Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
{{infobox writing system |name	Hangul () ''or'' Chosŏn'gŭl () |type Featural alphabet |languages KoreanCia-Cia (unofficial ) |time 1443 to the present |creator King Sejong the Great |unicode U+AC00–U+D7AF, U+1100–U+11FF, U+3130–U+318F, U+3200–U+32FF, U+A960–U+A97F, U+D7B0–U+D7FF, U+FF00–U+FFEF |iso15924 Hang |sample Hangulpedia.svg |image_size 150px }}

Hangul ( or ; Korean: 한글 ''Hangeul/Han'gŭl'' (in South Korea)) or Chosongul (; Korean: 조선글 ''Chosŏn'gŭl/Joseongeul'' (in North Korea)) is the native alphabet of the Korean language, as distinguished from the logographic Hanja and phonetic systems. It was created in the mid-15th century, and is now the official script of both North Korea and South Korea, being co-official in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Jilin Province, People's Republic of China and currently proposed as an official script for the Cia-Cia language of Buton, South East Sulawesi Province, Indonesia.

Hangul is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 Hangul letters ''(jamo)'', with at least one each of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. These syllabic blocks can be written horizontally from left to right as well as vertically from top to bottom in columns from right to left. Originally, the alphabet had several additional letters ''(see obsolete jamo)''. For a phonological description of the letters, see ''Korean phonology''.

Names

Official names

Koreanname	South Korean name
Hangul	한글
Rr	Han(-)geul
Mr	Han'gŭl
Koreanname2	North Korean name
Context2	north
Hangul2	조선글
Mr2	Chosŏn'gŭl
Rr2	Joseon(-)geul }}

The modern name ''Hangul'' () was coined by Ju Sigyeong in 1912. ''Han'' () meant "great" in archaic Korean, while ''geul'' () is the native Korean word for "script". ''Han'' could also be understood as the Sino-Korean word 韓 "Korean", so that the name can be read "Korean script" as well as "great script". is pronounced and has been romanized in the following ways:

* Hangeul or ''han-geul'' in the Revised Romanization of Korean, which the South Korean government uses in all English publications and encourages for all purposes.

* Han'gŭl in the McCune–Reischauer system. When used as an English word, it is often rendered without the diacritics: ''hangul,'' often capitalized as ''Hangul.'' This is how it appears in many English dictionaries.

* Hankul in Yale Romanization, a system recommended for technical linguistic studies.

North Koreans prefer to call it ''Chosŏn'gŭl'' (), for reasons related to the different names of Korea.

The original name was ''Hunminjeongeum'' (훈민정음; 訓民正音; see ''history).'' Due to objections to the names ''Hangeul,'' ''Chosŏn'gŭl,'' and ''urigeul'' (우리글) (see below) by Koreans in China, the otherwise uncommon short form jeongeum may be used as a neutral name in some international contexts.

Other names

Until the early twentieth century, Hanguel was denigrated as vulgar by the literate elite who preferred the traditional hanja writing system. They gave it such names as: ''Achimgeul'' (아침글 "writing you can learn within a morning") ''Gungmun'' (Hangul: 국문, hanja: "national script") ''Eonmun'' (Hangul: 언문, hanja: "vernacular script") ''Amgeul'' (암글 "women's script"; also written ''Amkeul'' 암클). ''Am'' (암) is a prefix that signifies a noun is feminine

''Ahaetgeul'' or ''Ahaegeul'' (아햇글 or 아해글 "children's script")

However, these names are now archaic, as the use of hanja in writing has become very rare in South Korea and completely phased out in North Korea.

History

Hangul was promulgated by the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, Sejong the Great. The Hall of Worthies (''Jiphyeonjeon'', 집현전) is often credited for the work.

The project was completed in late December 1443 or January 1444, and described in 1446 in a document titled ''Hunmin Jeongeum'' ("The Proper Sounds for the Education of the People"), after which the alphabet itself was named. The publication date of the ''Hunmin Jeong-eum,'' October 9, became Hangul Day in South Korea. Its North Korean equivalent is on January 15.

Various speculations about the creation process were put to rest by the discovery in 1940 of the 1446 ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye'' ("''Hunmin Jeong-eum'' Explanation and Examples"). This document explains the design of the consonant letters according to articulatory phonetics and the vowel letters according to the principles of ''yin'' and ''yang'' and vowel harmony.

In explaining the need for the new script, King Sejong explained that the Korean language was fundamentally different from Chinese; using Chinese characters (known as hanja) to write was so difficult for the common people that only privileged aristocrats ''(yangban),'' usually male, could read and write fluently. The majority of Koreans were effectively illiterate before the invention of Hangul.

Hangul was designed so that even a commoner could learn to read and write; the ''Haerye'' says "A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days."

Hangul faced opposition by the literary elite, such as Choe Manri and other Korean Confucian scholars in the 1440s, who believed hanja to be the only legitimate writing system, and perhaps saw it as a threat to their status. However, it entered popular culture as Sejong had intended, being used especially by women and writers of popular fiction. It was effective enough at disseminating information among the uneducated that Yeonsangun, the paranoid tenth king, forbade the study or use of Hangul and banned Hangul documents in 1504, and King Jungjong abolished the Ministry of ''Eonmun'' (언문청 諺文廳, governmental institution related to Hangul research) in 1506.

The late 16th century, however, saw a revival of Hangul, with ''gasa'' literature and later ''sijo'' flourishing. In the 17th century, Hangul novels became a major genre. By this point spelling had become quite irregular.

The first book using hangul in the West was brought to Europe by Isaac Titsingh in 1796. His small library included by Hayashi Shihei. This book, which was published in Japan in 1785, described the Joseon Kingdom and hangul. In 1832, the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland supported the posthumous abridged publication of Titsingh's French translation.

Due to growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, Japan's attempt to sever Korea from China's sphere of influence, and the Gabo Reformists' push, Hangul was eventually adopted in official documents for the first time in 1894. Elementary school texts began using Hangul in 1895, and the ''Dongnip Sinmun'', established in 1896, was the first newspaper printed in both Hangul and English. Still, the literary elites continued to use Chinese characters, and the majority of Koreans remained illiterate at this period.

