into syllable blocks that are read left to right and top to bottom. Han’gul is also the only script in the region that contains ovals within those blocks.  One thing to keep in mind when learning to read this script as a non-native Korean speaker is that the sounds available in Korean are different from others in the area, and much different from those available in English.  The differentiations between sounds are different too, and the letters of the alphabet reflect that.  Below is a chart depicting the basic consonant-vowel combinations available in Han’gul.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment section.