Hangul (한글) or Chosŏn'gŭl (조선글)[1]
Type:	Alphabet
Languages:	Korean
Time period:	~1444 to the present
ISO 15924 code:	Hang
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Hangul
The word hangeul (Revised Romanization) written in Hangul.
Korean name
Hangul:	한글
Revised Romanization:	Han(-)geul
McCune-Reischauer:	Han'gŭl

Hangul (listen (help· info) is the native alphabet of the Korean language, as distinguished from the logographic Sino-Korean hanja system. It is the official script of both North Korea and South Korea. A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... Events March 2 - Gjergj Kastriot Skanderbeg proclaimed commander of the Albanian resistance April 16 - Truce of Tours. ... Image File history File links Hangulpedia. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Because of technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... This is a concise version of the International Phonetic Alphabet for English sounds. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Image File history File links Hangeul. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean (Korean: 국어의 로마자 표기법; 國語의 로마字 表記法) is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced (a modified) McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean (Korean: 국어의 로마자 표기법; 國語의 로마字 表記法) is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced (a modified) McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ... Klipsch Audio Technologies is one of the most successful consumer and professional speaker companies in America. ... Hangul is the native alphabet of the Korean language Hangul may also refer to: The Kashmir stag, the only surviving race of the Red Deer family in the Indian sub-continent. ... Image File history File links KO-Hangul. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... The Korean language (, see below) is the official language of both North and South Korea. ... Sino-Korean describes those elements of the Korean language that come directly or indirectly from Chinese — namely, Hanja and the words formed from them. ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ...

Hangul is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 Hangul letters (jamo): at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Originally, the alphabet had several additional letters (see obsolete jamo). For a phonological description of the letters, see Korean phonology. In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (i. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The Korean language (, see below) is the official language of both North and South Korea. ...

Names

Official names

• The modern name Hangul (한글) is a term coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912 that simultaneously means "great(한) script(글)" in archaic Korean and "Korean script" in modern Korean. It is never written in Hanja, though the first syllable, han (한), if used in the sense of the word "Korean", may be written 韓. 한글 is pronounced [hangɯl] and would be romanized in one of the following ways:
  • Hangeul or Han-geul in the Revised Romanization of Korean, which the South Korean government uses in all English publications and encourages for all purposes. Many recent publications have adopted this spelling.
  • Han'gŭl in the older McCune-Reischauer system. When used as an English word, it is rendered without the diacritics: Hangul, or sometimes without capitalization: hangul. This is how it appears in many English dictionaries.
  • Hankul in Yale Romanization, another common system in English dictionaries.
• North Koreans prefer to call it Chosŏn'gŭl (조선글), for reasons related to the different names of Korea.
• The original name was Hunmin Jeong-eum (훈민정음; 訓民正音; see history). Due to objections to the names Hangeul, Chosŏn'gŭl, and Urigeul (see below) by the Korean minority in Manchuria, the otherwise uncommon short form Jeongeum may be used as a neutral name in some international contexts.

Ju Si-gyeong (December 22, 1876 - July 27, 1914) was one of the founders of modern Korean linguistics. ... 1912 (MCMXII) was a leap year starting on Monday in the Gregorian calendar (or a leap year starting on Tuesday in the 13-day-slower Julian calendar). ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ... A romanization or latinization is a system for representing a word or language with the Roman (Latin) alphabet, where the original word or language used a different writing system. ... The Revised Romanization of Korean (Korean: 국어의 로마자 표기법; 國語의 로마字 表記法) is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. ... Anthem: Aegukga (The Patriotic Song) Capital (and largest city) Seoul Korean Government Republic  - President Roh Moo-hyun  - Prime Minister Han Myung-sook Establishment    - Gojoseon October 3, 2333 BCa   - Liberation declared March 1, 1919 (de jure)   - Liberation August 15, 1945   - First Republic August 15, 1948   - United Nations Recognition December 12, 1948... McCune-Reischauer romanization is one of the two most widely used Korean language romanization systems, along with the Revised Romanization of Korean, which replaced (a modified) McCune-Reischauer as the official romanization system in South Korea in 2000. ... A diacritical mark or diacritic, also called an accent mark, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. ... The Yale romanizations are four systems created during World War II for use by United States military personnel. ... North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK; Korean: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; Hangul: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Hanja: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國), is a country in eastern Asia... This article examines the varying names of Korean states (modern and historical) as well as the Korean people and geographical region. ... Manchuria (Manchu: Manju; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Simplified Chinese: 满洲; pinyin: MÇŽnzhōu, Russian: ) is a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ...

Other names

Until the early twentieth century, Hangul was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite who preferred the traditional Hanja writing system. They gave it such names as:

• Eonmun (언문 諺文 "vernacular script").
• Amkeul (암클 "women's script"). 암-(probably derived from 陰 yin) is a prefix that signifies a noun is feminine.
• Ahae(t)geul (아햇글 or 아해글 "children's script").

However, these names are now archaic, as the use of hanja in writing has become very rare in South Korea and completely phased out in North Korea. Today, the name Urigeul / Uri kŭl (우리 글) or "our script" is used in both North and South Korea. Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ...

