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Learning a new language can be hard, but learning the alphabet of that language can be a great start. Korea's official alphabet is Hangul, and even though it looks easy, it can take some hard work trying to understand and speak it.
How Hangul Works
Hangul (hahn-guul), the official alphabet of Korea, is similar to English but only has 24 characters to learn instead of 26. These 24 characters are combined to make all the sounds in the Korean language, with the complete alphabet consisting of 140 syllables from combinations of 10 vowels and 14 consonants. The three main symbols that make up the vowels are inspired by three core elements: a dot (now a short line) representing the sun, a vertical line representing man, and a horizontal line representing the earth.
A Royal Gift to the People
Hangul was developed in 1443 A.D. by King Sejong the Great, who commissioned a team of scholars to create a phonetic script for the Korean language. Before that, Koreans wrote with Chinese ideograms, written character symbols that symbolize the subject without actually using the sounds to say it. This newly formed script allowed the poor and less educated people to learn how to read and write in a few weeks. It was made the official writing system on October 9, 1446, and that day is now celebrated as Hangul Day in South Korea.
Why It Matters Today
After realizing that Hangul has such a unique history, it really makes me want to expand my horizons and dive deeper into learning Korean than I ever had before. If you want to check out an app to help you learn Hangul, look up Eggbun, a popular Korean language learning app that makes the process feel like chatting with a friend.
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