Menchi/Hangeul

The informatin here will be added in the wikipedia article Han-geul .

Mostly answered on 엉망. Feel free to add to the replies already existent, but write the additional answers here, please. Thanks. -- Menchi, 2003년 5월

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Han-geul Jamo and Blocks

Hi saox, I'd like to add the following info on Han-geul:

1. The additional jamo include ·, ㆆ and ㆁ. http://kr.encycl.yahoo.com/final.html?id=186195 Can you tell from the following brief articles what their original pronunciations were?
   
   1. ㆆ (yeorinhieuh) http://kr.encycl.yahoo.com/final.html?id=99192
      
   2. Does ㆁ (yesieung) http://kr.encycl.yahoo.com/final.html?id=99193 pronounce as "ng"? This is apparently a different jamo from ㅇ (ieung), which is rounder than the oval ㆁ.
      
   3. ·: Does it pronounce exactly like eo? Eo also has an IPA(International_Phonetic_Alphabet) symbol of ∧.
      
      1. What is · called?
         
2. What is Han-geul "block" called in Korean (in Han-geul and Hanja)? Do Koreans distinguish it from "syllable" (음절 ; 音節 eumjeol)?
   
3. What is the minimum and maximum amount of jamo in a Han-geul block? (I found a full table here, but there are so many.)
   
   1. Is just one consonant jamo considered a block?
      
4. Do you know what the Hanja of Ju Sikyeong, the name-coiner of "Han-geul" are? I assume Ju is 朱. Born Chu Sangho, he lived from 1876-1914.
   

Gomawo. --Menchi 13:00 18 May 2003 (UTC)
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노스모키안 여러분 도와주세요.

Several jamo combine into a square block to represent a 음절. What is a Han-geul "square block" called?
But maybe Koreans do not call the combined product a "square block". If so, what is the usual name? -- Menchi, June 9, 2003
"Syllabic block"? In Hanja, 字. It is called just "letter". Jamo are jamo, not letters. Since they are just "letters", Koreans don't have special name for it. --서상현

Well, we usally call it "자(字)" that means "a letter" as 서상현 said. And there're more academic expression "음절", 音節 sound unit, or sound block. This may be used in phonetics, phonology and etc. And different from English, one Han-geul letter is exactly mapped to one syllable, "음절". The concept of "square block" is also occured in Chinese letter, Hanja. For example, 日(Sun) + 月(Moon) -> 明(lighten?) and 田(field) + 力(power) -> 男(man, male). But the combination(or maybe composition) rule of the letters in Hanja is not so regular compared with Han-geul. --daybreak

(For Han-geul)

The Han-geul was created scientifically. But, is are the following things
1) Order

I do not see any phonetic pattern to the jamo of Hangul, except that the derived jamo are placed after the sources. Why did Choi Sejin arrange them that way?

2) Names

a) They vowel jamo's just the pronunciation . How about the basic jamo's names? The names incorporate the sound at the beginning, occasionally the end. And there seems to be some symmetry.

For example, nieun, giyeok

But what about the parts in the middle? Do things like ieu and iyeo have any significance?

b) Where can I find their names in Han-geul online?

-- Menchi, 2003년 6월 6일 (金)

1) Why he did like that? I don't know.

2)
a)
Jamo means 'the consonant and the vowel.' 'Ja' means the consonant, and 'Mo' means the vowel.

Please see the next image

"ㅣ 으" are ieu ( i + eu)

Put two same consonants in the blue boxes. (like this 니은, 미음) That is consonant Jamo's name. For example, ni-eun (ㄴ), mi-eum (ㅁ)

But this rule have three exceptions. - gi-yeok (ㄱ, 기역), di-geod(t) (ㄷ, 디귿), and si-od(t) (ㅅ, 시옷) Because, there is no Hanja that has i-eo pronuncication like gi-eok, di-eod, si-eos. Choi Sejin used Hanja 's pronunciation to explain Jamo's pronunciation.

b) Did you mean Jamo's name? I already explained that rule to you.

