Talk:Hangul

And the comment that Choi Sejin established the current order, is although correct, but misleading. What he decided is *basic jamo order*. Nothing about five glottalized consonants, or combined vowels. So South and Korea differ in these matters, but same in basics. -- 143.248.205.98

A varied order is interesting. Thank you for the info. They have been added. --Menchi 10:30 11 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The reason the order differs is that the "glottalized" consonants were not part of the Korean language, and the compound vowels were still diphthongs, when the alphabetic order was set. It's common to add new letters at the end of an alphabet (such as Roman wye and zed), but it's also common to group them with similar letters (such as Spanish ene and eñe). — kwami 10:44, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lattices

Some claims that King Sejong visualized the written characters after studying the intricate lattice work one sees on the sliding doors found in classic Korean homes. But the others say that it is a rumor spread under the Japanese rule, in order to condemn the language of a colony.

It's not obvious to me how this theory/story/rumor could be considered "condemning". Could you explain further?

Ok, perhaps I picked wrong word. (I am not a native speaker of English) But Hangul is a deep philosophical and phonological system, not just an imitation of lattice. Ok, I would revise the article, wait a minute.

Okay, I see what you're getting at. But some environmental stimulus (for instance, intricite latticework) can still serve as inspiration leading to someone with a sharp mind developing a deep philosophical and phonological system, which is how I interpreted the claim. Nothing derogatory that I can see.

Inspiration, possible. By the way there is no evidence for that. And a preceeding paragraph states how letters were designed, which is supported by evidences.

Sure... but it doesn't sound any nastier than the "so-and-so invented X after noticing Y in Z, and realizing that he could use the W method to make X work perfectly" statements to be found in glowingly praiseful biographies of inventors. So, while it may be a rumor, legend, or what have you (insofar as it's unsupported by any evidence), it's not in the least bit negative in any way I've yet been able to figure out. Why the need to be defensive about it?

Oops, "jal motaiyo". I was a bit hasty with the patterns thing. Correction coming in 5 minutes. Bear with me. Cham-kan ki-da-ri-se-yo.

Alphabet image

Removed from article:

The Korean letters for "Hangul" in above table are not correct. The incorrect letters are pronounced as /hang-ul/. But the "Hangul" is pronounced like /han-gl/ and the correct letters are 한글.

That, and the table's labelled in French. :) Actually, there's already a version with the spelling corrected (I've just switched it above), but I'm still going to make a French-free version. (Or... no, I think it's still wrong. Just differently so.) --Brion

Maybe (but I don't know) the version should also be made to fit English pronounciation rules (or global ones), since this one may be using the French ones. Jeronimo

Hmm, that table seems to be a mish-mash of different transcription systems (or just one I haven't encountered -- not unlikely, as I'm not very familiar with Korean). Unless someone has a better idea, I'd suggest using the current South Korean official romanization (http://www.korea.net/contents/additional/romanization/4.html). --Brion

Forgot to include the move in the summary. But I rephrased and moved the following to Korean language:

As an aside, hangeul characters are not completely phonetic in themselves. For example, JongLo is pronounced as JongNo and HanKukMal as HangGungMal. The rules for word pronunciation are quite regular, though.

These are examples of "irregularities" governed by phonetic rules, which existed before Hangul. The Hangul spelling is always regular, regardless of pronunciation. (Although the consistency is amazingly high.) So anyway, that's why it's moved to the Language article, because it's an aspect of the language.

Myth

Hey, 66.156.33.26, don't you know some Koreans claim that the so-called Garimto script was the forerunner of Hangul. --Nanshu 02:13, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Garimto is still mysterious and it's not well-accepted. Who knows? Possibly, Garimto could be another "Jinda-moji." Nobody knows its origins. And please, stop watering down the explanation of Jindai-moji. --66.156.33.26

Anybody is free to create detailed articles on Jinda-moji or Garimto, then improve them. I would, except I know nothing about them. Please bring minute details there, not on the general introduction to Hangul. --Menchi 23:06, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

People have different opinions on whether or not the two "mystery languages" are real or bogus fakes. Wouldn't that "clash"---lack of better words. Also, there is not much information on Garimto, but there seems to be some info on Jindai-moji. --66.156.33.26

Write how ever much on either one or both article as you could research. Other Wikipedians will follow with more info if they could. Just be careful not to be pursuasive (i.e., subtly trying to make our encyclopedia article agree with theory A or B). --Menchi 23:37, Aug 12, 2003 (UTC)

I moved the thing to Tondemo. This would be the right place. Yes, it is entertainment except for few believers. --Nanshu 01:36, 13 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I have added tables giving the names of the jamo, corrected the number of jamo (51, not 52), elaborated upon the makeup of that number (simple vs. combined; vowels vs. consonants), and added some other material (Korean words for "consonant" and "vowel," for example).

