R1		S		L1
		|
R2		+		L2
		|
R3		X		L3

Third Topic 셋

Korean Language 헌 글

The Korean Alphabet

The Korean alphabet (Hangeul) looks difficult, but it's actually easy to learn compared to other Asian languages. I wanted to learn Japanese at one time, but I was put off by the amount of memorization required just to learn the alphabet much less the language itself. So when one of the bilingual students in my Tae Kwon Do class told me that the Korean language was easy, I decided to take a look at it. What I saw was a pleasant surprise. I saw that one only has to learn six simple vowels and after recognizing a simple pattern, one could automatically learn all 21 vowel combinations plus the 21 stand-alone vowels. The consonants are easy to learn as well. All you need is the ability to add one plus one. But if you think that one plus one is two, then I can't help you either. One plus one is eleven! You need to add them as symbols, not as numbers, so 1 + 1 = 11.

Here are the six basic vowels:

ㅏ	ㅓ	ㅗ	ㅜ	ㅡ	ㅣ
a	eo	o	u	eu	i(e)

Korean fonts have been embedded in this page and the Korean jamos should be visible to all users of Internet Explorer. If you are using Netscape, which doesn't support downloadable files in the .eot format and can't see the Korean vowels in the table above, take a few minutes to install Korean fonts by following this link: Installing Korean Fonts

You can learn these easily enough, because they look kind of similar don't they? There's just a stick figure with a line poking out at it's waist and the line points to the right ㅏ, then to the left ㅓ, then to the top ㅗ, and then to the bottom ㅜ After these there is just a horizontal and then a vertical line.

In fact, the vowels were conceived even more simply than that. There was originally just a dot ㆍ to represent the heaven, which later became the short horizontal middle stroke, a horizontal line to represent the earth ㅡ (horizontal like the earth's horizon), and a vertical line to represent man ㅣ (a vertical line like a stick figure).

The first two vowels are in the same order as the English vowels: a and then e with an o after it. To remember the next four vowels, just remember the French word for yes, oui. They are, o-u-eu-i. This just about spells oui, but with an eu inserted in it.

Now, take a look at the following table which is set up much like a table of addition in order to see how the vowels are added together:

	Basic Vowels							+i (or +e)
	ㅏ	ㅓ	ㅗ	ㅜ	ㅡ	ㅣ		ㅐ	ㅔ	ㅔ	ㅟ	ㅢ
	a	eo	o	u	eu	i		ae	e	oe	wi	ui
y +	ㅑ	ㅕ	ㅛ	ㅠ				ㅒ	ㅖ
	ya	yeo	yo	yu				yae	ye
w+	ㅘ	ㅝ						ㅙ	ㅞ
	wa	weo						wae	we

The first two vowel combinations are composed of two basic vowels plusㅣ(here, +e): ㅏ+ㅣ= a+(e) = ae=ㅐ. ㅓ+ㅣ= eo + (e) = eoe = e=ㅔ. (The double e sound is stronger than the o sound, so it becomes e.)

Everything that has two parallel strokes is pronounced with a y. These are the jamos: ㅑ,ㅕ ,ㅛ ,ㅠ,ㅒ, andㅖ. You use the sound belonging to the vowel and just put a y in front of it, so:

y  +  ㅏ	=	y  +  a	=	ya	=	ㅑ
y  +  ㅓ	=	y  +  eo	=	yeo	=	ㅕ
y  +  ㅗ	=	y  +  o	=	yo	=	ㅛ
y  +  ㅜ	=	y  +  u	=	yu	=	ㅠ

For the last two, you just add the Korean letter ㅣ (here, + e) to it and sound it out with the final e (ㅣ):

ㅑ  +  e   =  ya  +  e   =  yae  =  ㅒ

ㅕ  +  e  =  yeo  +  e   =  yeoe  =  ye  =  ㅖ. (The double e is stronger than the eoe so it becomes ye.)