During Colonial Rule in 1910, Japanese language became the official language. However, Hangul was taught in the Korean-established schools of colonial Korea built after the annexation, and Korean was written in a mixed Hanja-Hangul script, where most lexical roots were written in Hanja and grammatical forms in Hangul. Japan had banned earlier Korean literature, and public schooling became mandatory for children. For the majority of Koreans in those times, this was their first time learning Hangul. The orthography was partially standardized in 1912, with ''arae a'' restricted to Sino-Korean, the emphatic consonants written ㅺ ''sg,'' ㅼ ''sd,'' ㅽ ''sb,'' ㅆ ''ss,'' ㅾ ''sj,'' and final consonants restricted to ㄱ ''g,'' ㄴ ''n,'' ㄹ ''l,'' ㅁ ''m,'' ㅂ ''b,'' ㅅ ''s,'' ㅇ ''ng,'' ㄺ ''lg,'' ㄻ ''lm,'' ㄼ ''lb'' (no ㄷ ''d,'' as it was replaced by ''s).'' Long vowels were marked by a diacritic dot to the left of the syllable, but this was dropped in 1921.

A second colonial reform occurred in 1930. ''Arae a'' was abolished; the emphatic consonants were changed to ㄲ ''gg,'' ㄸ ''dd,'' ㅃ ''bb,'' ㅆ ''ss,'' ㅉ ''jj;'' more final consonants (ㄷㅈㅌㅊㅍㄲㄳㄵㄾㄿㅄ) were allowed, making the orthography more morphophonemic; ㅆ ''ss'' was written alone (without a vowel) when it occurred between nouns; and the nominative particle 가 ''ga'' was introduced after vowels, replacing ㅣ ''i.'' (ㅣ ''i'' had been written without an ㅇ ''iung.'' The nominative particle had been unvarying ''i'' in Sejong's day, and perhaps up to the eighteenth or nineteenth century.)

Ju Sigyeong, who had coined the term ''Hangul'' "great script" to replace ''eonmun'' "vulgar script" in 1912, established the Korean Language Research Society (朝鮮語研究會; later renamed Hangul Society, 한글學會) which further reformed orthography with ''Standardized System of Hangul'' (한글 맞춤법 통일안) in 1933. The principal change was to make Hangul as morphophonemic as practical given the existing letters. A system for transliterating foreign orthographies was published in 1940.

However, the Korean language was banned from schools in 1938 as part of a policy of cultural assimilation, and all Korean-language publications were outlawed in 1941.

The definitive modern orthography was published in 1946, just after independence from colonial rule. In 1948 North Korea attempted to make the script perfectly morphophonemic through the addition of new letters, and in 1953 Syngman Rhee in South Korea attempted to simplify the orthography by returning to the colonial orthography of 1921, but both reforms were abandoned after only a few years.

Both Koreas have used Hangul or mixed Hangul as their sole official writing system, with ever-decreasing use of ''hanja.'' Since the 1950s, it has become uncommon to find ''hanja'' in commercial or unofficial writing in the South, with some South Korean newspapers only using ''hanja'' as abbreviations or disambiguation of homonyms. There has been widespread debate as to the future of ''hanja'' in South Korea. North Korea instated Hangul as its exclusive writing system in 1949, and banned the use of ''hanja'' completely.

The Hunminjeongeum Society in Seoul attempts to spread the use of Hangul to unwritten languages of Asia. In 2009 they had their first success, with the adoption of Hangul by the town of Bau-Bau, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, to write the Cia-Cia language. A number of Indonesian Cia-Cia speakers who visited Seoul generated large media attention in South Korea, and they were greeted on their arrival by Oh Se-hoon, the mayor of Seoul.

''Jamo''

''Jamo'' (자모; 字母) or ''natsori'' (낱소리) are the units that make up the Hangul alphabet. ''Ja'' means letter or character, and ''mo'' means mother, so the name suggests that the ''jamo'' are the building-blocks of the script.

There are 51 ''jamo,'' of which 24 are equivalent to letters of the Latin alphabet. The other 27 ''jamo'' are clusters of two or sometimes three of these letters. Of the 24 simple ''jamo,'' fourteen are consonants ''(ja-eum'' 자음, 子音 "child sounds") and ten are vowels ''(mo-eum'' 모음, 母音 "mother sounds"). Five of the simple consonant letters are doubled to form the five "tense" (faucalized) consonants (see below), while another eleven clusters are formed of two different consonant letters. The ten vowel ''jamo'' can be combined to form eleven diphthongs.

Here is a summary of the ''jamo'' (please note that this list includes obsolete letters and clusters):

14 simple consonant letters: 1. ㄱ (g); 2. ㄴ (n); 3. ㄷ (d); 4. ㄹ (l/r); 5. ㅁ (m); 6. ㅂ (b); 7. ㅅ (s); 8. ㅇ (-/ng); 9. ㅈ (j); 10. ㅊ (ch); 11. ㅋ (k); 12. ㅌ (t); 13.ㅍ (p); 14. ㅎ (h).

There are also 13 obsolete simple letters: ᄛ, ㅱ, ㅸ, ᄼ, ᄾ, ㅿ (alveolar), ㆁ (velar), ᅎ, ᅐ, ᅔ, ᅕ, ㆄ, ㆆ.

5 double letters (glottalized): 1. ㄲ (kk); 2. ㄸ (tt); 3. ㅃ (pp); 4. ㅆ (ss); 5. ㅉ (jj).

In addition, there are 10 obsolete double letters: ㅥ, ᄙ, ㅹ, ᄽ, ᄿ, ᅇ, ᇮ, ᅏ, ᅑ, ㆅ.

11 consonant clusters: 1. ㄳ (gs); 2. ㄵ (nch); 3. ㄶ (nh); 4. ㄺ (lg); 5. ㄻ (lm); 6. ㄼ (lb); 7. ㄽ (ls); 8. ㄾ (lt); 9. ㄿ (lp); 10. ㅀ (lh); 11. ㅄ (bs).

