Scripts
Hangul
HAHN-gool
Also Known As Chosongul
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Origin from 1443
Hangul is the native script of the Korean language, promulgated in 1443 by King Sejong the Great and published in 1446 in the document Hunminjeongeum, meaning the correct sounds for the instruction of the people. Almost uniquely among the world's major scripts, Hangul has a genuinely attested single inventor and a stated invention date and rationale: the Hunminjeongeum's preface explains the script was designed so that ordinary people, who had been effectively illiterate under classical Chinese characters, could easily learn to read and write their own language within days. Its letters are featural, their shapes designed to iconically represent the shape of the mouth, tongue and teeth in producing each sound, and they are grouped into syllable blocks for writing rather than strung letter by letter as in the Latin alphabet.
Facts
Script TypeHangul is more precisely described by linguists as a featural alphabet, a category most classification schemes, including this ones, do not distinguish from an ordinary alphabet. DirectionalityTraditionally written top to bottom in vertical columns read right to left, alongside the now-standard horizontal left-to-right layout. In Use Since (Year) Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Latin directly: "than strung letter by letter as in the Latin alphabet."
Script Of
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.