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omonatheydidRemember: you can learn Hangul at your own pace now thanks to our new affiliate Koreanclass101.com. Click here to sign up! Meanwhile read this article to learn more about the history and science of this brilliant language.
Happy Hangul Day! October 9th is a South Korean national holiday held in honor of the invention of the Korean writing system, which experts have called the most “scientific” (also “ingenious,” “rational,” “subtle,” “simple,” “efficient,” “remarkable”) writing system ever devised.
It was created in the 1440s by a committee of scholars commissioned by King Sejong. King Sejong, also known as Sejong the Great, was a fervent supporter of literature, science, and technology in his day. Some 200 years before the founding of the first scientific academy of the enlightenment, Sejong convened a group of handpicked scholars for his “Hall of Worthies.” One of their major assignments was to come up with a writing system to represent the Korean language.
At that time, Korean was written with Chinese characters. Learning to use Chinese characters, along with the adjustments required in adapting them to the Korean language, was an arduous process, requiring years of education and training. This meant that literacy was only available to a tiny elite. Sejong wanted to open literacy to the general population, but that would require a system that was easier to learn.
The system Sejong’s worthies devised used a combination of alphabetic and syllabic approaches. There were independent symbols for consonants and vowels, but they were grouped into syllables when written. You can see this in the modern form for the word “hangul” (pronounced ‘hangeul’):
Each syllable is grouped into a square character
한 (han) 글 (geul)
Each of those characters is composed of symbols for individual sounds
ㅎ h + ㅏ a + ㄴ n = 한 (han)
ㄱ g + ㅡ eu + ㄹ l = 글 (geul)
The system provides a simple, compact packaging of information, easy to read and to learn. According to the postscript of the original description of hangul "a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
What makes the system especially scientific is that it only distinguishes those sounds which are important for the language. Its symbols reflect psychologically relevant features. For example ㄱ g and ㅋ k are basically the same sound, a consonant formed by a closure at the back of the mouth, except that there is a stronger burst of air with the k. (This distinction holds in English as well. Try pronouncing them one after the other.) In hangul, they are also the same symbol, with the air-burst difference represented by an additional line. The same kind of difference holds betweenㄷ d and ㅌ t. They are both formed by contact between the tongue and area behind the upper teeth, but t has a stronger burst of air, which is represented by the same extra line in the symbol. Other distinctive features of the language are represented with similar consistency.
Unlike most writing systems, which developed over long periods of time and took on various inconsistencies in the process, the hangul system was consciously engineered and handed down all at once by a royal proclamation in 1446. The date of that proclamation, October 9th, became a national holiday in 1945 (North Korea celebrates it on January 15th, considered the creation date.) In 1991, because of economic concerns about workers having too many days off, the holiday was eliminated.
This year, however, for the first time in 22 years, Hangul Day has been reinstated. Celebrate by learning to read hangul. You can also play with this hangul generator, but if you use it to see how you might write your name, please do not run off to the tattoo parlor with the result. The proper use of hangul requires a proper knowledge of Korean, the language for which it was specifically, and quite perfectly, designed.
MENTAL FLOSS
Shoutout to all of the linguistics majors out there, you know you wanna talk about fricatives and aspirated consonants and other phonology/morphology words i don't remember.
Happy Hangul Day! October 9th is a South Korean national holiday held in honor of the invention of the Korean writing system, which experts have called the most “scientific” (also “ingenious,” “rational,” “subtle,” “simple,” “efficient,” “remarkable”) writing system ever devised.
It was created in the 1440s by a committee of scholars commissioned by King Sejong. King Sejong, also known as Sejong the Great, was a fervent supporter of literature, science, and technology in his day. Some 200 years before the founding of the first scientific academy of the enlightenment, Sejong convened a group of handpicked scholars for his “Hall of Worthies.” One of their major assignments was to come up with a writing system to represent the Korean language.
At that time, Korean was written with Chinese characters. Learning to use Chinese characters, along with the adjustments required in adapting them to the Korean language, was an arduous process, requiring years of education and training. This meant that literacy was only available to a tiny elite. Sejong wanted to open literacy to the general population, but that would require a system that was easier to learn.
The system Sejong’s worthies devised used a combination of alphabetic and syllabic approaches. There were independent symbols for consonants and vowels, but they were grouped into syllables when written. You can see this in the modern form for the word “hangul” (pronounced ‘hangeul’):
Each syllable is grouped into a square character
한 (han) 글 (geul)
Each of those characters is composed of symbols for individual sounds
ㅎ h + ㅏ a + ㄴ n = 한 (han)
ㄱ g + ㅡ eu + ㄹ l = 글 (geul)
The system provides a simple, compact packaging of information, easy to read and to learn. According to the postscript of the original description of hangul "a wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."
What makes the system especially scientific is that it only distinguishes those sounds which are important for the language. Its symbols reflect psychologically relevant features. For example ㄱ g and ㅋ k are basically the same sound, a consonant formed by a closure at the back of the mouth, except that there is a stronger burst of air with the k. (This distinction holds in English as well. Try pronouncing them one after the other.) In hangul, they are also the same symbol, with the air-burst difference represented by an additional line. The same kind of difference holds betweenㄷ d and ㅌ t. They are both formed by contact between the tongue and area behind the upper teeth, but t has a stronger burst of air, which is represented by the same extra line in the symbol. Other distinctive features of the language are represented with similar consistency.
Unlike most writing systems, which developed over long periods of time and took on various inconsistencies in the process, the hangul system was consciously engineered and handed down all at once by a royal proclamation in 1446. The date of that proclamation, October 9th, became a national holiday in 1945 (North Korea celebrates it on January 15th, considered the creation date.) In 1991, because of economic concerns about workers having too many days off, the holiday was eliminated.