There are also 66 obsolete double clusters: ᇃ, ᄓ, ㅦ, ᄖ, ㅧ, ㅨ, ᇉ, ᄗ, ᇋ, ᄘ, ㅪ, ㅬ, ᇘ, ㅭ, ᇚ, ᇛ, ㅮ, ㅯ, ㅰ, ᇠ, ᇡ, ㅲ, ᄟ, ㅳ, ᇣ, ㅶ, ᄨ, ㅷ, ᄪ, ᇥ, ㅺ, ㅻ, ㅼ, ᄰ, ᄱ, ㅽ, ᄵ, ㅾ, ᄷ, ᄸ, ᄹ, ᄺ, ᄻ, ᅁ, ᅂ, ᅃ, ᅄ, ᅅ, ᅆ, ᅈ, ᅉ, ᅊ, ᅋ, ᇬ, ᇭ, ㆂ, ㆃ, ᇯ, ᅍ, ᅒ, ᅓ, ᅖ, ᇵ, ᇶ, ᇷ, ᇸ, and 17 obsolete triple clusters: ᇄ, ㅩ, ᇏ, ᇑ, ᇒ, ㅫ, ᇔ, ᇕ, ᇖ, ᇞ, ㅴ, ㅵ, ᄤ, ᄥ, ᄦ, ᄳ, ᄴ.

6 simple vowel letters: 1. ㅏ (a); 2. ㅓ (eo); 3. ㅗ (o); 4. ㅜ (u); 5. ㅡ (eu); 6. ㅣ (i)

plus obsolete ㆍ

4 simple iotized vowel letters (semi consonant-semi vowel): 1. ㅑ (ya); 2. ㅕ (yeo); 3. ㅛ (yo); 4. ㅠ (yu)

plus obsolete ᆜ, ᆝ, ᆢ

11 diphthongs: 1. ㅐ (ae); 2. ㅒ (yae); 3. ㅔ (e); 4. ㅖ (ye); 5. ㅘ (wa); 6. ㅙ (wae); 7. ㅚ (oe); 8. ㅝ (weo); 9. ㅞ (we); 10. ㅟ (wi); 11. ㅢ (yi).

There are also 41 obsolete diphthongs: ᅷ, ᅸ, ᅹ, ᅺ, ᅻ, ᅼ, ᅽ, ᅾ, ᅿ, ᆀ, ᆁ, ᆂ, ᆃ, ㆇ, ㆈ, ᆆ, ᆇ, ㆉ, ᆉ, ᆊ, ᆋ, ᆌ, ᆍ, ᆎ, ᆏ, ᆐ, ㆊ, ㆋ, ᆓ, ㆌ, ᆕ, ᆖ, ᆗ, ᆘ, ᆙ, ᆚ, ᆛ, ᆟ, ᆠ, ㆎ.

Notes:

A. Four of the simple vowel ''jamo'' are derived by means of a short stroke to signify iotation (a preceding ''i'' sound): ㅑ ''ya,'' ㅕ ''yeo,'' ㅛ ''yo,'' and ㅠ ''yu.'' These four are counted as part of the 24 simple ''jamo'' because the iotating stroke taken out of context does not represent ''y''. In fact, there is no separate ''jamo'' for ''y''.

B. Of the simple consonants, ㅊ ''chieut,'' ㅋ ''kieuk,'' ㅌ ''tieut,'' and ㅍ ''pieup'' are aspirated derivatives of ㅈ ''zieut,'' ㄱ ''giyeok,'' ㄷ ''digeut,'' and ㅂ ''bieup,'' respectively, formed by combining the unaspirated letters with an extra stroke.

C. The doubled letters are ㄲ ''ssang-giyeok'' (kk: ''ssang-'' 쌍 "double"), ㄸ ''ssang-digeut'' (tt), ㅃ ''ssang-bieup'' (pp), ㅆ ''ssang-siot'' (ss), and ㅉ ''ssang-zieut'' (zz). Double ''jamo'' do not represent geminate consonants, but rather a "tense" phonation.

Stroke order

All hangul letters follow the rules of Korean and Chinese calligraphy. ㅇ and ㅎ use a circle, which is not used in printed Chinese characters, but is found in cursive styles.

For the iotized vowels, which are not shown, the short stroke is simply doubled.

''Jamo'' design

Numerous linguists have praised Hangul for its featural design, describing it as "remarkable," "the most perfect phonetic system devised," and "brilliant, so deliberately does it fit the language like a glove." The principal reason Hangul has attracted this praise is its partially featural design: The shapes of the graphs are related to the phonemes they represent. The shapes of consonant letters are based on the shape of the mouth and tongue in the production of that sound, sometimes with extra marks showing features such as aspiration. In addition, vowels are built from vertical or horizontal lines so that they are easily distinguishable from consonants.

Scripts may transcribe languages at the level of morphemes (logographic scripts like ''hanja),'' of syllables (syllabic scripts like ''kana),'' or of segments (alphabetic scripts like the Roman alphabet used to write English and many other languages.). Hangul goes one step further in some cases, using distinct strokes to indicate distinctive features such as place of articulation (labial, coronal, velar, or glottal) and manner of articulation (plosive, nasal, sibilant, aspiration) for consonants, and iotation (a preceding ''i-'' sound), harmonic class, and I-mutation for vowels.

For instance, the consonant ''jamo'' ㅌ ''t'' is composed of three strokes, each one meaningful: the top stroke indicates ㅌ is a plosive, like ㆆ ''’,'' ㄱ ''g,'' ㄷ ''d,'' ㅈ ''j,'' which have the same stroke (the last is an affricate, a plosive-fricative sequence); the middle stroke indicates that ㅌ is aspirated, like ㅎ ''h,'' ㅋ ''k,'' ㅊ ''ch,'' which also have this stroke; and the curved bottom stroke indicates that ㅌ is coronal, like ㄴ ''n,'' ㄷ ''d,'' and ㄹ ''l.'' (This element is said to represent the shape of the tongue when pronouncing coronal consonants.) Two consonants, ㆁ and ㅱ, have dual pronunciations, and appear to be composed of two elements corresponding to these two pronunciations: ~silence for ㆁ and ~ for obsolete ㅱ.

With vowel ''jamo,'' a short stroke connected to the main line of the letter indicates that this is one of the vowels that ''can'' be iotated; this stroke is then doubled when the vowel ''is'' iotated. The position of the stroke indicates which harmonic class the vowel belongs to, "light" (top or right) or "dark" (bottom or left). In modern ''jamo,'' an additional vertical stroke indicates i-mutation, deriving ㅐ , ㅔ , ㅚ , and ㅟ from ㅏ , ㅓ , ㅗ , and ㅜ . However, this is not part of the intentional design of the script, but rather a natural development from what were originally diphthongs ending in the vowel ㅣ . Indeed, in many Korean dialects, including the standard dialect of Seoul, some of these may still be diphthongs.

