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this could be incorrect. however most of the information i found is stuff i found
around the web that i think is true. regardless, please [contact] me if something
should be updated or is incorrect.
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below are my notes on hangul, the korean alphabet, and some korean linguistics.
mostly, i'm taking notes to solidify my understanding . there are already lots
of resources online for learning korean and hangul and you should use those -
however, these were patterns that i found helpful to note and write down while
i learned. maybe they will help someone else, too ^\_\_^
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hangul was created in 1443 by king sejong the great. it was created in order to
_specifically combat_ illteracy and make reading and writing easier for the
korean people. i think its a beautiful script.
[wikipedia] tells us that modern hangul
orthography uses:
- 24 basic letters:
- 14 consonant letters (γ± γ΄ γ· γΉ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ )
- 10 vowel letters (γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ ‘ γ £)
- 27 complex letters formed by combining the basic letters
- 5 tense consonant letters (γ² γΈ γ γ γ )
- 11 complex consonant letters (γ³ γ΅ γΆ γΊ γ» γΌ γ½ γΎ γΏ γ γ )
- 11 complex vowel letters (γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ γ ’)
what does it mean to be an alphabet? our comrade wikipedia says:
an alphabet is a standardized set of basic written symbols or graphemes
(called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. not
all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each
character represents a syllable, for instance, and logographic systems use
characters to represent words, morphemes, or other semantic units.
interestingly, hangul really is an **alphabet** and not a syllabary (like japanese kana).
each character is called a _jamo_.the language also features a number of beautiful design choices:
- orthographic symbols are grouped [homorganically] (by place of articulation)
- jamo (characters) are grouped into visually distinct morpho-syllabic units
when learning a new language, at least for me, i always try to pay attention to
the aspects of the phonological inventory that _are_ contrastive in the target
language, but are not in my native tongue. these are the types of sounds that
are the hardest to hear and master. often you just need to mentally remember to
move your mouth a different way, because the difference itself is very hard to
perceive when first learning.
in english, we have [minimal pairs]
that utilize consonants that differ in voicing - i.e. compare:
- beach, peach
- kill, gill
in korean, this voicing isn't contrastive. rather, the voicing aspect comes
about phonotactically, or based on systematic combinations of sounds. in korean,
many consonants are unvoiced unless they occur in the medial position (in the
middle of a word).
aside: this also plays into my hypothesis of why one sees so many different
types of romanization for korean to english in casual contexts - for example,
check out the spellings i've seen for λ‘λ³Άμ΄: tteokbokki, ddukbokki, ddeokbokki,
dukbokki or topokki.
unlike voicing, which is contrastive in english & determined phonotactically in
korean, aspiration is the inverse. in english, we often determine if a
consonant is aspirated based on whether or not it follows a certain
phonological rule, for example:
voiceless stops ([p], [t], and [k]) are aspirated ([pΚ°], [tΚ°], and [kΚ°]) when
they occur immediately before (no sound in between) a stressed vowel, and
there is no [s] in front of the voiceless stop.
(from [here])
in contrast, korean uses aspiration as a _contrastive_ difference. this
contrastive difference, as expected, is also represented orthographically. in
the [IPA] above
(and below) - aspiration is marked by a superscript _h_ like pΚ°. generally, we just see the
character getting an extra stroke: γ± (plain k sound) becomes γ (aspirated k
sound).
korean consonants are _also_ contrastive in relation to tenseness. this is extra
hard for english speakers because we do not have the concept of tenseness in
our phonological inventory. i've read various things about how to imagine
pronouncing these, from pretending you are in a pressure chamber, pretending
the consonant is hard to produce, or just tightening your glottis and vocal
folds while pronouncing them. in IPA, tenseness is denoted by two small marks
under the consonant like this: kΝ. like aspiration, tenseness is represented as
a distinct character orthographically: in korean, this is represented by a
duplicate character: γ± (plain k sound) becomes γ² (tense k sound).
below i've grouped the consonants primarily by [place of
articulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/place_of_articulation) - see
[homorganic] groups. amazingly, you'll see
that the orthographic characters also seem organized by their orthographic
shape! this is one of the beautiful parts of hangul - it was literally designed
to be easy to learn.
these are all [velar] [stops].
we get three variants: plain, aspirated, and tense
| character | IPA | name | romanized name |
| --------- | --- | ------ | -------------- |
| γ± | k | κΈ°μ | giyeok |
| γ² | kΝ | μκΈ°μ | ssanggiyeok |
| γ | kΚ° | ν€μ | kieuk |
these are all [alveolar] [stops].
we get three variants: plain, aspirated, and tense
| character | IPA | name | romanized name |
| --------- | --- | ------ | -------------- |
| γ· | t | λκ·Ώ | digeut |
| γΈ | tΝ | μλκ·Ώ | ssangdigeut |
| γ | tΚ° | ν°μ | tieut |
after that, we have a new manner of articulation in the same location.
these are all [alveolar] [siblants]:
| character | IPA | name | romanized name |
| --------- | --- | ------ | -------------- |
| γ | s | μμ· | siot |
| γ | sΝ | μμμ· | ssangsiot |
| γ | tΙ | μ§μ | jieut |
| γ | tΙ | μΉμ | chieut |
| γ | tΝΙ | μμ§μ | ssangjieut |
in this section , there is a plcae of articulation that doesn't exist in most
english dialects:
[alveolo-palatal].
in order to pronounce this one correctly, we'll need to think about what that
means:
its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts
the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that
contacts the roof of the mouth. it is heavily palatalized, meaning that the
middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.