History

A page from the Hunmin Jeong-eum. The Hangul-only column, 나랏말ᄊᆞ미, has pitch-accent diacritics to the left of the syllable blocks.

Hangul was promulgated by the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, Sejong the Great. Some suspect that such a complex project must have been developed by a team of researchers, and there appear to have been several people involved. For example, the Hall of Worthies is usually credited for the work. However, records show that his staff of scholars denounced the king for not having consulted with them. King Sejong and his team may have worked in secret because of the opposition by the educated elite. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... The Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) (also Chosun), sometimes known as the Yi Dynasty, was a dynasty founded by General Yi Seonggye in what is modern day Korea, and lasted for five centuries as one of the worlds longest running monarchies. ... King Sejong the Great (May 6, 1397 - May 18, 1450), born I Do, was the fourth ruler of the Joseon Dynasty of Korea from 1418 to 1450. ... The Hall of Worthies or Jiphyeonjeon was set up by King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea in 1420. ...

King Sejong was one of the best phoneticians of his country, and his interest in phonetics is confirmed by the fact that he sent his researchers 13 times to a Chinese phonetician living in exile in Manchuria, near the border between Korea and China.^{[citation needed]} Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Manchuria (Manchu: Manju; Traditional Chinese: 滿洲; Simplified Chinese: 满洲; pinyin: Mǎnzhōu, Russian: ) is a vast territorial region in northeast Asia. ...

The project was completed in late 1443 or early 1444, and published in 1446 in a document titled Hunmin Jeongeum "The Proper Sounds for the Education of the People", after which the alphabet itself was named. The publication date of the Hunmin Jeong-eum, October 9, is Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent is on January 15. Promulgated in September or October 1446, Hunmin Jeongeum (lit. ... Hangul Day — also called Hangul Proclamation Day or Korean Alphabet Day — is a Korean national commemorative day marking the invention and the proclamation of Hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language, by King Sejong the Great. ... North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK; Korean: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; Hangul: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Hanja: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國), is a country in eastern Asia...

It had been rumored that King Sejong visualized the written characters after studying an intricate lattice, but this speculation was put to rest by the discovery in 1940 of the 1446 Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye "Explanations and Examples of the Hunmin Jeong-eum". This document explains the design of the consonant letters according to articulatory phonetics and the vowel letters according to the principles of yin and yang and vowel harmony. Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye (lit. ... The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. ... Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ...

King Sejong explained that he created the new script because the Korean language was different from Chinese; using Chinese characters (known as Hanja) to write was difficult for the common people to learn. At that time, only male members of the aristocracy (yangban) learned to read and write, and most Koreans were effectively illiterate. Hangul faced heavy opposition by the literate elite, who believed hanja to be the only legitimate writing system. The protest by Choe Manri and other Confucian scholars in 1444 is a typical example. Later the government became apathetic to Hangul. Yeonsangun, the 10th king, forbade the study or use of Hangul and banned Hangul documents in 1504, and King Jungjong abolished the Ministry of Eonmun in 1506. Until this time Hangul had been principally used by women and the uneducated. It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ... The Yangban were a well educated scholarly class of male Confucian scholars who were part of the ruling elite within Korea prior to 1945 and the republics period of Korean history. ... Choe Manri (sometimes spelled Choe Mal-li) was a deputy minister for education in the Privy Council () who spoke against the creation of Hangul together with other Confucian scholars in 1444. ... Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā The School of the Scholars), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical, religious and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

In late 19th century, Korean nationalism increased as Japan attempted to sever Korea from China's sphere of influence. Hangul came to be considered a national symbol by some reformists. As a result of the Gabo Reform, Hangul was adopted in official documents for the first time in 1894. After Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910, Hangul was briefly taught in schools before being banned as Japan enforced a policy of cultural assimilation. However, it was later standardized by an academic group led by Chu Sigyong in publications such as the standardized system of Hangul on 29 October 1933. In 1940 a system for expressing foreign orthographies in Hangul was published. During this period Korean was written in a mixed hanja-Hangul script, where many lexical roots were written in hanja and grammatical forms in Hangul. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The Gabo Reform or Gabo Gyeongjang (갑오 경장; 甲午更張) describes a series of sweeping reforms introduced into Korea (at that time called Joseon) in 1894, during the reign of King Gojong. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... October 29 is the 302nd day of the year (303rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1933 (MCMXXXIII) was a common year starting on Sunday. ...

Since regaining independence from Japan in 1945, Korea has used Hangul as its official writing system, with ever-decreasing use of the mixed system. Today it is uncommon to find hanja mixed in with normal writing, though some South Korean newspapers use hanja as abbreviations in headlines, or to avoid ambiguity in homonyms.

Jamo

See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables

Jamo (자모; 字母) or nassori (낱소리) are the units that make up the Hangul alphabet. Ja means letter or character, and mo means mother, so the name suggests that the jamo are the building-blocks of the script. The following are tables on the jamo of Hangul consonants and vowels, with the original forms in blue at the first row, and their derivatives (in form and having additional sounds) in the following rows. ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ...