Although the design of the script may be featural, for all practical purposes it behaves as an alphabet. The ''jamo'' ㅌ isn't read as three letters ''coronal plosive aspirated,'' for instance, but as a single consonant ''t.'' Likewise, the former diphthong ㅔ is read as a single vowel ''e.''

Beside the ''jamo,'' Hangul originally employed diacritic marks to indicate pitch accent. A syllable with a high pitch (거성) was marked with a dot (ჿᅠᆧ〮) to the left of it (when writing vertically); a syllable with a rising pitch (상성) was marked with a double dot, like a colon (ჿᅠᆧ〯). These are no longer used. Although vowel length was and still is phonemic in Korean, it was never indicated in Hangul, except that syllables with rising pitch (ჿᅠᆧ〯) necessarily had long vowels.

Although some aspects of Hangul reflect a shared history with the Phagspa script, and thus Indic phonology, such as the relationships among the homorganic ''jamo'' and the alphabetic principle itself, other aspects such as organization of ''jamo'' into syllabic blocks, and which Phagspa letters were chosen to be basic to the system, reflect the influence of Chinese writing and phonology.

Consonant ''jamo'' design

The letters for the consonants fall into five homorganic groups, each with a basic shape, and one or more letters derived from this shape by means of additional strokes. In the ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye'' account, the basic shapes iconically represent the articulations the tongue, palate, teeth, and throat take when making these sounds.

{|class="infobox wikitable" style="width:120px;" ! !Simple !Aspirated !Tense |- !palatal |ㅈ |ㅊ |ㅉ |- !velar |ㄱ |ㅋ |ㄲ |- !coronal |ㄷ |ㅌ |ㄸ |- !bilabial |ㅂ |ㅍ |ㅃ |- !fricatives |ㅅ | |ㅆ |} The Korean names for the groups are taken from Chinese phonetics:

Velar consonants (아음, 牙音 ''a-eum'' "molar sounds")

ㄱ ''g'' , ㅋ ''k''

* Basic shape: ㄱ is a side view of the back of the tongue raised toward the velum (soft palate). (For illustration, access the external link below.) ㅋ is derived from ㄱ with a stroke for the burst of aspiration.

Coronal consonants (설음, 舌音 ''seoreum'' "lingual sounds"):

ㄴ ''n'' , ㄷ ''d'' , ㅌ ''t'' , ㄹ ''r''

* Basic shape: ㄴ is a side view of the tip of the tongue raised toward the alveolar ridge (gum ridge). The letters derived from ㄴ are pronounced with the same basic articulation. The line topping ㄷ represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The middle stroke of ㅌ represents the burst of aspiration. The top of ㄹ represents a flap of the tongue.

Bilabial consonants (순음, 唇音 ''suneum'' "labial sounds"):

ㅁ ''m'' , ㅂ ''b'' , ㅍ ''p''

* Basic shape: ㅁ represents the outline of the lips in contact with each other. The top of ㅂ represents the release burst of the ''b''. The top stroke of ㅍ is for the burst of aspiration.

Sibilant consonants (치음, 齒音 ''chieum'' "dental sounds"):

ㅅ s , ㅈ z/j , ㅊ ch

Basic shape: ㅅ was originally shaped like a wedge , without the serif on top. It represents a side view of the teeth. The line topping ㅈ represents firm contact with the roof of the mouth. The stroke topping ㅊ represents an additional burst of aspiration.

Dorsal consonants (후음, 喉音 ''hueum'' "throat sounds"):

ㅇ ''ng'' , ㅎ ''h''

* Basic shape: ㅇ is an outline of the throat. Originally ㅇ was two letters, a simple circle for silence (null consonant), and a circle topped by a vertical line, ㆁ, for the nasal ''ng''. A now obsolete letter, ㆆ, represented a glottal stop, which is pronounced in the throat and had closure represented by the top line, like ㄱㄷㅈ. Derived from ㆆ is ㅎ, in which the extra stroke represents a burst of aspiration.

The phonetic theory inherent in the derivation of glottal stop ㆆ and aspirate ㅎ from the null ㅇ may be more accurate than Chinese phonetics or modern IPA usage. In Chinese theory and in the IPA, the glottal consonants are posited as having a specific "glottal" place of articulation. However, recent phonetic theory has come to view the glottal stop and [h] to be isolated features of 'stop' and 'aspiration' without an inherent place of articulation, just as their Hangul representations based on the null symbol assume.

Vowel ''jamo'' design

Vowel letters are based on three elements:

A horizontal line representing the flat Earth, the essence of ''yin''.

A point for the Sun in the heavens, the essence of ''yang''. (This becomes a short stroke when written with a brush.)

A vertical line for the upright Human, the neutral mediator between the Heaven and Earth.

Short strokes (dots in the earliest documents) were added to these three basic elements to derive the simple vowel ''jamo:''

Simple vowels

* Horizontal letters: these are mid-high back vowels.

** bright ㅗ ''o''

** dark ㅜ ''u''

** neutral ㅡ ''eu'' (''ŭ'')

* Vertical letters: these were once low vowels.

** bright ㅏ ''a''

** dark ㅓ ''eo'' (''ŏ'')

** neutral ㅣ ''i''

Compound ''jamo''. Hangul never had a ''w'', except for Sino-Korean etymology. Since an ''o'' or ''u'' before an ''a'' or ''eo'' became a sound, and occurred nowhere else, could always be analyzed as a phonemic ''o'' or ''u,'' and no letter for was needed. However, vowel harmony is observed: "dark" ㅜ ''u'' with "dark" ㅓ ''eo'' for ㅝ ''wo;'' "bright" ㅗ ''o'' with "bright" ㅏ ''a'' for ㅘ ''wa:''

* ㅘ ''wa'' = ㅗ ''o'' + ㅏ ''a''

* ㅝ ''wo'' = ㅜ ''u'' + ㅓ ''eo''

* ㅙ ''wae'' = ㅗ ''o'' + ㅐ ''ae''

* ㅞ ''we'' = ㅜ ''u'' + ㅔ ''e''

The compound ''jamo'' ending in ㅣ ''i'' were originally diphthongs. However, several have since evolved into pure vowels:

* ㅐ ''ae'' = ㅏ ''a'' + ㅣ ''i''

* ㅔ ''e'' = ㅓ ''eo'' + ㅣ ''i''

* ㅙ ''wae'' = ㅘ ''wa'' + ㅣ ''i''

