By Shawn S.W.Kim
The Korean alphabet, called han-gul, consists of twenty-four letters, fourteen consonants and ten vowels. The letters are combined to form phonemes so that the actual number of letters is increased to forty, nineteen consonants and twenty-one vowels. Han-gul is a true alphabet that letters are always arranged in syllable blocks. This makes it possible to write Korean from top to bottom or from right to left, without having to turn the letters around in any way. Another advantage is that han-gul and Chinese characters, which are commonly used in Korea, can be readily mixed in writing and printing. Han-gul, or ka-na-da, as the alphabet is often called, using its first three syllables, is one of the most scientific phonetic alphabets in existence. Symbols are derived from the shape or form of the organs of speech (i.e. the mouth, the tongue, the throat) and the shape the organs take during articulation. Instead of evolving, the alphabet was consciously created by a group of scholars King Sejong commissioned in 1443 to develop a script which would enable Koreans of all classes to express themselves in writing in their own language - a Ural-Altalic language whose origin is lost in antiquity. Until the invention of han-gul, Koreans used Chinese characters to express themselves in writing; sometimes using the characters to represent their original meaning and sometimes simply to represent sounds. Consonants: (k)(n)(t)(r or l)(m)(p)(s or sh)(voiceless)(ch)(ch’)(k’)(t’)(p’)(h) Vowels: (a)(ya)(o)(yo)(o)(yo)(u)(yu)(u)(i) Ready for some practical examples? Watch how a consonant and a vowel can be combined to express virtually any sound! Thus, due to its scientific design, it is quite easy to approximate the sounds of foreign words in the Korean alphabet. Following are some examples of English words expressed in Han-gul. London– New York– Hong Kong– I–am–a–boy– Ok, you’ve just had a crash course on Korean alphabet. It is not so difficult, is it? It’s not uncommon for a foreigner to gain a working knowledge of Han-gul after one or two hours of intensive study. So, do you want to learn Korean? #Volume 6 Issue 3 a
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Authors
The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
|