Understanding Korea materials - Hangeul: Appendix/Special Features of the Korean Alphabet(called Hunminjeoneum or Hangeul)
Special Features of the Korean Alphabet (called Hunminjeoneum or Hangeul)
Many scholars noticed that the graphic structure of Hunminjeoneum is unique. For example, Chao (1968: 107) described the Korean alphabet as follows: “from the point of view of the design of symbols, [the phonetic symbols in the Korean alphabet] is a writing system in which parts of unit symbols represent analytically features of the sounds.” Sampson (1985) also noticed the fact that forms of the Korean alphabet reflect the phonetical differences. He classified the writing systems of the world in his book, and displayed a classification scheme as follows:
In this classification, he established new category, called “featural writing,” to which is only the Korean alphabet system belongs. Chapter 7 of his book is about the featural system and is purely devoted to the introduction of Korean alphabet system.