ㅚ ''oe'' = ㅗ ''o'' + ㅣ ''i'' (formerly pronounced , see Korean phonology)

* ㅞ ''we'' = ㅝ ''wo'' + ㅣ ''i''

ㅟ ''wi'' = ㅜ ''u'' + ㅣ ''i'' (formerly pronounced , see Korean phonology)

* ㅢ ''ui'' = ㅡ ''eu'' + ㅣ ''i''

Iotized vowels: There is no ''jamo'' for Roman ''y'' before a vowel. Instead, this sound is indicated by doubling the stroke attached to the base line of the vowel letter. Of the seven basic vowels, four could be preceded by a ''y'' sound, and these four were written as a dot next to a line. (Through the influence of Chinese calligraphy, the dots soon became connected to the line: ㅓㅏㅜㅗ.) A preceding ''y'' sound, called "iotation", was indicated by doubling this dot: ㅕㅑㅠㅛ ''yeo, ya, yu, yo''. The three vowels that could not be iotated were written with a single stroke: ㅡㆍㅣ ''eu, (arae a), i''.

{|class="infobox wikitable" style="width:120px;" !Simple !Iotized |- |ㅏ |ㅑ |- |ㅓ |ㅕ |- |ㅗ |ㅛ |- |ㅜ |ㅠ |- |ㅡ | |- |ㅣ | |} The simple iotated vowels are,

* ㅑ ''ya'' from ㅏ  ''a''

* ㅕ ''yeo'' from ㅓ  ''eo''

* ㅛ ''yo'' from ㅗ  ''o''

* ㅠ ''yu'' from ㅜ  ''u''

There are also two iotated diphthongs,

* ㅒ ''yae'' from ㅐ  ''ae''

* ㅖ ''ye'' from ㅔ  ''e''

The Korean language of the 15th century had vowel harmony to a greater extent than it does today. Vowels in grammatical morphemes changed according to their environment, falling into groups that "harmonized" with each other. This affected the morphology of the language, and Korean phonology described it in terms of ''yin'' and ''yang:'' If a root word had ''yang'' ('bright') vowels, then most suffixes attached to it also had to have ''yang'' vowels; conversely, if the root had ''yin'' ('dark') vowels, the suffixes needed to be ''yin'' as well. There was a third harmonic group called "mediating" ('neutral' in Western terminology) that could coexist with either ''yin'' or ''yang'' vowels.

The Korean neutral vowel was ㅣ ''i''. The ''yin'' vowels were ㅡㅜㅓ ''eu, u, eo;'' the dots are in the ''yin'' directions of 'down' and 'left'. The ''yang'' vowels were ㆍㅗㅏ ''ə, o, a,'' with the dots in the ''yang'' directions of 'up' and 'right'. The ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye'' states that the shapes of the non-dotted ''jamo'' ㅡㆍㅣ were chosen to represent the concepts of ''yin,'' ''yang,'' and mediation: Earth, Heaven, and Human. (The letter ㆍ ''ə'' is now obsolete except in the Jeju dialect.)

There was yet a third parameter in designing the vowel ''jamo,'' namely, choosing ㅡ as the graphic base of ㅜ and ㅗ, and ㅣ as the graphic base of ㅓ and ㅏ. A full understanding of what these horizontal and vertical groups had in common would require knowing the exact sound values these vowels had in the 15th century.

Our uncertainty is primarily with the three ''jamo'' ㆍㅓㅏ. Some linguists reconstruct these as , respectively; others as . A third reconstruction is to make them all middle vowels as . With the third reconstruction, Middle Korean vowels actually line up in a tidy vowel harmony pattern, albeit with only one front vowel and four middle vowels: {|class="wikitable" |-style="vertical-align:top;" |rowspan="4"|ᅵ |style="color:blue;"|ᅳ |rowspan="2" style="color:blue;"|ᅮ |-style="vertical-align:top;" |style="color:blue;"|ᅥ |-style="vertical-align:top;" |style="color:red;"|ᆞ |rowspan="2" style="color:red;"|ᅩ |-style="vertical-align:top;" |style="color:red;"|ᅡ |}

However, the horizontal ''jamo'' ㅡㅜㅗ ''eu, u, o'' do all appear to have been mid to high back vowels, , and thus to have formed a coherent group phonetically in every reconstruction.

Traditional account on the design of Hangul

The generally accepted account on the design of the ''jamo'' is that the vowels are derived from various combinations of the following three components: ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ. Here, ㆍ symbolically stands for the (sun in) heaven, ㅡ stands for the (flat) earth, and ㅣ stands for an (upright) human. The original sequence of the Korean vowels, as stated in Hunminjeongeum, listed these three vowels first, followed by a various combinations. Thus, the original order for the vowels was: ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ. Note that two positive vowels (ㅗ ㅏ) including one ㆍ are followed by two negative vowels including one ㆍ, then by two positive vowels each including two of ㆍ, and then by two negative vowels each including two of ㆍ. The same theory provides the most simple explanation of the shapes of the consonants as approximation of the shapes of the most representative organ needed to form that sound. The original order of the consonants in Hunmin Jeong-eum was: ㄱ ㅋ ㆁ ㄷ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅊ ㅅ ㆆ ㅎ ㅇ ㄹ ㅿ. For example, ㄱ representing the "g" sound geometrically describes a tongue just before the moment of pronunciation as the tongue blocks the passage of air. ㅋ representing the "k" sound is derived from ㄱ by adding another stroke. ㆁ representing the "ŋ" sound may have been derived from ㅇ by addition of a stroke. ㄷ representing the "d" sound is derived from ㄴ by addition of a stroke. ㅌ representing the "t" sound is derived from ㄷ by adding another stroke. ㄴ representing the "n" sound geometrically describes a tongue making contact with an upper palate just before making the "n" sound. ㅂ representing the "b" sound is derived from ㅁ by adding strokes. ㅍ representing the "p" sound is a variant of ㅂ, which is obtained by a 90 degree rotation and extension the horizontal strokes. ㅁ representing the "m" sound geometrically describes a closed mouth before opening the lips. ㅈ representing the "dʒ" sound is derived from the shape of ㅅ by adding strokes. ㅊ representing the "ch" sound is derived from ㅈ by adding another stroke. ㅅ representing the "s" sound geometrically describes a near contact between the tongue and the teeth. ㆆ representing a weak "h" sound geometrically describes an open throat with a bar to indicate that there is an aspiration. ㅎ representing the "h" sound is derived from ㆆ with the extra stroke representing a stronger flow of the aspiration. ㅇ representing the absence of a consonant geometrically describes an open mouth, which necessarily accompanies the following vowel. ㄹ representing a sound between "r" and "l" geometrically describes a backward-bending tongue. ㅿ representing a weak "s" sound is also derived from the shape of the teeth, but has a different origin than ㅅ and is not derived from ㅅ by addition of a stroke. Therefore, according to the standard theory, all alphabets in Hangul are pure geometric representations of either the shapes of pronunciation organs or abstract symbols. Ledyard's theory below is rejected by the majority of Korean scholars.

