Hangul is the only phonetic writing system in the world,
which was deliberately invented to transcribe any sound in
the nature, including human languages. It was invented by
King Sejong and eight court scholars in 1443, after toiling
more than half a dozen years of study in phonetics. It is
known as one of the most scientific writing systems in the
world.
How scientific it is can be summarized by following.
Basic consonants are: ㅇ(o), ㄱ(g), ㄴ(n), ㅅ(s), ㅁ(m).
These basic consonants are symbols of the organs of where
the sounds are created.
ㅇ is the symbol of round throat.
ㄱ is the symbol of lifted tongue root.
ㄴ is the symbol of tongue tip lifted.
ㅅ is the symbol of sharp teeth.
ㅁ is the symbol of closed lips.
On these basic alphabet, added a bar to make it an aspirated
sound (an example is ㅈ(pronounced J, in case of John), which
has a bar on the top of ㅅ. Added a dot on the top of this
ㅈ, to make a harsh sound ㅊ (pronounced CH, as in the case
of Children).
These basic consonants have different note scales according
to the distances from the voice box located deep in the throat.
It was modeled after the flutes of 15th Century with five
holes with five different musical notes and its frequency
matches with five basic consonants.
Basic vowels are:
‘.’ Symbol of heavenly SUN, (pronounced as AU, in the case
of August)
‘ㅡ’ Symbol of flat EARTH, (there is no matching pronunciation
in English,
however, similar to EAU, in the case of Beaumont)
‘ㅣ’ Symbol of upright MAN, (pronounced as EE, in the case
of Eel)
Combining these three symbols, it can create:
ㅏ(pronounced A, as in the case of Arm)
ㅑ(pronounced YA, as in the case of Yahoo)
ㅓ(pronounced EO, as is the case of Seoul)
ㅕ(pronounced YEO, as in the case of Young)
ㅗ(pronounced O, as in the case of Ohio)
ㅛ (pronounced YO, as in the case of Yoyo)
ㅜ (pronounced WOO, as in the case of Wood)
ㅠ (pronounced YOU, as in the case of You)
More consonants and vowels can be created by combining with
two or three together.
These combined alphabets (double or triple) can create millions
of syllabic characters. For example:
ㄱ(g) + ㅏ(a) = 가 (ga). Since each Hangul alphabet has only
one sound value (pronunciation), it is easy to pronounce combined
syllabic character.
More example are: ㅅ(s) + ㅗ(o) + ㄴ(n) = 손 (son), meaning hand.
ㅂ(b) + ㅏ(a) + ㄹ (l) = 발 (bal), meaning foot.
ㅋ (k) + ㅗ (o) = 코 (ko), meaning nose.
ㄴ (n) + ㅜ(oo) + ㄴ(n) = 눈(noon), meaning eye.
Hangul is so easy that ordinary person can read and write
within a few hours of practice.
Phonetic Hangul keyboard was designed to teach people how
the phonetics of any language in the world can be easily learnt.
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