--Sewing ~16:00, 26 Sept 2003 (UTC)

Hey, Nanshu! There's no reference to Garimto on your Tondemo page, leading to the implication that by clicking on the Tondemo link at the bottom of the Hangul page that you think Hangul or its history is "outrageous nonsense." I'm sure that's not your intention; could you please fix this? Sewing 18:04, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Coding

Sewing, I'm curious about what you are doing with this conversion of Hangul. Why are you doing it and where can we get more information on these two different coding systems? Rschmertz 23:10, 27 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Unicode has two different sets of Hangeul Jamo: "Hangeul Jamo" (starting with hex 1100/decimal 4352) and "Hangeul Compatibility Jamo" (starting with hex 3130/decimal 12592). (There is apparently yet a third set, also called "Hangeul Compatibility Jamo," starting at hex FFA0/decimal 65440; these are half-width, as opposed to the full-width forms of the 3130 block.) I switched simply because while I could view the 1100-block characters in Opera, I could not see them in Internet Explorer; whereas after the switch to the 3130 block, I could view the jamo in both browsers with no problem. The explanation for the difference comes from Section 10.4 (p. 275) of the Online Edition of the Unicode Standard, Version 3.0, which says that the 1100 block can be used for composing syllable blocks, and is ordered in such a way as to enable sorting, with initial consonants coming first, then all the medial vowels, then the final consonants. The 3100 and FFA0 blocks, on the other hand, are not designed for syllable composition or sorting--the initial and final consonants are merged into a single sequence, followed by all the vowels. The 3100 block exists "solely for compatibility with the KS C 5601 standard," which apparently Microsoft follows.... Well, I hope that answers your question: sorry if my reply tends on the long side, but better more info than less, right? --Yours, Sewing 14:38, 28 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Move page back to Hangul

I'm not sure, if I'm doing right. According to the new romanization, the title must be Hangeul. I made a Hangeul page, and make it redirect this page. But I think it's better to change the title of this page to Hangeul and leave a note that the romanization Hangul is out-dated. --Xaos, early 2003

This page should be moved back to Hangul. That is the most common name used in English. [1] (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=Hangul&q2=Hangeul&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us) Nohat 02:43, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

I have replied to your completely unhelpful request on your Talk page. --Sewing 05:45, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Seeing as how this is the English Wikipedia, we have an obligation to follow the primary naming convention of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). We have no obligation to follow the "official" romanizations of Korean according to anyone. English spelling is beholden to no foreign standardizing organization, regardless of the origin of the word. "Hangul" has entries in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the OED, and the American Heritage Dictionary, while "Hangeul" is in none of them. "Hangul" is the the predominant spelling in English, and it is the spelling that should be used in Wikipedia. Furthermore, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) even says "Exceptions to this are English words borrowed from Korean, whose irregular spellings have crystallized in English." Nohat 15:04, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Why don't you go hassle people about the spelling of Peking and Mao Tse-tung and come back here when you're finished with that? -- Dominus 15:14, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, because "Beijing" is more common than "Peking" [2] (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=Peking&q2=Beijing&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us) and "Mao Zedong" is more common than "Mao Tse-tung" [3] (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=Mao+Tse-tung&q2=Mao+Zedong&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us). Nevertheless, "Hangul" is more common than "Hangeul" [4] (http://www.googlefight.com/cgi-bin/compare.pl?q1=Hangul&q2=Hangeul&B1=Make+a+fight%21&compare=1&langue=us). Nohat 15:21, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

And how do you think it got that way? All your arguments about "Hangul" would have applied equally well to "Peking" thirty years ago. "Beijing" is more common now only because official sources such as newpapers, magazines, dictionaries, and encyclopedias acceded to the desire of the Chinese government to change the official spelling. The request of the South Korean government to change the spelling of "Hangul" is no different. -- Dominus 15:54, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

That's because the official Pinyin spelling has had time to filter its way into English. I wrote the rule this morning on Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Korean) that you're referring to, in response to you. I added the caveat that the exception should only apply to words used frequently in a non-Korean context. Anyhow, Hangul currently redirects to Hangeul, and the spelling "Hangul" is acknowledged—in bold, no less—in the first sentence. --Sewing 15:26, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Yes, and "Hangeul" has not "filtered its way into English". "Hangul" is the English name of the Korean writing system. "Hangul" is the English word, as listed in English dictionaries, and is the way it should be spelled in the English Wikipedia. If "Hangeul" ever becomes the more common spelling in English, then we can change the page's name. Until then, the page should be at "Hangul" and it should be spelled "Hangul". This is exactly like "Kimchi" and "Taekwondo"---and we should use English spellings. Nohat 15:36, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