--ChatMate

Complete names of 14 basic consonants are: 기역,니은,디귿,리을,미음,비읍,시옷,이응,지읒,치읓,키읔,티읕,피읖,히읗, for ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇㅈㅊㅋㅌㅍㅎ respectively. As ChatMate explained, all the names are maded by the rule x+"ㅣ"+"으"+x, with three exceptions 기역,디귿, and 시옷; they are named so for the convinience of calling them. --PuzzletChung

The order of jamos we currently use are known to be introduced for the first time in 훈몽자회(訓蒙字會) written in 1527 by Choi Sejin(최세진崔世珍).
He arranged consonants based on the order of ㄱㄴㅁㅇㅅ, the basic consonants in order of appearance in Hunmin jeong-eum. The eight consonants allowed to be used as the last consonant by Hunmin jeong-eum, ("ㄱㆁㄷㄴㅂㅁㅅㄹ八字可足用也,") and most frequent and important, are arranged at the head, based on the order of the basic consonants. ㄷㄹ derived from ㄴ so come after ㄴ; ㅂ derived from ㅁ so comes after ㅁ; and so on. So we have ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇ. The rest are arranged in the same way; ㅋ derived from ㄱ so comes right after the "eights;" ㅌ derived from ㄴ so comes next; and so on. It's how now we have ㄱㄴㄷㄹㅁㅂㅅㅇㅈㅊㅋㅌㅍㅎ.
For the vowels, he set up the basis ㅏㅓㅗㅜㅡㅣ and put ㅑㅕㅛㅠ after their parents. (ㅑ derived from ㅏ,... so on.)

The book also has the explaination why there are three exceptions of consonants' names. When Hangeul was originally built up, they had to give Hanja superscription for every "Hangeul block," to give its pronounciation. However, there was no Hanja letter pronounced "윽,읃,읏" by Korean, so he substituted them with "역,귿,옷."

What a research to answer this!
--PuzzletChung

(For Han-geul)

Why is ㅇ placed at the beginning of a word that starts with a vowel? This makes vowel in writing always a medial, never an initial, like it often is in speech. Apparently it has no phonetic function (as an initial). I have read that it's supposed to preserve the structure of the block as a square. Is that the whole truth?

-- Menchi, 2003년 6월 8일 (日) 01:31

Apparently it has no phonetic function (as an initial)
I have read that it's supposed to preserve the structure of the block as a square. Is that the whole truth?
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I said 'Three parts rules', but those are not usual words. I made that words Just for explaining.

--ChatMate

영어를 잘 하시거나 잘 설명하실 수 있는 분이 제대로 설명해주세요. 한번 이야기를 나눠보고 싶어서 글을 적긴 했는데, 영어가 너무 엉망이네요.

Maybe you are understanding about it correctly, Menchi. ㅇ placed as the first consonant is just a placeholder. But omitting it could unease reading and would break the law that a letter block should be consist of at least one consonants and one vowel. By the time Hangeul was originated the law was stricter than today so that there was a placeholder also at the last consonant, (maybe ㆆ), as ChatMate tried to explain above. --PuzzletChung

1. How would not having ㅇ making the syllable to have an "unease reading"?
   
2. So the archaic pronunciation ㆆ is ambiguous? Being both eu and eung?
   -- Menchi, June 9, 2003
   

1. How would not having ㅇ making the syllable to have an "unease reading"?

For one instance, this would make more inconsistency in the visual forms. It'd take more time to read. More processing on the reader's brain; maybe less work on the writers hand, though.

Han-geul is a system. It is based on philosophical as well as pragmatic principles. You have to understand the former part. You might know of Yin-Yang and Five Elements already. We have the Three Things as well: the Heaven, the Earth, and the Man. The three part rule as described by someone else here, is based on the Three Things. There are a lot more philosophy in Han-geul.

--김창준

More practical reason is that one would expect every letter to have one consonant and one vowel at the correct places, when he/she read a passage. Hence a placeholder is needed when any consonant is needed. One would say, "what if they expect another 'last consonant' too, for each letter?" There is specially designed fonts (탈네모틀글꼴) for it, in which letters with last consonant occupy vertically extended blocks. See gif pictures of this page: http://members.direct.co.kr/~paero3/h_code/h_code.htm And the explanation is here: http://members.direct.co.kr/~paero3/sebul_f/sebul_f.htm NotFound

ㆆ is considered not more than just another consonant. Also, ㅎ is often written like the combination of ㅗ and ㅇ, (like the gif's of the link above I cited.) But if it is placed at the correct place of the "square block," no one would be confused because there is the vowel at where vowel should be placed.
--PuzzletChung