This year, however, for the first time in 22 years, Hangul Day has been reinstated. Celebrate by learning to read hangul. You can also play with this hangul generator, but if you use it to see how you might write your name, please do not run off to the tattoo parlor with the result. The proper use of hangul requires a proper knowledge of Korean, the language for which it was specifically, and quite perfectly, designed.
MENTAL FLOSS
Shoutout to all of the linguistics majors out there, you know you wanna talk about fricatives and aspirated consonants and other phonology/morphology words i don't remember.
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no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:36 am (UTC)but i'm taking korean and chinese next semester so i'm looking forward to that.
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Date: 2013-10-10 05:38 am (UTC)i have read that some people compare the look of hangul to elvish :P hmmm...
ps i really recommend to anyone who wants to seriously study korean to enable korean on your computer so you can also type in hangul. you'll have to google how to do this.
+ here is a little page i found where you can practice getting familiar with the keys
http://www.branah.com/korean
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:58 am (UTC)And did this really happen?
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 07:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:14 am (UTC)It was hard for me.. I just need to not give up..
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:16 am (UTC)i thought u wre going to sleep anyway
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:30 am (UTC)ermm I was. lol
then that turned into "oh, I'll just go check Omona..."
BAM thirty mins later I'm still here.
I'm really tired and my left eye is all puffy and I can't see out of it properly... and and and and I'll just talk to you tomorrow.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 04:36 pm (UTC)I think the easiest way to learn this is associate with the things they look like like あ looks like an antenna or い looks like two i's etc
Also, & I think you'd probably know this but Hiragana is used for Japanese words while Katakana is used for foreign words e.g さっか in Hiragana means author but サッカ in Katakana would mean Soccer. XD
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:31 pm (UTC)Well if you have an iPhone, I recommend Hikachan's Kana apps. They aren't free but they teach you Kana by associating them with images & honestly they helped me a lot that any other Kana app that I used.
For free, I can only think of this ebook: www.tofugu.com/japanese-resources/hiragana42/
I don't know if there's anything for Katakana like that yet. :(
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 12:38 am (UTC)Also if you're gonna attempt kanji, there's a few apps for android I can recommend but def get the two alphabets down first.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-12 06:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 05:06 pm (UTC)Kanji draw is good for stroke order
kanji quiz is a good drill programand helped me with multiple readings for the same character
and jdic is good for reference.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 09:54 am (UTC)jk they can be terrible. I'm at almost 4+ years of Korean study and lol the difference between ㅂ and ㅍ as well as ㅈ and ㅊ still trips me (and all the people I'm talking to) up every now and then.
ALSO HOW KOREANS TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 애 AND 에 NOWADAYS IS BEYOND ME. I swear the vowels have merged to one sound (please, can a Korean linguist do research on this so I don't have to because I'm super interested in this and my former Korean professor, who was a Ling Ph.D student, was too ;;). I mean, it could be a simple accent thing/me not hearing it because Korean isn't my native language(and there's studies of people not being able to hear certain sounds because of their native language WHICH IS REALLY INTERESTING IMO), but I've talked to people here in Busan and then those in Seoul/Daegu/etc and they seriously sound the same...but all my Korean friends are like 'lol nah, they're waaaayyyy different' :(
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 12:18 pm (UTC)Singapore's a multi-racial country with the 3 main races being Chinese, Indian and Malay. Many Chinese don't have English names, so my non-Chinese teachers could never get some names of my friends right because the sounds don't exist in English and their mother tongues.
Seoul and Busan/Daegu/etc accents are so different okayyy. Even if they don't speak in the dialect, the accent itself is very telling of where they're from. The Seoul accent is a bit more monotonous compared to the Busan accent. Much clearer too..
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 04:59 pm (UTC)edit: wait, after reading your comment again I'm not sure if the "my friends" comment was about accents our the 애/에
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 12:38 pm (UTC)plus I actually have pretty decent pronounciation.
no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 02:28 pm (UTC)not in 10 days but I will give it a try
Thanks OP!!
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Date: 2013-10-10 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 06:49 pm (UTC)*whinges* Learning languages is hard
Date: 2013-10-10 09:46 pm (UTC)Just listen to someone who grew up in Seoul sing a song versus someone who learned Korean from their parents who immigrated +20 years ago. The language is not as static as Hangul is.
Anyway, that's my pet peeve for the moment. v.v Hangul is super fascinating and so far ahead over most all other writing systems but... don't think it's perfect. There's a much bigger story than just a Seoul Standard pronunciation chart.
(Similarly, it's almost impossible to spell by ear if you don't know beforehand how to write it. I watched a group of old Korean women trying to guess how their pastor's name was spelled in Hangul just from hearing it and they couldn't figure it out.)
(Soooo sneakily inconsistent! So bad! Ah! *pulls hair*)
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 03:32 am (UTC)(tho i think i will never hear the difference between 애 and 에 or the normal vs aspirated;;)
no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 10:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-11 09:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-13 02:36 am (UTC)Hangul is super easy to learn, it took me 2 mornings. But I still don't understand when consonants elide. Elision is super confusing. I am getting faster at reading but not fast enough yet.
I think romanization is interesting. I learnt one type before I learnt Hangul. But when I did a taster course, the teacher wrote "Ahnyonghasaeyo" and I was like "omg that is the ugliest spelling in the world". It's not even "yong", it's not even pronounced like that. Or "ahn"....