Hangul (Korean alphabet)
한글
Hangul is the Korean alphabet — 14 consonants and 10 vowels — invented in 1443 by King Sejong the Great and his scholars. Unlike most writing systems, Hangul wasn't evolved from an earlier script; it was designed on purpose, and its letter shapes encode the position of the mouth when you pronounce each sound.
All 24 letters
History
Before Hangul, Korean was written with Chinese characters — a poor fit for a language so different from Chinese in grammar and phonology. Only the aristocratic scholarly class could read; ordinary Koreans were functionally illiterate. King Sejong set out to fix this and in 1443 published the Hunminjeongeum ("The Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People"), a brand-new alphabet designed so that "a wise man can learn it in a morning, a foolish one in ten days." The consonant shapes actually depict the mouth: ㄱ (g/k) is the shape of the tongue against the palate, ㄴ (n) is the tongue against the teeth, ㅁ (m) is the closed lips. Consonants and vowels stack into syllable blocks, so 한 (han) is ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ arranged in one square.
Things you might not know
- Hangul is the only major writing system in the world with a documented inventor and invention date.
- The consonant shapes are iconic — they depict the tongue and lip positions that make the sounds.
- Korean syllables are packed into square blocks, not written in a line like most alphabets. The blocks look like Chinese characters but are 100% phonetic.
- UNESCO's prize for literacy achievement is named after King Sejong, the creator of Hangul.