And 30 years ago I would have expected to find an article under "Peking" as almost no one in the English speaking world would hae known what "Beijing" was. However, that has changed, and most people know about "Beijing". It is not Wikipedia's responsibility to be normative: we have no obligation to accede to the requests of the South Koreans until the spelling "Hangeul" becomes well-established in English, which it has not. Furthermore, until the spelling "Hangeul" becomes more common than "Hangul", the analogy argument with "Beijing" and "Mao Zedong" is moot. Nohat 16:02, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I'm of the opinion that article titles should be in the most common form in English usage, with variant spellings described in the article overview. We should be descriptive and not prescriptive, and therefore official government spellings shouldn't have any undue influence upon article titles at all (though they should, of course, be mentioned. Once words switch spelling in common English usage, then the article should be moved then, but not before. The government's official name is a part of the process of the spelling change, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor for our purposes. ---Seth Ilys 16:22, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Accepted. I'll leave the article the way Nohat last edited it, leaving Hangul as the lead entry word with an appropriately parenthetized mention of Hangeul. As for Nohat's "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," you could have persuaded me without resorting to insults. --Sewing 17:49, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm sorry you were insulted. Brion used the same Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation on Talk:Devanagari, and I thought it was appropriate here as well. I didn't intend to imply that you had a small mind; I just wanted to illustrate that even the great masters admit that consistency isn't always the greatest goal to strive for. Nohat 18:09, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Apology accepted, and I agree. Despite the strong imprint of Confucian conformity, part of the beauty of Korean culture is its individualism: witness the myriad spellings of Korean personal names. Like French with its Académie française, (South) Korean spelling and pronunciation rules are set by a central body. Despite this, the romanization of personal names is so idiosyncratic that the government's own rules say that a person's name should just be spelled according to his or her own preference, rules be damned! --Sewing 18:26, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

This is mad. Google is not our god. Korean has a given (controlled, read official) spelling. I think it is crucial we follow the official spelling: let's undo these changes. Kokiri 23:38, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Here a quote from Google test: It should be stressed that none of these applications is conclusive evidence, but simply a first-pass heuristic. --Kokiri 23:48, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There's no such thing as an official spelling in the English language. Users of English are beholden to no foreign government to dictate how they should spell words in English. "Hangeul" may be the proper way to romanize the Korean word 한글 but "Hangul" is the English name for the Korean writing system. In dictionaries. It's spelled "Hangul". That usage is more prevalent on the web. If you think this page should be on Hangeul then you should also move Kimchi to Gimchi and Taekwondo to Taegwondo. Why is it "crucial" that we follow the official spelling?

I wish you had read the discussion above before moving the page again. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Nohat 23:58, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)

Well, you have now insulted both of the two most active contributors on Korea-related topics. I have referred the Hangeul-vs.-Hangul question to Menchi, who has some interest in Korea-related matters but as far as I know would have a more detached position on this issue than the other participants. --Sewing 01:04, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Detached I am from the dusty world...," enters the monk:

Nohat claims that Hangul is "the English word, as listed in English dictionaries". It seems so, as the OED's entry is Hangul. But OED's earliest quote is only about 50 years ago. Which, as Nohat admits, means the word hasn't "filtered through". Not only that, this 1951 quote by C. Osgood in Koreans & their Culture xvi. 323 is not really Hangul, but the McCune-Reischauer Hangŭl. Ironically, it was Shannon McCune (younger bro of McCune) who ignored the breve in his 1966 Korea: Land of Broken Calm (but then he also totally mistranslated Joseon in the book title....)

My conclusion is that having like 50 years of ocassional "unfiltered-through" use does not seem long. Worse, a linguistic technical term like Hangul will probably NEVER be filtered through as action-y words like Kung fu or tasty words like tofu did. The confusion of this matter is that Hangul, IF an English word, seems to be in a half-living half-dead state. So, does it still count as a legitimate English word? Or should be follow the consistency of the very official 2000 SK Romanization?

My feeling is that, until SK 2000 ages a bit and is recognized internationally like Hanyu Pinyin, we can stick with "Hangul". Shall the United Nations proclaim its adoption of SK 2000 as it did with Hanyu Pinyin in the 70s, we can switch to Hangeul. But the Korean government has been really gung ho about the new romanization and actually enforced on its citizens all these years. So I think its international standardization is a definite possibility.

However, regarding to other article titles, unless OED has the word, I definitely support SK 2000 (breve absolutely does not appear in WP titles). ---Menchi 05:59, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Nohat, just wanted to let you know that, afaik, both Sewing and I are tired of persistent edits without consultation of the community. I did never argue that there was an official spelling in English, but pointed out that there is one in Korean. On the other hand, your edit summary reads Use *correct* spelling of English word Hangul (my highlighting). As for 'being able to easily change to Hangeul when it is more common'... who is going to change the spellings in the texts (not just the links)? Finally, is it odd that a dictionary from 1989 doesn't have a spelling introduced 4 years ago? Kokiri

Just wanted to add that I did read the discussion before either moving or commenting on this. I don't think allegations (23:58, 2004 Mar 10 (UTC)) are a good way to handle this. Kokiri 12:03, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I'm not quite done yet. First of all, I wish to publicly state my disappointment that one person (in this case Nohat) comes and unilaterally changes the naming conventions and then all the links and then keeps reverting. If at least he changed all occurrences of Hangeul into Hangul. I'm too tired to insist on my preference, but I will spell it out. IMHO it's ridiculous to spend so much energy on arguing about a mere e in a word that is transcribed anyway. We can do this once we've written all the articles, filled Wikipedia with content.

As we have established, there is an official romanization of Korean. I think it is unreasonable to forego the new romanization, because it will establish itself. People reading about Korea or learning Korean will more and more often come across the official spellings. Why should we work against this trend?

