Hangul Syllables

Hangul Syllables is a Unicode block containing precomposed Hangul syllable blocks for Modern Korean. The syllables can be directly mapped by algorithm to sequences of characters in the Hangul Jamo Unicode block.

Hangul is a phonemic script of the Korean language. A characteristic feature of Hangul is that the letters are combined into groups that correspond to the syllables. This type of writing was developed in the middle of the XV century and now it is the main one in South Korea and the only one in the DPRK.

How was the Korean alphabet Hangul born? In the past, the Korean language used the Chinese writing system based on the hanja which was very difficult to learn. Especially for the poorest people who did not have access to education. To solve this problem, King Sejong decided to introduce a new system of phonetic writing. Hunminjeongeum (훈민정음) was the first book to promote the Hangul alphabet and its title means “the right sounds for the instruction of the people”.

Hangul consists of 19 consonants (14 single consonants and 5 double consonants) and 21 vowels (6 single vowels, 4 iotized vowels and 11 diphthongs) that are combined with each other. But unlike the Spanish alphabet, the Hangul symbols do not follow each other linearly to form a word. They are united in syllabic groups.