Ledyard's theory of consonant ''jamo'' design

[[Image:Phagspa-Hangul comparison.png|thumb|240px| (Top) Phagspa letters , and their supposed Hangul derivatives . Note the lip on both Phagspa and Hangul ㄷ. (Bottom) Derivation of Phagspa ''w, v, f'' from variants of the letter (left) plus a subscript [w], and analogous composition of Hangul ''w, v, f'' from variants of the basic letter plus a circle.]]

Although the ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye'' explains the design of the consonantal ''jamo'' in terms of articulatory phonetics, as a purely innovative creation, there are several theories as to which external sources may have inspired or influenced King Sejong's creation. Professor Gari Ledyard of Columbia University studied on possible connections between Hangul and the Mongol Phagspa script of the Yuan dynasty. However, it should be noted that, against common misinterpretations of his study, Ledyard thought the role of Phags-pa script in the creation of Hangul was quite limited and he did not claim that Hangul was derived from the Phagspa script. Ledyard wrote in his doctoral thesis:

"...but it should be clear to any reader that in the total picture, that [Phagspa script's] role was quite limited ... Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol 'phags-pa script...""

A sixth basic letter, the null initial ㅇ, was invented by Sejong. The rest of the ''jamo'' were derived internally from these six, essentially as described in the ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye''. However, the five borrowed consonants were not the graphically simplest letters considered basic by the ''Hunmin Jeong-eum Haerye,'' but instead the consonants basic to Chinese phonology: ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, ㅈ, and ㄹ.

The ''Hunmin Jeong-eum'' states that King Sejong adapted the 古篆 ("''Gǔ'' Seal Script") in creating Hangul. The 古篆 has never been identified. The primary meaning of 古 ''gǔ'' is "old" ("Old Seal Script"), frustrating philologists because Hangul bears no functional similarity to Chinese 篆字 seal scripts. However, Ledyard believes 古 ''gǔ'' may be a pun on 蒙古 ''Měnggǔ'' "Mongol", and that 古篆 is an abbreviation of 蒙古篆字 "Mongol Seal Script", that is, the formal variant of the Phagspa alphabet written to look like the Chinese seal script. There were Phagspa manuscripts in the Korean palace library, including some in the seal-script form, and several of Sejong's ministers knew the script well.

If this was the case, Sejong's evasion on the Mongol connection can be understood in light of Korea's relationship with Ming China after the fall of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, and of the literati's contempt for the Mongols as "barbarians".

According to Ledyard, the five borrowed letters were graphically simplified, which allowed for ''jamo'' clusters and left room to add a stroke to derive the aspirate plosives, ㅋㅌㅍㅊ. But in contrast to the traditional account, the non-plosives (''ng'' ㄴㅁ and ㅅ) were derived by ''removing'' the top of the basic letters. He points out that while it's easy to derive ㅁ from ㅂ by removing the top, it's not clear how to derive ㅂ from ㅁ in the traditional account, since the shape of ㅂ is not analogous to those of the other plosives.

The explanation of the letter ''ng'' also differs from the traditional account. Many Chinese words began with ''ng,'' but by King Sejong's day, initial ''ng'' was either silent or pronounced in China, and was silent when these words were borrowed into Korean. Also, the expected shape of ''ng'' (the short vertical line left by removing the top stroke of ㄱ) would have looked almost identical to the vowel ㅣ . Sejong's solution solved both problems: The vertical stroke left from ㄱ was added to the null symbol ㅇ to create ㆁ (a circle with a vertical line on top), iconically capturing both the pronunciation in the middle or end of a word, and the usual silence at the beginning. (The graphic distinction between null ㅇ and ㆁ was eventually lost.)

Another letter composed of two elements to represent two regional pronunciations was ㅱ, which transcribed the Chinese initial 微. This represented either ''m'' or ''w'' in various Chinese dialects, and was composed of ㅁ [m] plus ㅇ (from Phagspa [w]). In Phagspa, a loop under a letter represented ''w'' after vowels, and Ledyard proposes this became the loop at the bottom of ㅱ. Now, in Phagspa the Chinese initial 微 is also transcribed as a compound with ''w,'' but in its case the ''w'' is placed under an ''h.'' Actually, the Chinese consonant series 微非敷 ''w, v, f'' is transcribed in Phagspa by the addition of a ''w'' under three graphic variants of the letter for ''h,'' and Hangul parallels this convention by adding the ''w'' loop to the labial series ㅁㅂㅍ ''m, b, p,'' producing now-obsolete ㅱㅸㆄ ''w, v, f.'' (Phonetic values in Korean are uncertain, as these consonants were only used to transcribe Chinese.)

As a final piece of evidence, Ledyard notes that most of the borrowed Hangul letters were simple geometric shapes, at least originally, but that ㄷ ''d'' [t] always had a small lip protruding from the upper left corner, just as the Phagspa ''d'' [t] did. This lip can be traced back to the Tibetan letter ''d'', ད.

Note, however, that while Ledyard's theory of Hangul suggests the Korean script was based on 'Phags-pa, majority of linguists believe this is not the case. Geoffrey Sampson comments on Ledyard's original thesis:

"Gari Ledyard (1966), for instance, urges that Sejong based Han'gul on the 'Phags-pa alphabet then used for Mongolian. But Ledyard argues this largely by interpreting a remark in the Hunmin Chong'um as deliberately cryptic reference to Mongolian writing, and this argument seems contrived. It may well be true that Sejong knew of 'Phags-pa and other phonographic scripts in use in East Asia, but those scripts were all segmental: they offer no precedent for Han'gul."

''Jamo'' order

The alphabetical order of Hangul does not mix consonants and vowels as the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek alphabets do. Rather, the order is that of the Indic type, first velar consonants, then coronals, labials, sibilants, ''etc.'' However, the vowels come after the consonants rather than before them as in the Indic systems.