We have redirects anyway. I don't think anyone who is interested in Korea will be profoundly confused about the e in Hangeul, but I do think that people expect up-to-date spellings from Wikipedia. Meaning: people will be puzzled why Wikipedia sticks with outdated spellings, after all, we're not a book. The OED can't do it, but we can be up-to-date. --Kokiri 17:33, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Again, it is not Wikipedia's place to promote new spellings of words that haven't yet been firmly established in English. IF and ONLY IF "Hangeul" becomes the established way of spelling the word in English, THEN Wikipedia should spell it that way, and NOT BEFORE. We are supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive and it is outside of the scope of our mission to be promulgating new spellings of words. Frankly, I think the revised romanization is lousy, and seeing as how it's only been around for 4 years, how do we know they're not going to change their minds and revise it again in 6 months or a year from now? Where a word has a history of being spelled in a particular way in English, we should stick to that spelling and not jump on the bandwagon of every Johnny-come-lately romanization scheme foreign governments deign to throw our way.

Nohat wrote: Frankly, I think the revised romanization is lousy. Well, that's your opinion. For a non-Korean reading a newspaper article, would the Revised "eo" and "eu" be any more cryptic than their McCune-Reischauer equivalents "ŏ" and "ŭ"? Furthermore, McCune and Reischauer screwed up on their consonants. When I first learned Korean, I tried to pronounce ㅋ the way M & R romanized it, as "k'," with a forceful breath of air after the "k." Truth is, it sounds just like an English "k," hence the Revised representation of it as plain old "k." Meanwhile, M & R's "k" (which transliterates an initial ㄱ) is misleading, too. A leading ㄱ sounds much closer to an English "g" than an English "k." Thus, an initial ㄱ is written as "g" in the Revised Romanization. I guarantee you that a non-Korean who says "Gimpo" (the revised spelling of 김포) will be understood more readily than one who says "Kimp'o" (the old spelling). At any rate, I hope your personal opinion on the "lousiness" of the new system did not play a part in your reverting zeal. --Sewing 01:46, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Secondly, much more has been written about the Korean language before the implementation of the new romanization scheme than after, and because of this, potential readers are many times more likely to have encountered the spelling "Hangul" than the spelling "Hangeul". Just because the S. Korean government has declared that Korean should be romanized in a particular way does not mean that we have to capitulate to their demands to respell words that have already been established into English with a particular spelling. While Chinese is one example where government-imposed new spellings have, for the most part, been accepted into English, there are lots of examples of languages that have had spelling reforms that have not affected the English spellings of borrowed words, for example Dutch and Russian.

Finally, while I couldn't care less whether or not you are "disappointed" in my behavior, I want to state for the record, that each time I reverted to the spelling "Hangul" it was after having explained myself and discussed my reasoning for doing so. Progress on Wikipedia would come to a screeching halt if every minor spelling change has to be discussed ad nauseum on talk pages before any changes can be made. I was just following the principle of Be bold in editing pages Nohat 19:06, 2004 Mar 11 (UTC)

As for establishing new spellings, we seem to disagree. You seem to argue that Hangul has become an English word. I tend to see 한글 and regard Hangeul as a romanization.

As for your opinion on the revised romanization, I can't see how that matters. Being familiar with all the common romaizations and being aware of their development, all linguistically, politically and historically, I don't think there will be a major change to the system in the near future. Out of interest, maybe you can tell us what is lousy about the revised romanization. Your labelling the revised romanization a Johnny-come-lately romanization may not be popular with everyone.

I think we agree that Hangeul is less common than Hangul. However, I think we disagree on the role of the official romanization. You constitute it as something we have to capitulate to. You seem happy to capitulate to both Google and the OED, though.

Finally, it's not necessary to despise fellow Wikipedians. --Kokiri 00:32, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Schemes for romanization are used for different purposes. They can be used for representing foreign names in a way that native users of the roman alphabet can easily understand how a name is pronounced in the original language. They can be used by native speakers for storing and retrieving texts in the foreign language in a computer system that isn't equipped to handle the native writing system. They can be used by linguists in making consistent analyses of different aspects of the language. They can be used in creating romanized versions of words that have been borrowed into a language using the roman alphabet. Each of these different uses of a romanization scheme impose different requirements and ideals for how the romanization scheme should function. If the scheme is being used by native speakers for use on a computer, then ensuring that the romanization scheme works in a round-trip—that is, that the romanized text can be unambiguously converted back to the native writing system—is most important. On the other hand, if the romanization scheme is used for foreigners merely for identifying names in the romanized language, then being able to convert back to the native writing system is less important than making sure that the intended pronunciation of romanized text is easily and clearly grasped. For linguists, the most important aspect of a romanization scheme is to ensure that each phoneme is represented by one grapheme in the romanization scheme. And so on.

The revised romanization scheme for Korean tries to serve all these purposes, and in so attempting is ideal for none of them. For use on Wikipedia, the most important aspect of a romanization scheme is pronunciation—the whole point of including a romanized version of a Korean word or phrase is so the reader has some idea how to pronounce it. The fact that we can include the Hangul for Korean words means that the phonemic isolation and consistency is not crucial. The only purpose of included the romanization is so readers can have an idea of how to pronounce a Korean word. However, the largest group of changes introduced by the revised romanization in fact detracts from the phonetic accuracy of the romanized texts. Whereas the McCune-Reischauer only used b, d, and g in those places where the Korean word used those sounds [b], [d], and [g] in IPA, the new system uses them always for the plain stops, even when to English speakers it sounds like [p], [t], or [k], like at the beginning of a word. Similarly, whereas the new system uses the opaque bigraphs "eu" and "eo" whose pronunciation is non-obvious to English speakers, the old system used "ŏ" and "ŭ", which are more likely to be pronounced in a way that sounds similar to the Korean by an English speaker than "eu" and "eo". But most importantly, the new scheme eschews shi in favor of si, for no apparent reason other than consistency. Yet, si is always pronounced like "shi" in Korean.