There are 51 jamo, of which 24 are equivalent to letters of the Latin alphabet. The other 27 jamo are clusters of two or sometimes three of these letters. Of the 24 simple jamo, fourteen are consonants (ja-eum 자음, 子音 "child sounds") and ten are vowels (mo-eum 모음, 母音 "mother sounds"). Five of the simple consonant letters are doubled to form the five tense consonants (see below), while another eleven clusters are formed of two different consonant letters. The ten vowel jamo can be combined to form eleven diphthongs. Here is a summary: Vintage German letter balance for home use Look up letter in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

• 14 simple consonant letters: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, ㅅ, ㅇ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, ㅎ, plus obsolete ㅿ(alveolar),ㆁ(velar),ㆆ,ㅱ,ㅸ,ㆄ
• 5 double letters(glotalized): ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ, plus obsolete ㅥ,ㆀ,ㆅ,ㅹ
• 11 consonant clusters: ㄳ, ㄵ, ㄶ, ㄺ, ㄻ, ㄼ, ㄽ, ㄾ, ㄿ, ㅀ, ㅄ, plus obsolete ㅦ,ㅧ,ㅨ,ㅪ,ㅬ,ㅭ,ㅮ,ㅯ,ㅰ,ㅲ,ㅳ,,ㅶ,ㅷ,ㅺ,ㅻ,ㅼ,ㅽ,ㅾ,ㆂ,ㆃ, and obsolete triple clusters ㅩ,ㅫ,ㅴ,ㅵ

• 6 simple vowel letters: ㅏ, ㅓ, ㅗ, ㅜ, ㅡ, ㅣ, plus obsolete ㆍ
• 4 simple iotized vowel letters(semi consonant-semi vowel): ㅑ, ㅕ, ㅛ, ㅠ
• 11 diphthongs: ㅐ, ㅒ, ㅔ, ㅖ, ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ, ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ, ㅢ, plus obsolete ㆎ,ㆇ,ㆈ,ㆉ,ㆊ,ㆋ,ㆌ

Four of the simple vowel jamo are derived by means of a short stroke to signify iotation (a preceding i sound): ㅑ ya, ㅕ yeo, ㅛ yo, and ㅠ yu. These four are counted as part of the 24 simple jamo because the iotating stroke taken out of context does not represent y. In fact, there is no separate jamo for y. In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Iotation is a form of palatalisation which occurs in Slavic languages. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Of the simple consonants, ㅊ chieut, ㅋ kieuk, ㅌ tieut, and ㅍ pieup are aspirated derivatives of ㅈ jieut, ㄱ giyeok, ㄷ digeut, and ㅂ bieup, respectively, formed by combining the unaspirated letters with an extra stroke. In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ...

The doubled letters are ㄲ ssang-giyeok (kk: ssang- 쌍 "double"), ㄸ ssang-digeut (tt), ㅃ ssang-bieup (pp), ㅆ ssang-siot (ss), and ㅉ ssang-jieut (jj). Double jamo do not represent geminate consonants, but rather a "tense" phonation. In phonetics, gemination is when a spoken consonant is doubled, so that it is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a single consonant. ... In phonetics, phonation is the use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i. ...

Jamo design

Hangul is a featural script. Scripts may transcribe languages at the level of morphemes (logographic scripts like hanja), of syllables (syllabic scripts like kana), or of segments (alphabetic scripts like the one you're reading here). Hangul goes one step further, using distinct strokes to indicate distinctive features such as place of articulation (labial, coronal, velar, or glottal) and manner of articulation (plosive, nasal, sibilant, aspiration) for consonants, and iotation (a preceding i- sound), harmonic class, and I-mutation for vowels. A featural alphabet is an alphabet wherein the shapes of the letters are not arbitrary, but encode phonological features of the phonemes they represent. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... A logogram, or logograph, is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). ... It has been suggested that Sino-Korean be merged into this article or section. ... A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... In linguistics (and phonetics), segment is used primarily “to refer to any discrete unit that can be identified, either physically or auditorily, in the stream of speech” (after A Dictionary of Linguistics & Phonetics, David Crystal, 2003, pp. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... In linguistics, distinctive features are the elements which distinguish one phoneme or allophone from one another. ... Places of articulation (passive & active): 1. ... Labials are consonants articulated either with both lips (bilabial articulation) or with the lower lip and the upper teeth (labiodental articulation). ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... In linguistics, manner of articulation describes how the tongue, lips, and other speech organs involved in making a sound make contact. ... A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velum—that fleshy part of the palate near the back—is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... A sibilant is a type of fricative or affricate, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel towards the sharp edge of the teeth. ... In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies the release of some obstruents. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... I-mutation is what umlaut is called when it applies to English. ...