Historical orders

The consonantal order of the ''Hunmin Jeongeum'' in 1446 was,

:ㄱ ㅋ ㆁ ㄷ ㅌ ㄴ ㅂ ㅍ ㅁ ㅈ ㅊ ㅅ ㆆ ㅎ ㅇ ㄹ ㅿ

and the order of vowels was,

:ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ ㅗ ㅏ ㅜ ㅓ ㅛ ㅑ ㅠ ㅕ

In 1527, Choe Sejin reorganized the alphabet:

:ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㆁ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅈ ㅊ ㅿ ㅇ ㅎ

:ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ ㆍ

This is the basis of the modern alphabetic orders. It was before the development of the Korean tense consonants and the double ''jamo'' that represent them, and before the conflation of the letters ㅇ (null) and ㆁ (ng). Thus when the South Korean and North Korean governments implemented full use of Hangul, they ordered these letters differently, with South Korea grouping similar letters together, and North Korea placing new letters at the end of the alphabet.

South Korean order

In the Southern order, double ''jamo'' are placed immediately after their single counterparts. No distinction is made between silent and nasal ㅇ:

:ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ :ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ

The modern monophthongal vowels come first, with the derived forms interspersed according to their form: first added ''i'', then iotized, then iotized with added ''i''. Diphthongs beginning with ''w'' are ordered according to their spelling, as ㅏ or ㅓ plus a second vowel, not as separate digraphs.

The order of the final ''jamo'' is, :(none) ㄱ ㄲ ㄳ ㄴ ㄵ ㄶ ㄷ ㄹ ㄺ ㄻ ㄼ ㄽ ㄾ ㄿ ㅀ ㅁ ㅂ ㅄ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

"None" stands for no final jamo.

North Korean order

North Korea maintains a more traditional order:

: ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㄲ ㄸ ㅃ ㅆ ㅉ ㅇ

ㅇ used as an initial, goes at the very end, as it is a placeholder for the vowels which follow. (A syllable with no final is ordered before all syllables with finals, however, not with null ㅇ.)

The new letters, the double ''jamo'', are placed at the end of the consonants, just before the null ㅇ, so as not to alter the traditional order of the rest of the alphabet.

The order of the vocalic ''jamo'' is,

: ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ ㅐ ㅒ ㅔ ㅖ ㅚ ㅟ ㅢ ㅘ ㅝ ㅙ ㅞ

All digraphs and trigraphs, including the old diphthongs ㅐ and ㅔ, are placed after all basic vowels, again maintaining Choe's alphabetic order.

The order of the final ''jamo'' is,

:(none) ㄱ ㄳ ㄴ ㄵ ㄶ ㄷ ㄹ ㄺ ㄻ ㄼ ㄽ ㄾ ㄿ ㅀ ㅁ ㅂ ㅄ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ ㄲ ㅆ

Unlike the order of the initial ''jamo'', on the other hand, this ㅇ is the nasal ㅇ ''ng,'' which occurs only as a final in the modern language. The double ''jamo'' are placed to the very end, like the initial ''jamo'' order, but the combined consonants are placed right after their first counterparts.

''Jamo'' names

The Hangul arrangement is called the ''ganada'' order, (가나다 순) which is basically an alphabetical order named after the first three ''jamo'' ''(g, n, d)'' affixed to the first vowel ''(a).'' The ''jamo'' were named by Choe Sejin in 1527. North Korea regularized the names when it made Hangul its official orthography.

Consonantal ''jamo'' names

The modern consonants have two-syllable names, with the consonant coming both at the beginning and end of the name, as follows:

Consonant !! Name
ㄱ	''giyeok'' (기역), or ''kiŭk'' (기윽) in North Korea
ㄴ	''nieun/niŭn'' (니은)
ㄷ	''digeut'' (디귿), or ''tiŭt'' (디읃) in North Korea
ㄹ	''rieul/riŭl'' (리을)
ㅁ	''mieum/miŭm'' (미음)
ㅂ	''bieup/piŭp'' (비읍)
ㅅ	''siot'' (시옷), or ''siŭt'' (시읏) in North Korea
ㅇ	''ieung/iŭng'' (이응)
ㅈ	''jieut/chiŭt'' (지읒)
ㅊ	''chieut/ch'iŭt'' (치읓)
ㅋ	''kieuk/k'iŭk'' (키읔)
ㅌ	''tieut/t'iŭt'' (티읕)
ㅍ	''pieup/p'iŭp'' (피읖)
ㅎ	''hieut/hiŭt'' (히읗)

All ''jamo'' in North Korea, and all but three in the more traditional nomenclature used in South Korea, have names of the format of ''letter'' + ''i'' + ''eu'' + ''letter''. For example, Choe wrote ''bieup'' with the ''hanja'' 非 ''bi'' 邑 ''eup''. The names of ''g,'' ''d,'' and ''s'' are exceptions because there were no ''hanja'' for ''euk,'' ''eut,'' and ''eus''. 役 ''yeok'' is used in place of ''euk''. Since there is no ''hanja'' that ends in ''t'' or ''s,'' Choi chose two ''hanja'' to be read in their Korean gloss, 末 ''kkeut'' "end" and 衣 ''ot'' "clothes".

Originally, Choi gave ''j, ch, k, t, p,'' and ''h'' the irregular one-syllable names of ''ji, chi, ki, ti, pi,'' and ''hi,'' because they should not be used as final consonants, as specified in ''Hunmin jeong-eum''. But after the establishment of the new orthography in 1933, which allowed all consonants to be used as finals, the names were changed to the present forms.

The double ''jamo'' precede the parent consonant's name with the word 쌍/雙 ''ssang,'' meaning "twin" or "double", or with 된 ''doen'' in North Korea, meaning "strong". Thus:

Letter !! South Korean Name !! North Korean name
ㄲ	''ssanggiyeok'' (쌍기역)	''toen'giŭk'' (된기윽)
ㄸ	''ssangdigeut'' (쌍디귿)
ㅃ	''ssangbieup'' (쌍비읍)
ㅆ	''ssangsiot'' (쌍시옷)
ㅉ	''ssangjieut'' (쌍지읒)

In North Korea, an alternate way to refer to the ''jamo'' is by the name ''letter'' + ''ŭ'' (ㅡ), for example, 그 ''kŭ'' for the ''jamo'' ㄱ, 쓰 ''ssŭ'' for the ''jamo'' ㅆ, etc.