It is for these reasons that I find the revised romanization of Korean to be "lousy"—I don't believe that it effectively serves the most relevant purposes of a romanization scheme on Wikipedia.

With regards to my describing the revised romanization as a "johnny-come-lately", I can't think of a more apt way to describe a scheme that has been devised in just the past several years and seeks to replace all the existing schemes. It is both a "newcomer" and an "upstart" [5] (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=johnny-come-lately&x=15&y=15). Note, however, that I only used this term here on the talk in comments attributed to me. I wouldn't try to use that label to describe anything in actual Wikipedia article text.

I agree that whether "Hangul" is an English word or not is debatable. However, what tests are there to determine whether or not a word has been borrowed into a language permanently? I would suggest the following:

Does the word occur in English texts with any regularity? Yes, it occurs on over 200,000 pages indexed by Google, and it occurs on nearly 40,000 pages indexed by Google that don't have the word "Korea" or "Korean" on it—indicating it is often used in contexts that are not explicitly about the Korean language.
Is it listed in any major English dictionaries? Yes, it's in the Merriam-Webster, the Oxford English Dictionary, and the American Heritage Dictionary, all of which are dictionaries of English.
Is the word used by people who don't speak the foreign language? Well, I for one don't speak any Korean, yet as a linguist I use the word "Hangul" all the time, and not just on Wikipedia. If a word is used by people who only speak one language, how can you argue that the word is not part of the language?

By these three criteria, "hangul" is an English word. Since you seem to disagree, what criteria would you use for measuring whether or not a word has been borrowed into a language or not?

As for "capitulating" to Google and OED vs the Korean government, the difference is that Google and the OED are descriptive tools, whereas the revised romanization is prescriptive. There is no such thing as "official" anything in the English language, and anyone who states otherwise is attempting to wield power that they don't have. There are no "official" spellings of words in the English language. All there is is usage—how do most people spell a word? The OED prides itself on only choosing and defining words in English as they are used, and not telling people how they should and shouldn't use or spell words. And as for them not being up-to-date, they release new words every quarter and the online edition of the OED contains all those words—it still does not contain "Hangeul". Similarly, and more obviously, Google only tells us how words are used on the internet. Instances of "Hangul" outnumber "Hangeul" by a factor of more than ten to one. If the ratio were closer, I'd be more hesitant and less forceful, but numbers like that show a clear preference of usage on the Web for "Hangul" and I see no legitimate reason why we shouldn't respect that. Usage is the only arbiter of usage in English, and although it seems circular, that's the way it is and always has been.

Last, Kokiri, I don't know why you think I despise you. I haven't made any personal attacks or insulted your intelligence. I haven't said I don't like you. I did say I don't care whether or not my behavior disappointed you, and that was because I believed my actions were justified by Wikipedia policy. I love all Wikipedians; however, when I get into an argument with someone and I believe I'm right, I use whatever rhetorical tools are at my disposal to convincingly demonstrate that. I'm sorry if you felt I was personally attacking you—I wasn't. I was only trying to make my points clear. Nohat 04:21, 2004 Mar 12 (UTC)

Thanks, Nohat, to reply in such length. I don't agree with your description of the revised romanization, but this isn't really the issue here. Let's clear up all the Hangeul and have a good time together. One final point, though, in the future it might be more appropriate to discuss such large-scale changes first. --Kokiri 10:08, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"I love all Wikipedians" -- woa, somebody's been reading up Mencius's Universal Love. Or maybe Nohat was just been slutty. *kidding* --Menchi 10:25, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A hangul is a DEER!

As an aside, some disambiguation-related matter: A hangul is also a red deer Cervus cashmiriensis from the Cashmere. This name has been mentioned six times from 1858 to 1970s (that's as recent as OED gets). Knowing how selectively OED chooses its quotes, that's relatively a lot. Maybe that's why one gets so many Google hits on Hangul, which also includes the deer. --Menchi 05:59, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have searched for Hangul and deer and Kashmir repectively and don't get many hits, though. Kokiri 12:18, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Obsolete jamo

The current text says:

ㆍ or 丶 (arae-a or araea 아래 아): Pronounced as [V] , similar to eo. 
    Existed only in the syllable ㆎ (area-ae)

First of all, this archaic vowel was used in as versatile a manner as any other simple vowels in Korean. So I don't get what the statement that it only existed in the syllable ㆎ (area-ae) is getting at. Also, I am puzzled by the omission of ㅸ (sungyeong-eum bieub, 순경음 비읍) when ㅱ is included in the list of derived jamo representing a single sound. In my Korean dictionary, it says that the latter was only used to transcribe sino-Korean words closer to the contemporary Chinese spellings and so cannot be said to represent a native Korean phonetic element, while it has no such qualifications for the former. In addition, I think linguists have paid more attention to ㅸ and ㅿ in the understanding of Middle Korean phonology (such as archaic intermediate forms in verb conjugations where ㅂ and ㅅ have become [w] or have been lost respectively in Modern Korean). I do not feel qualified enough to make modifications to the text yet, but I might after some research. --Iceager 15:18, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Go ahead and update with your research conclusions later then. --Menchi 18:36, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Iceager is correct about arae-a.