For instance, the consonant jamo ㅌ t [tʰ] is composed of three strokes, each one meaningful: the top stroke indicates ㅌ is a plosive, like ㆆ ’, ㄱ g, ㄷ d, ㅂ b, ㅈ j, which have the same stroke (the last is an affricate, a plosive-fricative sequence); the middle stroke indicates that ㅌ is aspirated, like ㅎ h, ㅋ k, ㅍ p, ㅊ ch, which also have this stroke; and the curved bottom stroke indicates that ㅌ is coronal, like ㄴ n, ㄷ d, and ㄹ l. Two consonants, ᇰ and ᇢ, have dual pronunciations, and appear to be composed of two elements, stacked one over the other, to represent these two pronunciations: [ŋ]/silence for ᇰ and [m]/[w] for obsolete ᇢ. Affricate consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or ), but release as a fricative such as or (or, in a couple of languages, into a fricative trill) rather than directly into the following vowel. ...

With vowel jamo, a short stroke connected to the main line of the letter indicates that this is one of the vowels which can be iotated; this stroke is then doubled when the vowel is iotated. The position of the stroke indicates which harmonic class the vowel belongs to, "light" (top or right) or "dark" (bottom or left). In the modern jamo, an additional vertical stroke indicates umlaut, deriving ㅐ [ɛ], ㅔ [e], ㅚ [ø], ㅟ [y] from ㅏ [a], ㅓ [ʌ], ㅗ [o], ㅜ [u]. However, this is not part of the intentional design of the script, but rather a natural development from what were originally diphthongs ending in the vowel ㅣ [i]. Indeed, in many Korean dialects, including the standard dialect of Seoul, some of these may still be diphthongs. Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ... Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ... In linguistics the term Umlaut is used in a variety of closely related ways, some narrower, some broader. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... The Korean language is spoken in a number of different dialects around the Korean peninsula. ... The Seoul dialect is the basis of the standard dialect of Korean in South Korea. ...

Although the design of the script may be featural, for all practical purposes it behaves as an alphabet. The jamo ㅌ isn't read as three letters coronal plosive aspirated, for instance, but as a single consonant t. Likewise, the former diphthong ㅔ is read as a single vowel e.

Beside the jamo, Hangul originally employed diacritic marks to indicate pitch accent. A syllable with a high pitch was marked with a dot (·) to the left of it (when writing vertically); a syllable with a rising pitch was marked with a double dot, like a colon (:). These are no longer used. Although vowel length was and still is phonemic in Korean, it was never indicated in Hangul, except that syllables with rising pitch (:) necessarily had long vowels. A diacritic mark or accent mark is an additional mark added to a basic letter. ... Pitch accent is a kind of accent system employed in many languages around the world. ... In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. ...

Although some aspects of Hangul reflect a shared history with the Phagspa alphabet, and thus Indic phonology, such as the relationships among the homorganic jamo and the alphabetic principle itself, other aspects such as organization of jamo into syllablic blocks, and which Phagspa letters were chosen to be basic to the system, reflect the influence of Chinese writing and phonology. The Mongolian language historically has four writing systems that have been used over the centuries. ... The Brahmic family is a family of abugidas (writing systems) used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria. ... The vowels of modern (Standard) Arabic and (Israeli) Hebrew from the phonological point of view. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ...

Consonant jamo design

The letters for the consonants fall into five homorganic groups, each with a basic shape, and one or more letters derived from this shape by means of additional strokes. In the Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye account, the basic shapes iconically represent the articulations the tongue, palate, teeth, and throat take when making these sounds. The tongue is the large bundle of skeletal muscles on the floor of the foot that manipulates food for chewing and swallowing, (deglutition). ... The palate is the roof of the mouth in humans and vertebrate animals. ... Types of teeth Molars are used for grinding up foods Carnassials are used for slicing food. ... Anatomy In anatomy, the throat is the part of the neck anterior to the vertebral column. ...

The Korean names for the groups are taken from Chinese phonetics: Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ...

• Velar consonants (아음, 牙音 a-eum "molar sounds")
  • ㄱ g [k], ㅋ k [kʰ]
  • Basic shape: ㄱ is a side view of the back of the tongue raised toward the velum (soft palate). (For illustration, access the external link below.) ㅋ is derived from ㄱ with a stroke for the burst of aspiration.
• Coronal consonants (설음, 舌音 seol-eum "lingual sounds"):
  • ㄴ n [n], ㄷ d [t], ㅌ t [tʰ], ㄹ r [ɾ, l]
  • Basic shape: ㄴ is a side view of the tip of the tongue raised toward the alveolar ridge (gum ridge). The letters derived from ㄴ are pronounced with the same basic articulation. The line topping ㄷ represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The middle stroke of ㅌ represents the burst of aspiration. The top of ㄹ represents a flap of the tongue.
• Bilabial consonants (순음, 唇音 sun-eum "labial sounds"):
  • ㅁ m [m], ㅂ b [p], ㅍ p [pʰ]
  • Basic shape: ㅁ represents the outline of the lips in contact with each other. The top of ㅂ represents the release burst of the b. The top stroke of ㅍ is for the burst of aspiration.
• Sibilants (치음, 齒音 chieum "dental sounds"):
  • ㅅ s [s], ㅈ j [ʨ], ㅊ ch [ʨʰ]
  • Basic shape: ㅅ was originally shaped like a wedge ʌ, without the serif on top. It represents a side view of the teeth. The line topping ㅈ represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The stroke topping ㅊ represents an additional burst of aspiration.
• Glottal consonants (후음, 喉音 hueum "throat sounds"):
  • ㅇ ng [ʔ, ŋ], ㅎ h [h]
  • Basic shape: ㅇ is an outline of the throat. Originally ㅇ was two letters, a simple circle for silence (null consonant), and a circle topped by a vertical line, ㆁ, for the nasal ng. A now obsolete letter, ㆆ, represented a glottal stop, which is pronounced in the throat and had closure represented by the top line, like ㄱㄷㅈ. Derived from ㆆ is ㅎ, in which the extra stroke represents a burst of aspiration.

