Han'gûl, the Korean Alphabet: the world's best alphabet because its design principles are scientific and linguistically sound and it is so easy to learn

• Deveolped with democratic spirit by a benevolent king, King Sejong the Great

• Based on deep understanding on how sounds are structured, produced, and organized into a larger unit
  • Consonants and vowels are distinguished: devised wth two different designing principles
    
    
  • The design principle of vowel letters is grounded in the Oriental philosophy:
    
    
    • Basic vowel letters are shaped after the three basic elements of universe, the Heaven, the Earth, and the man standing
      
      
    • Combination of the basic letters into different vowels is based on the Yin-Yang theory
      
      
  • Consonant letters are devised by imitating the shapes of speech organs
    
    
  • Phonetic features are systematically represented
    • Consonants produced in the same place share the same basic shape
    • An extra-stoke systematically represents an articulatory feature
      
      
  • Syllable units are recognized
    
    
    
• Future technology-friendly:
• Keyboard layout of Han’gûl
• Cellphone keyboard:
  
  
• Geoffrey Sampson (1985): ". . . one of the great human achievements"

LET US Learn Han'gûl!