ㅸ (gabyeoun bieup, 가벼운 비읍) [B]

I put in ㅸ instead of ㅱ, because that's what [B] is talking about.

Anyone know where the number 42 came from ("there are 42 more jamo that have fallen out of use")? This doesn't seem to square with the rest of the article. Menchi put it there, but he is on vacation, apparently. --Rschmertz 14:47, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

The number 42 has a deep cosmological meaning in Korean metaphysics. Seriously, I have my doubts about the claim as well, as it is not at all clear which jamo combinations to classify as separate jamo (an imperfect analogy would be the question of whether ligatures count as separate letters in the Roman alphabet). I have a suspicion the number might have been culled from something like a Unicode list. The claim is no longer in the article, but I thought I should warn against similar claims in the future; if you include an estimate of the number of archaic jamo, at least state the criteria for determining what counts as a separate jamo. Iceager 3 April 2005

I got rid of the 42 thing a good while after nobody answered my question. Too bad, though: 42 is a great number.Rschmertz 07:56, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

Jamo means "the mother of script"?!

Definitely 'No'. 'Jaeum' means 'consonant' and 'Moeum' means 'vowel', and abbreviation of 'Jaeum' and 'Moeum' is 'Jamo'. ...But I'm not sure about this one. Is there anybody know exactly?

You are correct. I have changed the etymology on the article page. --Sewing 03:16, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are both mistaken, I'm afraid. Look at the Hanja and you'll notice that's not the case. I corrected the article. Kjoonlee 07:05, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

Writing without syllabic blocks

I haven't researched this extensively, buyt I'd like to challenge the notion that hangul written without blocks would necessitate spaces between syllables. The fact that hangul is typed on computers with no special effort required to determine when one syllable ends and the next begins supports this. My example: ㅇㅣㄱㅓㅅㅇㅣ ㅂㅡㄹㄹㅗㄱ ㅅㅏㅇ ㅛㅇ ㅇㅏㄴㅎㅏㄴㅡㄴ ㄱㅡㄹ ㅇㅣㅂㄴㅣㄷㅏ. With this system, one could conceivably also eliminate syllable-initial ieungs, which would eliminate all the circles in my example save the fourth one. It might be required that doubled consonants be written as a single character (much the way they are typed in hangul today, using the shift key on the doubled letter, rather than typing it twice). Rschmertz 19:40, Sep 25, 2004 (UTC)

This idea has been proposed by other linguists too; but, most have concluded that it would be inefficient and ambiguous, as to the pronounciation of the word. Modern linguists have proposed this idea in order to get around Hangul's lack of multi-consonants; however, the most efficient way to get around that problem is the put consonants together in the same syllable block as instructed in the Hunminjeongeum. In the Hunminjeongeum, there are at least two example of this: Bsgŭm, meaning groove, and Dalks-Bsdae, meaning the hour of the rooster.

Origins & Philosophy

We are forgetting about the basics.... The philosophy, the importance to life that Hangul has. What it means, why it originated. It was meant to represent things Korean. The Chinese characters just weren't enough. So the King chose those simple things that really mean everything...

ㅣ- man. What is now the vowel "i" is the basis for the vowels (ㅏ,ㅑ,ㅓ,ㅕ,ㅐ,ㅔ,ㅖ,etc.) It represented man, standing upright, an everyday thing and this made everything by adding...

. or ㅇ. it represents the sky, nothingness, everything, endlessness, eternity and nothing in one symbol... It is difficult to describe for me... so that just goes onto the "man".. gosh this is hard.... maybe that's why you all didn't try to explain!! It is the mother of all consonants (ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇㅈㅊㅋㅌㅍㅎ) They are all from ㅇ. and then ㅡ...the ground. the base... see they are all natural things they represent... life and stuff.

Is this true? This sounds just like New Age romanticism... =S I have heard the shapes of the Hangul were chosen on status of in which position the throat was in, or something similar... I don't know if they looked down the throats of the speakere, or how they were aware at that, but that's the story I heard...

I think both accounts have seeds of truth in them. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think Hunmin Jeongeum (document) has symbolism mentioned inside as well. (Maybe it was Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye, but you get the idea.) Kjoonlee 07:21, 2004 Dec 6 (UTC)

Actually, I believe the bit about the consonants representing speech organs is from the Hunmin Jeonngeum, but is probably an early mnemonic or rationalization, not the historical origin of the letters.

(On the other hand, it seems likely that the story of the pairs of dotted vowels representing yin and yang is true, as vowel harmony was important at the time; the three vowels without dots, <ㆍㅡㅣ>, are the ones that didn't participate in vowel harmony.)