these are all [alveolar] [stops].
we get three variants: plain, aspirated, and tense, as well as a voiced bilabial stop (m).
| character | IPA | name | romanized name |
| --------- | --- | ------ | -------------- |
| γ | b | λΉμ | bieup |
| γ | pΝ | μλΉμ | ssangbieup |
| γ | pΚ° | νΌμ | pieup |
| γ | m | λ―Έμ | mieum |
these are all [dorsal] consonants.
| character | IPA | name | romanized name |
| --------- | --- | ---- | -------------- |
| γΉ | ΙΎ | 리μ | rieul |
| γ΄ | n | λμ | nieun |
| γ | h | νμ | hieut |
| γ | Ε | μ΄μ | ieung |
the γ (ieung) character is _extra special_ - it can also denote _absence of a sound_.
consonants, when combined, can have different pronunciation based on the
preceding and following consonants. however, the rules are a bit convoluted so i
am not going to add them to my notes for now. note that even if you think you
ran read (i.e. transcribe) a korean word, you may find there are some
differences with pronunciation intervocalic voicing causes many consonants to
become voiced when in the middle of a syllable. for example: λΉλΉλ°₯ (bibimbap)
is generally romanized with all b characters, but only the middle b is actually
pronounced as a b due to intervocalic voicing. there are lots of examples of this!
a more general rule is that the sounds γ±, γ·, and γ are transcribed as g, d,
and b before a vowel. they are transcribed as k, t, and p when they appear
before another consonant or as the last sound of a word. despite this rule
listed on [the national institute of korean
language](https://www.korean.go.kr/front_eng/roman/roman_01.do) page on
romanization, common words like kimchi (not gimchi) still get special treatment
since they're at this point, more of a loan word
i'm sure there are a lot more: to learn more, research "korean consonant
assimilation".
the vowels in hangul are all based on either a vertical, or horizontal line.
there are basic vowels
([monopthongs]) and complex vowels
([diphthongs]).
| character | IPA | romanization | english word with vowel |
| --------- | --- | ------------ | ----------------------- |
| γ ‘ | Ι― | eu | ~goose |
| γ | o | o | hoe |
| γ | u | u | who |
| γ £ | i | i | free |
| γ | Κ | eo | gut |
| γ | a | a | bra |
there are two more, which orthographically look like two vowels, but are
pronounced as a single vowel. you can see some that where γ £ (i) is being
re-used:
- γ + γ £= γ
- γ + γ £ = γ
| character | IPA | romanization | english word with vowel |
| --------- | --- | ------------ | ----------------------- |
| γ | e | e | may |
| γ | Ι | ae | head |
historically these last two are pronounced different, but from what i
[read], most people
pronounce them like "eigh" in "weigh".
one group of diphthongs are all ways of turning one vowel into a y- variant
(e.g. a -> ya) - also know as [iotized]
vowels all you need to do is add the extra line next to the existing one that
is protruding, and now its a y sound.
| character | IPA | romanization |
| --------- | --- | ------------ |
| γ | ja | ya |
| γ | jΚ | yeo |
| γ | jo | yo |
| γ | ju | yu |
| γ | jΙ | yae |
| γ | je | ye |
here are a few that all share a w-like sound prefix. while they look more
complicated, it can actually be seen that each one is just a combination of
the simpler vowels we already learned. for example:
- γ wa = γ o + γ a
- γ wae = γ wa + γ £ i
and so on.
| character | IPA | romanization |
| --------- | --- | ------------ |
| γ | Ι₯i | wi |
| γ | we | we |
| γ | wΙ | wae |
| γ | wa | wa |
| γ | wΚ | wo |
| γ ’ | Ι°i | ui |
now that we know vowels and consonants, we can start adding them together to
make syllables. the morpho-syllabic blocks are made up of three parts:
- initial onset consonant: μ΄μ± (choseong)
- medial vowel: μ€μ± (jungseong)
- syllable coda: μ’ μ± (jongseong)
when no initial consonant is present, one writes the γ (ieung) (like zero!) -
which means each block has a _minimum_ of two letters - a n initial and a
medial. in general - _blocks are read top left to bottom right_
blocks come in a variety of shapes, but not too many: for the following, i will use:
- i = initial (choseong)
- m = medial (jungseong)
- m2 = medial (second part, orthographically)
- f = final (jongseong)
the base blocks have two components basically and look like this:
_____ | | | i | |_____| = μ΄ (cho) = γ (ch) + γ (o) | | | m | |_____| _________ | | | | i | m | = κ° (ga) = γ± (g) + γ (a) |____|____| _________ | | | | i | | |____| | = ν¬ (hui) = γ (h) + γ ’ (ui) | | m2 | | m | | |____|____|
if there a final consonant, it is always on the bottom:
_____ | | | i | |_____| | | | m | = ν (hyuss) = γ (h) + γ ‘ (yu) + γ (ss) |_____| | | | f | |_____| _________ | | | | i | m | |____|____| | | = μ (ssa) = γ (ss) + γ (a) + γ (nothing) | f | |_________| _________ | | | | i | | |____| | | | m2 | | m | | = ν (huig) = γ (h) + γ ’ (ui) + γ± (g) |____|____| | | | f | |_________|
and sometimes the final part is broken up into two pieces:
_________ | | | | i | m | |____|____| | | | = ν (pyalt) = γ (p) + γ (ya) + γΉ (l) + γ (t) | f1 | f2 | |____|____|
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