All of the vowels formed with the basic vowels ㅗ and ㅜ form vowels that start with a w:

Written as a table of addition, this looks like:

+	ㅏ	ㅓ	ㅐ	ㅔ	ㅣ
	a	eo	ae	e	(e)
ㅗ w+	ㅗ+ㅏ= ㅘ w+ a=wa		ㅗ+ ㅐ =ㅙ w+ae=wae		ㅗ+ ㅣ =ㅔ w+ (e)=we
ㅜ w+		ㅜ+ㅓ =ㅝ w+eo=weo		ㅜ+ ㅔ =ㅞ w+ e=we	ㅜ+ ㅣ= ㅟ w+ (e)=we

Korean syllable blocks are usually composed of an initial consonant, a vowel, and then a final consonant. The jamos are arranged together in an intuitive pattern. By intuitive I mean that in the most cases the letters fit together the way that you would naturally think they would without following any rules. For example, since the vertically standing ㅏ has the appearance of a tall vowel it usually goes to the right side of the syllable blocks rather than on the bottom where it would have to be squished down in order to fit. An example is the Korean word for trust (신). 신 (pronounced shin) is composed of the initial consonant ㅅ (s or sh) the vowel ㅣ (i) and the final consonant ㄴ (n). Since the vowel ㅣ is tall, it seems only natural to put it to the side instead of compressing it to make it fit into the bottom and since ㄴ is wide, it is natural to let it sit at the bottom of the word rather than stretching it out to fit the right side. Occasionally the composition of syllable blocks doesn't follow this intuitive pattern, but at the beginning it's easier to try to form the syllable blocks using intuition because in almost every case you will get it right and you won't have to remember any rules to do it.

If it is possible to create syllable blocks out of three characters, then that would mean that from a purely mathematical perspective, there could be 40 × 21 × 27 = 22,680 three-letter syllable blocks! That is, 40 possible initial consonants and initial vowels (stand-alone vowels composed of ㅲ plus the vowel) times 21 possible vowels times 27 possible final consonants. Actually, there are 11,217 internationally-recognized Hangeul syllable blocks, or almost half as many as the possible combinations.

For a start, you can learn the sequence and sounds of the fourteen most common initial consonants so that you know where to look up a word when you open up a Korean-English dictionary. You don't have to learn any more consonants than this as a beginner, because the most commonly used final consonants are the same.

ㄱ	ㄴ	ㄷ	ㄹ	ㅁ	ㅂ	ㅅ
g	n	d	l	m	b	s
ㅈ	ㅊ	ㅋ	ㅌ	ㅍ	ㅎ	ㅇ
j	ch	k	t	p	h	ng

The consonants (initials and finals) aren't much more difficult to remember than the vowels. They are based on the pronunciation of the relevant Chinese characters, read pp. 130ff, Sohn.

In 1446 King Sejong, the most famous of all the Korean kings and queens, commanded extensive research to be conducted in order to produce a writing system especially designed for writing Korean. This was carried out by a team of scholars, and the accuracy and sophistication of their research and phonological analysis is still a source of amazement to scholars today. The Korean alphabet, han'gul, is perhaps most outstanding scientific and cultural development of the Korean nation. [Vincent and Yeon, page X]

Since this isn't that easy for a non-linguist to understand, I used some mnemonic devices to remember the consonants.

The first four consonants are very similar and you can remember them with the word gondola without the vowels. That is: g, n, l [g(o)nd(o)l(a)]. So

ㄱ	ㄴ	ㄷ	ㄹ
g	n	d	l

I had the most trouble remembering in which direction the ㄱ (g), ㄴ (n), and the ㄷ (d) face, so I thought of them as parts of ㄹ (l). First of all, remember that ㄹ (l) is written in the direction of the English letter z and then that ㄱ (g) forms the top part of ㄹ (l) and ㄴ (n) forms part of the bottom half of the ㄹ (l). The bottom half of ㄹ (l) is the letter ㄷ (d). This is just a mnemonic device though, ㄱ (g) plus ㄷ (d) certainly does not equal ㄹ (l) in regards to phonetics!

ㅁ looks like an open mouth and mouth begins with the letter m. In this case, I coincidentally hit upon one of the actual conceptions of the consonants with my mnemonic device. The consonant ㅁ really was designed to depict the shape of the mouth.

