1. History of Hangul

King Sejong (세종대왕 ,1418 – 1450) was the fourth king of Joseon (Korean dynasty from 1392 – 1910). He developed the Korean alphabet and proclaimed it 1446 as Hunmin Jeong-eum (훈민정음 ; „The Proper Sounds for the Education of the People“).

The publication date of the Hunmin Jeong-eum (October 9th) became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent, Chosongul Day, is on January 15th.

The modern name Hangul was coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912. Han (한) meant "great" in archaic Korean, while geul (글) is the native Korean word for "script." Han could also be understood as the Sino-Korean word 韓 "Korean", so that the name can be read "Korean script" as well as "great script."

North Koreans prefer to call it Joseon-geul (조선글) for reasons related to the different names of Korea, or uri keulcha (우리 글자 ;"our characters").

​1.2 The alphabet

Hangul letters and digraphs are called jamo (자모) or natsori (낱소리).

There are 24 letters and 27 digraphs (and sometimes tigraphs) formed from these letters in the modern alphabet. Of the letters, fourteen are consonants (ja-eum자음, "child sounds") and ten are vowels (mo-eum모음, "mother sounds").

5 of the consonants are doubled to form the five "tense" consonants of Korean, while another eleven sequences are formed of two different consonants.

The 10 vowel letters are combined into eleven sequences for diphthongs.

1.2.1 The Vowels

The vowel letters are simply the vowel itself, written with the null initial ㅇ(ieung)and the vowel being named.

Letter

Name

Letter

Name

ㅏ

a (아)

ㅐ

ae (애)

ㅑ

ya (야)

ㅒ

yae (얘)

ㅓ

eo (어)

ㅔ

e (에)

ㅕ

yeo (여)

ㅖ

ye (예)

ㅗ

o (오)

ㅘ

wa (와)

ㅛ

yo (요)

ㅙ

wae (왜)

ㅚ

woe (외)

ㅜ

u (우)

ㅝ

wo (워)

ㅠ

yu (유)

ㅞ

we (웨)

ㅟ

wi (위)

ㅡ

eu (으)

ㅢ

ui (의)

ㅣ

i (이)

The Seoul dialect of Modern Korean, e(ㅔ) and ae(ㅐ) have no distinction in pronunciation: for this reason they are d