Korean Language - Writing System

Writing System

Korean writing systems
Hangul
Hanja
  • Hyangchal
  • Gugyeol
  • Idu
Mixed script
Braille
Transcription
  • McCune–Reischauer
  • Revised Romanization (South)
  • Sahoe Kwahagwŏn (North)
  • Yale (scholar)
  • Kontsevich (Cyrillic)
Transliteration
  • ISO/TR 11941
  • RR (South)
  • SKATS (coding)
Main articles: Hangul and Korean Braille See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables

Formerly, the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using hanja, called hyangchal or idu: the use of Chinese characters either as rebuses to stand for Korean words, or as synonyms for those words. Writing was confined to the ruling elite, who most often wrote only in Classical Chinese.

Sejong the Great promulgated the Korean alphabet in 1446. Korean is now written almost exclusively in hangul. While South Korean schools still teach 1,800 hanja, North Korea abolished hanja decades ago.

Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:

Consonants
Hangul ㅂ ㄷ ㅈ ㄱ ㅃ ㄸ ㅉ ㄲ ㅍ ㅌ ㅊ ㅋ ㅅ ㅎ ㅆ ㅁ ㄴ ㅇ ㄹ
RR b d j g pp tt jj kk p t ch k s h ss m n ng r, l
IPA p t t͡ɕ k p͈ t͈ t͡ɕ͈ k͈ pʰ tʰ t͡ɕʰ kʰ s h s͈ m n ŋ ɾ, l
Vowels
Hangul ㅣ ㅔ ㅚ ㅐ ㅏ ㅗ ㅜ ㅓ ㅡ ㅢ ㅖ ㅒ ㅑ ㅛ ㅠ ㅕ ㅟ ㅞ ㅙ ㅘ ㅝ
RR i e oe ae a o u eo eu ui ye yae ya yo yu yeo wi we wae wa wo
IPA i e ø ɛ a o u ʌ ɯ ɰi je jɛ ja jo ju jʌ ɥi we wɛ wa wʌ

Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom.

Read more about this topic:  Korean Language

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