Ledyard [ref below] makes a convincing case that hangeul was based on the Phagspa script ("Mongol seal script") of the Mongol empire and Yuan dynasty, with the letters <ㄱㄷㄹㅂㅈ> g, d, l, b, j taken over directly (ultimately from Tibetan <ག,ད,ལ,བ,ས>; one letter, <ㅇ>, invented; and the other consonants derived from these. (For aspirates a stroke was added, and for nasals and s a stroke was removed. This differs from the traditional account, which takes the nasals and s as basic.) Since this was during the Ming dynasty, when crediting the Mongol Yuan with anything was unpopular, the attributions are veiled, but do seem to exist in the earliest documentation ("hangeul was derived from the gu seal script, and nobody was more gu than the Menggu," etc.). For me, the most convincing detail is the lip on the upper left corner of the letter <ㄷ> d, which you wouldn't expect in a set of simple geometric shapes created ex-nihilo. This lip does, however, beautifully match the Phagspa and Tibetan d's, which have this same feature. Some of the oddities, such as the letter ng', seem to be due to the fact that hangeul was created to write Chinese words in Korean, not just native Korean words. The ng' was present etymologically at the beginning of Chinese borrowings, but was not usually pronounced in Korean, so it was (perhaps) created by combining the vertical stroke of the <ㄱ> with the null sign <ㅇ> to indicate both possibilities. (Of course, later the ng' collapsed together with the <ㅇ>, and the contrast was lost.)

My source for this is: Ledyard, Gari. "The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People." In Young-Key Kim-Renaud, ed. The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. [In English.] This is a very tightly argued article. Much of the same information can probably be found in Ledyard, Gari K. The Korean Language Reform of 1446. Seoul: Shingu munhwasa, 1998. — kwami 11:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, ㆍ was positive vowel to correspond with negative ㅡ, and only ㅣ was a neutral. According to Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye, ㆍ represents Heaven (Yang - positivity), ㅡ represents Earth (Yin - negativity), and ㅣ represents Human being (neutrality). --Puzzlet Chung 04:44, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. I was writing from memory of what I read a few years ago and missed that. It's correct in the article. kwami 05:10, 2005 May 25 (UTC)

Actually it is <ㄷ> t not d. And why couldn't this shape represent exactly a dental character: the left stroke representing the front teeth, the top and bottom being the top and bottom of the mouth? Also if Hangul was truly trying to represent Chinese pronunciation, it would have many tone markings, retroflexes, and more vowels but it doesn't.

Also I do not take seriously the "politically unpopularity" of recognizing borrowings from Phagspa alphabet. Unpopular to who? The common people? The same people who are illiterate and would have no clue which alphabet is which? The fall of the Mongolian empire occurred in 1386. The Hunmin Jeonngeum published in 1446. That is nearly 60 years ... everyone who was an adult in 1386 would have been dead by this time.--pickle

The now official transliteration of <ㄷ> is d, not t. Yes, the lip on the letter could be a representation of the speech organs. But it also is strikingly similar to Phagspa and Tibetan. True, Hangul only had tone marks for Korean pitch accent, not Chinese tone, but the point was to replicate the Chinese rime tables, where tone was not of primary importance. And it did have many other letters to represent the retroflex series and plenty of Chinese vowels and diphthongs. As for the political unpopularity of the Mongol conquest 60 years earlier, consider the lingering resentment of the Opium Wars today, after 145 years. Or of Japanese rule in Korea and Manchuria after 60 years. And unpopular with the ruling Ming dynasty, of course. The common people probably could have cared less. kwami 23:59, 2005 May 24 (UTC)

Odd line...

"The shapes of the consonants were designed scientifically, and the vowels philosophically."

What the hell does that even mean? Philwelch 03:58, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's explained in the first sentence of the two following sections:

The designs of the basic jamo consonant letters model the physical morphology of the tongue, palate, teeth and throat.

and

Vowel letters, on the other hand, consist of three elements:

Horizontal line (which signifies the flat Earth)
point (the round Heaven), which later becomes a short stroke
vertical line (the upright Human)

Nohat 20:46, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The traditional speech-organ account of the letters is a mnemonic, and perhaps a post-facto rationalization. (See my comments above.) According to Ledyard, it appears that the five basic consonants b, d, l, j, g were borrowed from the Yuan Phagspa script, a sixth (the circular null sign) was invented ex-nihilo, and all the other consonants were systematically derived from these six by phonetic principles: add a stroke to b, d, j, g, ʔ to derive the homorganic aspirates p, t, c, k, h; remove a stroke from b, d, g to derive the homorganic nasals m, n, ng' (the null sign was added to the remaining stroke of the g to bulk it up, and also to show that ng' was generally silent word initially; later ng' was conflated with the null sign itself, and they're now considered to be a single letter); and remove a stroke from j (= [ts] at the time) to derive the fricative s. Additional letters were derived to represent Chinese, but these are obsolete today.