The phonetic theory inherent in the derivation of glottal stop ㆆ and aspirate ㅎ from the null ㅇ may be more accurate than Chinese phonetics or modern IPA usage. In Chinese theory and in the IPA, the glottal consonants are posited as having a specific "glottal" place of articulation. However, recent phonetic theory has come to view the glottal stop and [h] to be isolated features of 'stop' and 'aspiration' without an inherent place of articulation, just as their Hangul representations based on the null symbol assume. Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. ... An alveolar ridge is one of the two jaw ridges either on the roof of the mouth between the upper teeth and the hard palate or on the bottom of the mouth behind the lower teeth. ... In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the tongue) is thrown against another. ... In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... A sibilant is a type of fricative, made by speeding up air through a narrow channel and directing it over the sharp edge of the teeth. ... In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ...

Vowel jamo design

Vowel letters are based on three elements:

• A horizontal line representing the flat Earth, the essence of yin.
• A point for the Sun in the heavens, the essence of yang. (This becomes a short stroke when written with a brush.)
• A vertical line for the upright Human, the neutral mediator between the Heaven and Earth.

Short strokes (dots in the earliest documents) were added to these three basic elements to derive the simple vowel jamo: Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ... Taijitu, the traditional symbol representing the forces of Yin and Yang The concepts of Yin and Yang originate in ancient Chinese philosophy and metaphysics, which describes two primal opposing but complementary forces found in all things in the universe. ...

• Simple vowels
  • Horizontal letters: these are mid-high back vowels.
    • light ㅗ o
    • dark ㅜ u
    • dark ㅡ eu (ŭ)
  • Vertical letters: these were once low or front vowels. (ㅓ eo has since migrated to the back of the mouth.)
    • light ㅏ a
    • dark ㅓ eo (ŏ)
    • neutral ㅣ i
• Compound jamo. Hangul never had a w, except for Sino-Korean etymology. Since an o or u before an a or eo became a [w] sound, and [w] occurred nowhere else, [w] could always be analyzed as a phonemic o or u, and no letter for [w] was needed. However, vowel harmony is observed: yin ㅜ u with yin ㅓ eo for ㅝ wo; yang ㅏ a with yang ㅗ o for ㅘ wa:
  • ㅘ wa = ㅗ o + ㅏ a
  • ㅝ wo = ㅜ u + ㅓ eo
  • ㅙ wae = ㅗ o + ㅐ ae
  • ㅞ we = ㅜ u + ㅔ e

The compound jamo ending in ㅣ i were originally diphthongs. However, several have since evolved into pure vowels: Sino-Korean describes those elements of the Korean language that come directly or indirectly from Chinese — namely, Hanja and the words formed from them. ... Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

• • ㅐ ae = ㅏ a + ㅣ i
  • ㅔ e = ㅓ eo + ㅣ i
  • ㅙ wae = ㅘ wa + ㅣ i
  • ㅚ oe = ㅗ o + ㅣ i
  • ㅞ we = ㅝ wo + ㅣ i
  • ㅟ wi = ㅜ u + ㅣ i
  • ㅢ ui = ㅡ eu + ㅣ i

• Iotized vowels: There is no jamo for Roman y before a vowel. Instead, this sound is indicated by doubling the stroke attached to the base line of the vowel letter. Of the seven basic vowels, four could be preceded by a y sound, and these four were written as a dot next to a line. (Through the influence of Chinese calligraphy, the dots soon became connected to the line: ㅓㅏㅜㅗ.) A preceding y sound, called "iotation", was indicated by doubling this dot: ㅕㅑㅠㅛ yeo, ya, yu, yo. The three vowels which could not be iotated were written with a single stroke: ㅡㆍㅣ eu, (arae a), i.

The simple iotated vowels are,

• • ㅑ ya from ㅏ  a
  • ㅕ yeo from ㅓ  eo
  • ㅛ yo from ㅗ  o
  • ㅠ yu from ㅜ  u

There are also two iotated diphthongs,

• • ㅒ yae from ㅐ  ae
  • ㅖ ye from ㅔ  e

The Korean language of the 15th century had vowel harmony to a greater extent than it does today. Vowels in grammatical morphemes changed according to their environment, falling into groups which "harmonized" with each other. This affected the morphology of the language, and Korean phonology described it in terms of yin and yang: If a root word had yang ('bright') vowels, then most suffixes attached to it also had to have yang vowels; conversely, if the root had yin ('dark') vowels, the suffixes needed to be yin as well. There was a third harmonic group called "mediating" ('neutral' in Western terminology) that could coexist with either yin or yang vowels. Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... In morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest lingual unit that carries a semantic interpretation. ... Morphology is a subdiscipline of linguistics that studies word structure. ...