All of the consonants were designed to depict the shapes of the speech organs. For example, "the symbol ㄱ k [g] depicts the shape of the root of the tongue blocking the throat." If you are interested in reading about how the consonants reflect the physical formation of speech, then read pages 129ff. in Ho-Min Sohn's The Korean Language. This book describes the Korean language in historical and cultural terms and doesn't require any Korean language knowledge in order to enjoy. It is written for linguists and thus there are some sections that are difficult for a non-linguist like me to understand, but one can just skim over the sections with specialized terminology and read the more general sections. You can buy this book and others used at www.amazon.com for a low price. (My used copy cost $15 plus $3.50 shipping, but the prices change daily. The unused book costs $38 at bookstores. )

I was trying to understand how the consonant letters depicted the shape of the speech organs because I was still getting the symbols for g and n confused. I thought about the shape of my tongue while I said the word Ghana. When I say Gha, then my tongue touches the bottom of my mouth just behind my bottom row of teeth. If I had to draw a picture of my tongue, it would look like a capital L facing the wrong way and this is not even a Korean symbol at all. If I had to draw a picture of my tongue pronouncing na, it would look like this: ㄴ. I can feel that the top of my tongue touches the roof of my mouth just behind my top row of teeth, so this one makes sense to me. But how am I going to remember g?

I kept trying to see why the inventors of this language thought that a ㄱ could represent the shape of the mouth pronouncing a g and then I tried pronouncing a k instead of a g. This time it worked. Since k is more aspirated than g, you can actually feel that the root of your tongue does block your throat.

ㅂ looks like an upside down A and has the sound b so just think of a and then b as in the beginning of the English alphabet a, b, c.

It's easy to remember that ㅲ (ng) comes after ㅅ (s) and that ㅲ is the sound ng because it is like the word song if you pretend that the Korean letter ㅲ for ng is the English letter o in the word song. This is sort of cheating though because I'm mixing the Korean and English letters together to make it work: s(ㅅ ) + ㅲ (ng) + ng = song. Actually, the sound ng is only used when ㅲ is the final consonant and not the initial consonant. As an initial consonant it is only used to make initial vowels (in which case it assumes a ZERO sound quality [Sohn, p.138]) and not to form the sound ng so I cheated in this respect as well.

ㅅ (s), ㅈ (j), andㅊ (ch) are easy to remember too, because the sound just gets harder (i.e., more aspirated) as more strokes are added to the top. The sound j is harder than s and ch is harder than j.

The Korean letter ㅋ follows a sort of phonetic logic. It is ㄱ (g) with an additional stroke, so just think of the sound g ( ㄱ ) being a little harder (more aspirated) in order to form the sound k (ㅋ ).

The letter for t (ㅌ ) looks like a capital E so just think of the movie "E.T." with E being the Korean symbol and T being the corresponding sound.

The letter for p (ㅍ ) looks like the upside-down math symbol pi (π) which begins with a p.

The letter for h (ㅎ ) looks like a "h"ead with a "h"at on it, so just think of "h" for "h"at.

The other initial consonants in addition to the basic fourteen: ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, and ㅉ aren't a problem to learn either because they are just a doubling of their consonants. That is, ㄱ (g) plus ㄱ (g) equals ㄲ (gg) (g + g = gg) and so on.

The remaining final consonants (ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ) aren't really worth learning at this point because they don't occur that frequently at all in comparison to the other final consonants and you don't need to know them as a beginner. But they follow phonetic logic too and aren't difficult to learn.

The syllable blocks that are available to computer users internationally as hexadecimal code begin with ga (hexadec AC00) and end with (hih?) (hexadec D7A3). If you want to go way off on a tangent with me and hear about something completely irrelevant to learning the Korean alphabet, just follow the calculations for converting hexadecimal numbers to decimal numbers in order to find out how many Korean syllable blocks are represented by the international unicode hexadecimal numbers. The hexadecimal number system is used widely in computing and is based on powers of sixteen. Hexadecimal AC00 is (10 × 16³) + (12 × 16²) + (0 × 16¹) + (0 × 16⁰) = decimal 44,032. Hexadecimal D7A3 is (13 × 16³) + (7 × 16²) + (10 × 16¹) + (3 × 16⁰) = decimal 55,248. So the number of Korean syllable blocks available to computer users is 55,248 - 44,032 + 1 = 11,217. (For your safety, please use a calculator to convert hexadecimal numbers because your brain could get seriously discombobulated by trying to calculate this in your head.) If you want to learn more about hexadecimal numbers, another topic that requires some logic but no memorization, take a look at the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal.

Sohn, Ho-Min (1999). The Korean Language,

1.5.4 Writing Systems, p. 131.

Vincent, Mark and Jaehoon Yeon (2003). teach yourself korean,

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