This is really quite remarkable, and the reason that hangeul is my favorite script. While the Indic scripts are arranged according to phonetic principals, with homorganic letters placed together in the order of the alphabet, no other script on the planet was designed according to phonetic principals, at least not until some of the shorthand and missionary scripts of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The traditional account holds that a different set of basic consonants (m, n, s, g, null) were modeled after the speech organs, and were therefore "scientific", but that the vowels were modeled after yin and yang and the organization of the cosmos, and were therefore "philosophic". However, the vowels were designed according to phonetic principles as well. Korean of the 15th century had vowel harmony involving the four dotted vowels, with a alternating with eo, and o alternating with u (there are still traces of this today). Three vowels, i, eu, ə, did not alternate, and these neutral vowels were written with a single stroke. Vowel harmony was understood in terms of yin and yang in the phonetics of the day, so of course these principles are reflected in the design of the script. This doesn't make the script "philosophic".

There may be an intentional connection between horizontal eu and horizontal dotted o, u (all back vowels), and between vertical i and vertical dotted a, eo (all non-back vowels: eo was [e] at the time); but whether the designers of the script saw any connection between undotted i, eu, ə and the cosmological principles of heaven, earth, man is pure speculation; it's very possibly the same kind of post-facto rationalization as the supposed derivation of the consonants from the shapes of the speech organs. — kwami 22:08, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation

The "obsolete Jamo" section had some SAMPA transcriptions, which I've changed to IPA in conformance with Wikipedia policy. But how is one to understand the various other transcriptions in the rest of the article? rossb 12:54, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The other transcriptions in the article are presumably in one of the romanization schemes used for Korean, probably the revised romanization promulgated by the South Korean government, as that seems to be the mantra among those who contribute to Korea-related articles on Wikipedia—see the fervent debate from last year which is archived above. I haven't read this article recently so I don't know if it says that anywhere in the article, but it probably should if it doesn't. Nohat 07:54, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pure pronunciations should be in IPA, IMO. If it's just a transliteration of written Korean, please use the revised romanization style.

What would you use to represent the strong/doubled consonants, since the IPA doesn't have a diacritic for them? [p*, t*, k*, s*], with the asterisk for "undefined"? —kwami 07:31, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd just use , with the ʼ for glottalization. KJ

It is true that the ejective symbol is sometimes used, but it's fairly clear that the Korean stiff voice stops aren't in fact ejectives, so using the IPA symbol for ejectives could be misleading. The asterisk approach is the one used by Ladefoged and Maddieson in Sounds of the World's Languages, and can be respected on that grounds although it too is somewhat unsatisfying because the asterisk is kind of a catch-all for "other". Whatever notation is used should by clarified in the text with what is meant because there is no standard notation for indicating stiff voice. Nohat 06:31, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Ladefoged uses the voicing diacritic under a modally voiced stop for stiff voice: [, , ]. (That is, more voiced than modal voice, but not quite creaky.) I think this has the advantage of being completely unambiguous (unlike calling it "glattalization"), and forcing people to read the description if they aren't familiar with the notation. But I don't know what would be appropriate for the ess; maybe []? (That, however, is ambiguous, but [] might be misleading.) —kwami 01:23, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

But are the Korean stops stiff voice? As far as I can tell, stiff voiced stops in Javanese are truly voiced: the vocal chords are vibrating during the stop. I don't think this is the case for Korean. Maybe we could use the voicing diacritic under the voiceless stops, [, , , ]? (An outside link is at [6] (http://www.phonetik.uni-muenchen.de/~hoole/kurse/artikul/multi_voice.pdf) (pdf); a description of phonation types is at [7] (http://listserv.brown.edu/archives/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9901a&L=conlang&F=&S=&P=12168)). kwami

Meaning of doen in doubled consonants

The double consonants precede the parent consonant's name with the word ssang (쌍), meaning "twin" or "double", or with doen (된) in North Korea, meaning "changed" or "modified". Thus:

Doen can mean "strong" in South Korean. Consequently, glottalized sounds—the sounds that these doubled consonants represent—are called doensori ("strong sounds") in South Korea. Does anyone really know for sure if "doen" means "changed" in this case? KJ 18:10, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

"된"(doen) could be a word meaning "strong" as in doen-sori, but also a derivated form of "되다"(doe-da), which means "to change." --Puzzlet Chung 00:31, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree. With doe-da, you need to mention what it has become, what it has been changed into. KJ

I'd got it wrong. "Doen"-alone expression does exist in the language, but not in this case. I changed it to "strong "--Puzzlet Chung 01:55, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There should be an explanation of what is meant by "glottalized". The article glottalic consonant only explains ejectives and implosives, and Korean doubled consonants are neither. --kwami 20:31, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

typo

ㆍ or 丶 (arae-a or araea 아래 아): Pronounced as (IPA ʌ, similar to eo.
- the brackets aren't closed, but I'm not sure whether to put the ) after IPA ʌ or after eo. (80.109.255.5 17:47, 1 May 2005 (UTC))

Maybe with phonetics brackets around the IPA notation, and the eo transcription in italics:

ㆍ or 丶 (arae-a or araea, 아래 아): Pronounced as IPA [ʌ], similar to eo.

—kwami 00:59, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Seong Sam-Mun

Wikipedia has an article about Seong Sam-Mun, but I can't seem to find anything about him in the Hangul article. Does the Seong Sam-Mun need to be either linked to from here or merged?? Jaberwocky6669 23:46, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

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