The Korean neutral vowel was ㅣ i. The yin vowels were ㅡㅜㅓ eu, u, eo; the dots are in the yin directions of 'down' and 'left'. The yang vowels were ㆍㅗㅏ ə, o, a, with the dots in the yang directions of 'up' and 'right'. The Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye states that the shapes of the non-dotted jamo ㅡㆍㅣ were chosen to represent the concepts of yin, yang, and mediation: Earth, Heaven, and Human. (The letter ㆍ ə is now obsolete.)

There was yet a third parameter in designing the vowel jamo, namely, choosing ㅡ as the graphic base of ㅜ and ㅗ, and ㅣ as the graphic base of ㅓ and ㅏ. A full understanding of what these horizontal and vertical groups had in common would require knowing the exact sound values these vowels had in the 15^th century. Our uncertainty is primarily with the three jamo ㆍㅓㅏ. Some linguists reconstruct these as *a, *ɤ, *e, respectively; others as *ə, *e, *a. However, the horizontal jamo ㅡㅜㅗ eu, u, o do all appear to have been mid to high back vowels, [*ɯ, *u, *o], and thus to have formed a coherent group phonetically. A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. ...

Ledyard's theory of consonant jamo design

(Top) Phagspa letters [k, t, p, s, l], and their supposed hangul derivatives [k, t, p, ts, l]. Note the lip on both Phagspa [t] and hangul ㄷ.
(Bottom) Derivation of Phagspa w, v, f from variants of the letter [h] (left) plus a subscript [w], and analogous composition of hangul w, v, f from variants of the basic letter [p] plus a circle.

Although the Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye explains the design of the consonantal jamo in terms of articulatory phonetics, as a purely innovative creation, there are several theories as to which external sources may have inspired or influenced King Sejong's creation. Professor Gari Ledyard of Columbia University believes that five consonant letters were derived from the Mongol Phagspa alphabet of the Yuan dynasty, while the rest of the jamo were derived internally from these five, essentially as described in the Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye. However, these five basic consonants were not the graphically simplest letters that were considered basic by the Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye, but instead the consonants basic to Chinese phonology. (Top) The Phagspa letters , and their hangul derivatives, g, t, b, j, l . ... (Top) The Phagspa letters , and their hangul derivatives, g, t, b, j, l . ... The field of articulatory phonetics is a subfield of phonetics. ... // Ledyards Theory on the Creation of Hangul Gari Ledyard, Sejong Professor of Korean History Emeritus at Columbia University, believes that the derivation in the Hunmin Jeong-eum is a mnemonic, or a rationalization invented after the fact, and that hangul actually derives, at least in part, from the Mongol... The word Wiki in Phagspa characters The Phagspa script (also square script) was an Abugida designed by the Lama Phagspa for the emperor Kublai Khan during the Yuan Dynasty in China, as a unified script for all languages within the Mongolian Empire. ... The Yuan Dynasty (Chinese: ; pinyin: Yuáncháo; Mongolian: Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus), lasting officially from 1271 to 1368, followed the Song Dynasty and preceded the Ming Dynasty in the historiography of China. ...

The Hunmin Jeong-eum states that King Sejong adapted 古篆 (Gǔ seal script) in creating hangul. The primary meaning of 古 is old, frustrating philologists because hangul bears no functional similarity to Chinese 篆字 seal scripts. However, 古 may also have been a pun on Mongol (蒙古 Měnggǔ), and 古篆 may have been an abbreviation of 蒙古篆字 "Mongol Seal Script", that is, a formal variant of the Phagspa alphabet written to look like the Chinese seal script. There were certainly Phagspa manuscripts in the Korean palace library, and several of Sejong's ministers knew the script well. 《尋隱者不遇》—賈島 松下問童子 言師採藥去 隻在此山中 雲深不知處 Seeking the Master but not Meeting by Jia Dao Beneath a pine I asked a little child. ...

If this was the case, Sejong's evasion on the Mongol connection can be understood in light of Korea's relationship with Ming China after the fall of the Yuan dynasty, and of the literati's contempt for the Mongols as "barbarians".

According to Ledyard, the five borrowed letters were graphically simplified, which allowed for jamo clusters and left room to derive the aspirate plosives, ㅋㅌㅍㅊ. But in contrast to the traditional account, the non-plosives (ng ㄴㅁ and ㅅ) were derived by removing the top of these letters. While it's easy to derive ㅁ from ㅂ by removing the top, it's not clear how to derive ㅂ from ㅁ, since ㅂ is not analogous to the other plosives.

