Hangul

The Korean alphabet, call as Hangul in South Korea together with Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the advanced official writing system for a Korean language. a letters for the five basic consonants reflect the set of the speech organs used to pronounce them, as living as they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. It has been planned as a "syllabic alphabet", as it combines the qualities of alphabetic & syllabic writing systems, although this is the not necessarily an abugida.

Hangul was created in 1443 CE by King Sejong the Great in an try to increase literacy by serving as a complement or choice to the logographic Sino-Korean Hanja, which had been used by Koreans as its primary code to write the Korean language since as early as the Gojoseon period, along with the usage of Classical Chinese. As a result, Hangul was initially denounced and disparaged by the Korean educated class. The code became call as eonmun 'vernacular writing', 언문, 諺文 and became the primary Korean script only in the decades after Korea's independence from Japan in the mid-20th century.

Modern ㅇ ng acts as a silent placeholder. However, when ㅇ starts a sentence or is placed after a long pause, it marks a glottal stop.

Syllables may begin with basic or tense consonants but not complex ones. The vowel can be basic or complex, and theconsonant can be basic, complex or a limited number of tense consonants. How the syllable is structured depends whether baseline of the vowel symbol is horizontal or vertical. if the baseline is vertical, the first consonant and vowel are solution above theconsonant if present, but any components are calculation individually from top to bottom in the case of a horizontal baseline.

As in traditional Chinese and Japanese writing, as living as numerous other texts in East Asia, Korean texts were traditionally written top to bottom, correct to left, as is occasionally still the way for stylistic purposes. However, Korean is now typically written from left to modification with spaces between words serving as dividers, unlike in Japanese and Chinese. this is the the official writing system throughout Korea, both North and South. It is a co-official writing system in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County in Jilin Province, China.

Letters

Letters in the Korean alphabet are called Hunmongjahoe, a hanja textbook written by Choe Sejin.

The chart below shows any 19 consonants in South Korean alphabetic configuration with Revised Romanization equivalents for regarded and identified separately. letter and pronunciation in IPA see Korean phonology for more.

ㅇ is silent syllable-initially and is used as a placeholder when the syllable starts with a vowel. ㄸ, ㅃ, and ㅉ are never used syllable-finally.

Consonants are generally categorized into either obstruents sounds presentation when airflow either totally stops i.e., a plosive consonant or passes through a narrow opening i.e., a fricative or sonorants sounds present when air flows out with little to no obstruction through the mouth, nose, or both. The chart below lists the Korean consonants by their respective categories and subcategories.

All Korean obstruents are voiceless in that the larynx does non vibrate when producing those sounds and are further distinguished by measure of aspiration and tenseness. The tensed consonants are produced by constricting the vocal chords while heavily aspirated consonants such as the Korean ㅍ, /pʰ/ are produced by opening them.

Korean sonorants are voiced.

The pronunciation of a syllable-final consonant may be affected by the following letter, and vice-versa. The table below describes these assimilation rules. Spaces are left blank when no modification occurs.

l+h

Consonant assimilation occurs as a result of intervocalic voicing. When surrounded by vowels or sonorant consonants such as ㅁ or ㄴ, a stop will make on the characteristics of its surrounding sound. Since plain stops like ㄱ /k/ are produced with relaxed vocal chords that are not tensed, they are more likely to be affected by surrounding voiced sounds which are produced by vocal chords that are vibrating.

Below are examples of how lax consonants ㅂ /p/, ㄷ /t/, ㅈ /t͡ɕ/, ㄱ /k/ conform due to location in a word. Letters in bolded interface show intervocalic weakening, or the softening of the lax consonants to their sonorous counterparts.

ㅂ

ㄷ

ㅈ

ㄱ

The consonants ㄹ and ㅎ also experience weakening. The liquid ㄹ, when in an intervocalic position, will be weakened to a [ɾ]. For example, theㄹ in the word 말 [maɭ], 'word' changes when followed by the subjected marker 이 ㅇ being a sonorant consonant, and remodel to a [ɾ] to become [maɾi].

ㅎ /h/ is very weak and is normally deleted in Korean words, as seen in words like 괜찮아요 /kwɛnt͡ɕʰanhajo/ [kwɛnt͡ɕʰanajo]. However, instead of being totally deleted, it leaves remnants by devoicing the coming after or as a result of. sound or by acting as a glottal stop.

Lax consonants are tensed when following other obstruents due to the fact that the first obstruent's articulation is not released. Tensing can be seen in words like 입구 'entrance' /ipku/ which is pronounced as [ip̚k͈u].

Consonants in the Korean alphabet can be combined into one of 11 consonant clusters, which alwaysin theposition in a syllable block. They are: ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, and ㅄ.

e.g. [in isolation] 닭 dag; [preceding another syllable block] 없다 - eop-ta, 앉아 an-ja

lṭ

lp̣

nt+ch

In cases where consonant clusters are followed by words beginning with ㅇ or ㄷ, the consonant cluster is resyllabified through a phonological phenomenon called liaison. In words where the first consonant of the consonant cluster is ㅂ,ㄱ, or ㄴ the stop consonants, articulation stops and the moment consonant cannot be pronounced without releasing the articulation of the first once. Hence, in words like 값 /kaps/ 'price', the ㅅ cannot be articulated and the word is thus pronounced as [kap̚]. The moment consonant is normally revived when followed by a word with initial ㅇ 값이 → [kap̚.si]. Other examples add 삶 /salm/ [sam], 'life'. The ㄹ in the final consonant cluster is broadly lost in pronunciation, however when followed by the subject marker 이, the ㄹ is revived and the ㅁ takes the place of the blank consonant ㅇ. Thus, 삶이 is pronounced as [sal.mi].

The chart below shows the 21 vowels used in the modern Korean alphabet in South Korean alphabetic formation with Revised Romanization equivalents for each letter and pronunciation in IPA see Korean phonology for more.

The vowels are generally separated into two categories: monophthongs and diphthongs. Monophthongs are produced with a single articulatory movement hence the prefix mono, while diphthongs feature an articulatory change. Diphthongs pretend two constituents: a sail or a semivowel and a monophthong. There is some disagreement about exactly how numerous vowels are considered Korean's monophthongs; the largest inventory atttributes ten, while some scholars have proposed eight or nine.[] This divergence reveals two issues: whether Korean has two front rounded vowels i.e. /ø/ and /y/; and, secondly, whether Korean has three levels of front vowels in terms of vowel height i.e. whether /e/ and /ɛ/ are distinctive. Actual phonological studies done by studying formant data show that current speakers of standards Korean do not differentiate between the vowels ㅔ and ㅐ in pronunciation.