History of Hangul | Korean Consonants | Korean Vowels | How Korean is spoken

History of Hangul

Hangul was invented in 1443 by King Sejong During the Joseon Dynasty. It was originally called Hunminchongum and contained 28 letters.
Hangul (as it is now called) currently contains 24 letters, 14 consonants and 10 vowels. King Sejong employed many of the Korean scientist and philosphers of his day to create the alphabet.
Thorefore, Hangul is probably the easiest language to read. The shape of each letter corresponds to phonetic sound. The King and his committee of scholars designed the alphabet to be simple enough for any 'layman' person of the day to be able to read and write their own language.
Up until this time, Korean could only be written in Chinese (which was completely different than the spoken language. Chinese was still the dominate means of published writings until the 1950's. After the Korean War, a nationalistic movement brought forth changes which included that billboards, shop windows, and office directories in public buildings be written in Hangul.
How Korean is Read...
Korean is read from left to right and up to down. Notice how the "n" and "l" in the Hangul above are placed below the begining of the syllable. Korean is then read by syllables, which are grouped into words. These syllables use 2 to 5 (mostly 2 or 3) letters. Syllables always start with a consonant. Starting out is a little difficult, but with a little practice Hangul is much easier to read than the romanization of Korean words. Korean words rarely consist of more than 2 or 3 simple syllables, unlike the English language.