The explanation of ng also differs from the traditional account. Many Chinese words began with ng, but by King Sejong's day, ng was either silent or pronounced [ŋ] in China, and was silent when these words were borrowed into Korean. Also, the expected shape of ng (vertical line left by removing the top stroke of ㄱ) would have looked the same as the vowel ㅣ [i]. Sejong's solution solved both problems: the vertical stroke from ㄱ was added to the null symbol ㅇ to create ᇰ (a circle with a vertical line on top), iconically capturing both [ŋ] in the middle or end of a word, and silence at the beginning. (The distinction between ㅇ and ᇰ was eventually lost.)

Additionally, the composition of obsolete ᇢᇦᇴ w, v, f (for Chinese initials 微非敷), by adding a small circle under ㅁㅂㅍ (m, b, p), is parallel to the Phagspa addition of a small loop under three variants of h. In Phagspa, this loop also represented w after vowels. The Chinese initial 微 represented either m or w in various dialects, and this may be reflected in the choice of ㅁ [m] plus ㅇ (from Phagspa [w]) as the elements of hangul ᇢ, for another letter composed of two elements to represent two regional pronunciations. In phonetics and phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a syllable that precedes the syllable nucleus. ...

Finally, most of the borrowed hangul letters were simple geometric shapes, at least originally, but ㄷ d [t] always had a small lip protruding from the upper left corner, just as the Phagspa d [t] did. This can be traced back to the Tibetan letter d, ད.

See Gari Ledyard for details. // Ledyards Theory on the Creation of Hangul Gari Ledyard, Sejong Professor of Korean History Emeritus at Columbia University, believes that the derivation in the Hunmin Jeong-eum is a mnemonic, or a rationalization invented after the fact, and that hangul actually derives, at least in part, from the Mongol...

Jamo order

The alphabetical order of Hangul does not mix consonants and vowels as Western alphabets do. Rather, the order is that of the Indic type, first velar consonants, then coronals, labials, sibilants, etc. However, the vowels come after the consonants rather than before them as in the Indic systems. The Shiva Sutras (also Maheshvara Sutras) are the 14 sutras that form the basis of the Aṣṭādhyāyī, the Sanskrit grammar by Pāṇini. ...

The modern alphabetic order was set by Choi Sejin in 1527. This was before the development of the Korean tense consonants and the double jamo that represent them, and before the conflation of the letters ㅇ (null) and ㆁ (ng). Thus when the South Korean and North Korean governments implemented full use of Hangul, they ordered these letters differently, with South Korea grouping similar letters together, and North Korea placing new letters at the end of the alphabet. Choi Sejin (1473-1542) was a Korean linguist, educator, and a proponent of Hangul. ... Anthem: Aegukga (The Patriotic Song) Capital (and largest city) Seoul Korean Government Republic  - President Roh Moo-hyun  - Prime Minister Han Myung-sook Establishment    - Gojoseon October 3, 2333 BCa   - Liberation declared March 1, 1919 (de jure)   - Liberation August 15, 1945   - First Republic August 15, 1948   - United Nations Recognition December 12, 1948... North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK; Korean: Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk; Hangul: 조선민주주의인민공화국; Hanja: 朝鮮民主主義人民共和國), is a country in eastern Asia...

South Korean order

The Southern order of the consonantal jamo is,

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

Double jamo are placed immediately after their single counterparts. No distinction is made between silent and nasal ㅇ.

The order of the vocalic jamo is,

ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ

The modern monophthongal vowels come first, with the derived forms interspersed according to their form: first added i, then iotized, then iotized with added i. Diphthongs beginning with w are ordered according to their spelling, as ㅏ or ㅓ plus a second vowel, not as separate digraphs. A monophthong (in Greek μονόφθογγος = single note) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation; compare diphthong. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ... Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ...

North Korean order

North Korea maintains a more traditional order.

The Northern order of the consonantal jamo is:

ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ (ng) ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ ㅇ (null)

The first ㅇ is the nasal ㅇ ng, which occurs only as a final in the modern language. ㅇ used as an initial, on the other hand, goes at the very end, as it is a placeholder for the vowels which follow. (A syllable with no final is ordered before all syllables with finals, however, not with null ㅇ.)

The new letters, the double jamo, are placed at the end of the consonants, just before the null ㅇ, so as not to alter the traditional order of the rest of the alphabet.

The order of the vocalic jamo is,

ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ ㅚ ㅟ ㅢ ㅘ ㅝ ㅙ ㅞ

All digraphs and trigraphs, including the old diphthongs ㅐ and ㅔ, are placed after all basic vowels, again maintaining Choi's alphabetic order. A trigraph (from the Greek words tria = three and grapho = write) is a group of three letters used to represent a single sound. ...

Jamo names

The Hangul arrangement is called the ganada order (가나다 순), after the first three jamo (g, n, d) affixed to the first vowel (a). The jamo were named by Choi Sejin in 1527. North Korea regularized the names when it made Hangul its official orthography. Choi Sejin (1473-1542) was a Korean linguist, educator, and a proponent of Hangul. ...

Consonantal jamo names

The modern consonants have two-syllable names, with the consonant coming both at the beginning and end of the name, as follows:

All jamo in North Korea, and all but three in the more traditional nomenclature used in South Korea, have names of the format of letter + i + eu + letter. For example, Choi wrote bieup with the hanja 非 bi 邑 eup. The names of g, d, and s are exceptions because there were no hanja for euk, eut, and eus. 役 yeok is used in place of euk. Since there is no hanja that ends in t or s, Choi chose two hanja to be read in their Korean gloss, 末 kkeut "end" and 衣 os "clothes".

Originally, Choi gave j, ch, k, t, p, and h the irregular one-syllable names of ji, chi, ki, ti, pi, and hi, because they should not be used as final consonants, as specified in Hunmin jeong-eum. But after the establishment of the new orthography in 1933, which allowed all consonsants to be used as finals, the names were changed to the present forms.

The double jamo precede the parent consonant's name with the word 쌍 ssang, meaning "twin" or "double", or with 된 doen in North Korea, meaning "strong". Thus:

In North Korea, an alternate way to refer to the jamo is by the name letter + eu (ㅡ), for example, 그 geu for the jamo ㄱ, 쓰 sseu for the jamo ㅆ, etc.

Vocalic jamo names

The vocalic jamo names are simply the vowel itself, written with the null initial ㅇ ieung and the vowel being named. Thus:

Obsolete jamo

Several jamo are obsolete. These include several that represent Korean sounds that have since disappeared from the standard language, as well as a larger number used to represent the sounds of the Chinese rime tables. The most frequently encountered of these archaic letters are: Rime tables, as used in Chinese character dictionaries, show characters listed by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, and tones, but not necessarily in that order. ...

• ㆍ or 丶 (transcribed ə or ʌ (arae-a 아래아 “lower a”): Presumably pronounced as IPA [ʌ], similar to modern eo.

  ə formed a medial of its own, or was found as the diphthong ㆎ arae-ae. The word ahə "child", which was originally written using this letter, has been changed to ai (아이).

• ㅿ z (bansios 반시옷): A rather unusual sound, perhaps IPA [ʝ͂] (a nasalized palatal fricative). (If your browser doesn't show it, the jamo looks like an equilateral triangle.)
• ㆆ ’ (yeorin hieuh 여린 히읗 "light hieuh" or doen ieung 된 이응 "strong ieung"): A glottal stop, "lighter than ㅎ and harsher than ㅇ".
• ㆁ ng (yet-ieung 옛이응): The original jamo for [ŋ]; now conflated with ㅇ ieung. (With some computer fonts, yet-ieung is shown as a flattened version of ieung, but the correct form is with a long peak, longer than what you would see on a serif version of ieung.)
• ㅸ β (gabyeoun bieup 가벼운비읍): IPA [f]. This letter appears to be a digraph of bieup and ieung, but it may be more complicated than that. There were three other less common jamo for sounds in this section of the Chinese rime tables, ㅱ w ([w] or [m]), a theoretical ㆄ f, and ㅹ ff [v̤]; the bottom element appears to be only coincidentally similar to ieung.

There were two other now-obsolete double jamo, Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet as used for English. ... In phonetics, nasalization refers to a sound that is produced with a lowered velum so air escapes partially or wholly through the nose during the production of the sound. ... The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In typography, serifs are non-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols. ... Rime tables, as used in Chinese character dictionaries, show characters listed by their onsets, rimes, grades of rime, and tones, but not necessarily in that order. ...

• ㆅ x (ssanghieuh 쌍히읗 "double hieuh"): IPA [ɣ̈ʲ] or [ɣ̈].
• ㆀ (ssang-ieung 쌍이응 "double ieung"): Another jamo used in the Chinese rime table.

In the original Hangul system, double jamo were used to represent Chinese voiced (濁音) consonants, which survive in the Shanghainese slack consonants, and were not used for Korean words. It was only later that a similar convention was used to represent the modern "tense" (faucalized) consonants of Korean. Shanghainese, sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect, is a dialect of Wu Chinese spoken in the city of Shanghai. ... The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in normal full voice. ... Faucalized voice, also called hollow or yawny voice, is the production of speech sounds with an expanded laryngeal cavity. ...

The sibilant ("dental") consonants were modified to represent the two series of Chinese sibilants, alveolar and retroflex, a "round" vs. "sharp" distinction which was never made in Korean, and which was even being lost from northern Chinese. The alveolar jamo had longer left stems, while retroflexes had longer right stems: Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Retroflex consonants are articulated with the tip of the tongue curled up and back so the bottom of the tip touches the roof of the mouth. ...

There were also consonant clusters that have since dropped out of the language, such as ㅴ bsg and ㅵ bsd, as well as diphthongs that were used to represent Chinese medials, such as ㆇ, ㆈ, ㆊ, ㆋ. In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. ... In phonetics, a diphthong (Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds, or with two tones) is a vowel combination in a single syllable involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Some of the Korean sounds represented by these obsolete jamo still exist in some dialects.

Syllabic blocks

Except for a few grammatical morphemes in archaic texts, no letter may stand alone to represent elements of the Korean language. Instead, jamo are grouped into syllabic blocks of at least two and often three: a consonant or