Vocalic ''jamo'' names

The vocalic ''jamo'' names are simply the vowel itself, written with the null initial ㅇ ''ieung'' and the vowel being named. Thus:

{| class=wikitable ! Letter !! Name !! Letter !! Name |- | ㅏ || ''a'' (아) | ㅐ || ''ae'' (애) |- | ㅑ || ''ya'' (야) | ㅒ || ''yae'' (얘) |- | ㅓ || ''eo'' (어) | ㅔ || ''e'' (에) |- | ㅕ || ''yeo'' (여) | ㅖ || ''ye'' (예) |- | ㅗ || ''o'' (오) | ㅚ || ''oe'' (외) |- | ㅛ || ''yo'' (요) | ㅙ || ''wae'' (왜) |- | ㅜ || ''u'' (우) | ㅘ || ''wa'' (와) |- | ㅠ || ''yu'' (유) | ㅟ || ''wi'' (위) |- | ㅡ || ''eu'' (으) | ㅝ || ''wo'' (워) |- | ㅣ || ''i'' (이) | ㅢ || ''ui'' (의) |- | || | ㅞ || ''we'' (웨) |}

Obsolete ''jamo''

Several ''jamo'' are obsolete. These include several that represent Korean sounds that have since disappeared from the standard language, as well as a larger number used to represent the sounds of the Chinese rime tables. The most frequently encountered of these archaic letters are: ㆍ (transcribed '''' (''arae-a'' 아래아 "lower ''a"''): Presumably pronounced , similar to modern ㅓ ''eo''. It is written as a dot, positioned beneath (Korean for "beneath" is ''arae'') the consonant. The ''arae-a'' is not entirely obsolete, as it can be found in various brand names and is often used in spelling the dialect of Jeju Island, Korea's southernmost province, where it is pronounced . Even so, it was not transcribed in the official Korean Romanization and thus modern renderings of the Jeju dialect transcribe it the same way as ㅗ, that is, ''o''. Korean words that were written with ㆍ long ago are now usually written with ㅏ pronounced .

* The ''ə'' formed a medial of its own, or was found in the diphthong ㆎ ''arae-ae'', written with the dot under the consonant and ㅣ (transcribed ''i'') to its right – in the same fashion as ㅚ or ㅢ.

ㅿ ''z'' (''bansiot'' 반시옷): A rather unusual sound, perhaps IPA (a nasalized palatal fricative). Modern Korean words previously spelled with ㅿ substitute ㅅ. ㆆ '''' (''yeorinhieut'' 여린히읗 "light hieut" or ''doenieung'' 된 이응 "strong ieung"): A glottal stop, "lighter than ㅎ and harsher than ㅇ". ㆁ ''ŋ'' (''yesieung'' 옛이응): The original ''jamo'' for ; now conflated with ㅇ ''ieung''. (With some computer fonts such as Arial Unicode MS, ''yesieung'' is shown as a flattened version of ''ieung,'' but the correct form is with a long peak, longer than what one would see on a serif version of ''ieung''.) ㅸ ''β'' (''gabyeounbieup'' 가벼운비읍):IPA . This letter appears to be a digraph of ''bieup'' and ''ieung'', but it may be more complicated than that. There were three other less common ''jamo'' for sounds in this section of the Chinese rime tables, ㅱ ''w'' ( or ), a theoretical ㆄ ''f'', and ㅹ ''ff'' ; the bottom element appears to be only coincidentally similar to ''ieung''. However its exact shape, it operates somewhat like a following ''h'' in the Latin alphabet (one may think of these letters as ''bh, mh, ph,'' and ''pph'' respectively). Koreans have trouble pronouncing these sounds now, conflating these fricatives with the corresponding stops.

There were two other now-obsolete double ''jamo'', ㆅ ''x'' (''ssanghieut'' 쌍히읗 "double ''hieut''"): IPA or .

ᅇ (''ssang-ieung'' 쌍이응 "double ''ieung''"): Another ''jamo'' used in the Chinese rime table.

In the original Hangul system, double ''jamo'' were used to represent Chinese voiced (濁音) consonants, which survive in the Shanghainese slack consonants, and were not used for Korean words. It was only later that a similar convention was used to represent the modern "tense" (faucalized) consonants of Korean.

The sibilant ("dental") consonants were modified to represent the two series of Chinese sibilants, alveolar and retroflex, a "round" vs. "sharp" distinction (analogous to s vs sh) which was never made in Korean, and which was even being lost from southern Chinese. The alveolar ''jamo'' had longer left stems, while retroflexes had longer right stems:

ㅈ ᅎ ᅐ

Original consonants	ㅅ	ㅆ	|	ㅉ	ㅊ
''Chidueum'' (alveolar consonant	alveolar sibilant)	ᄼ	ᄽ	|	ᅏ	ᅔ
''Jeongchieum'' (retroflex sibilant)	ᄾ	ᄿ	|	ᅑ	ᅕ

There were also consonant clusters that have since dropped out of the language, such as the initials ㅴ ''bsg'' and ㅵ ''bsd'', as well as diphthongs that were used to represent Chinese medials, such as ㆇ, ㆈ, ㆊ, ㆋ.

Some of the Korean sounds represented by these obsolete jamo still exist in some dialects.

Unicode

Hangul Jamo (U+1100—U+11FF) and Hangul Compatibility Jamo (U+3130—U+318F) were added to the Unicode Standard in June, 1993 with the release of version 1.1.

Hangul Jamo Extended-A (U+A960—U+A97F) and Hangul Jamo Extended-B (U+D7B0—U+D7FF) were added to the Unicode Standard in October, 2009 with the release of version 5.2.

Hangul in other Unicode blocks: Tone marks for Middle Korean: (U+302E), (U+302F)

11,172 precomposed Hangul syllables (U+AC00—U+D7A3)

Parenthesised (U+3200—U+321E) and circled (U+3260—U+327E) Hangul compatibility characters in the CJK Enclosed Letters and Months block

Halfwidth (U+FFDC—U+FFA0) Hangul compatibility characters in the Halfwidth and fullwidth forms block

Extended ''jamo''

To make Hangul a perfect morphophonological fit to the Korean language, North Korea introduced six new ''jamo,'' which were published in the ''New Orthography for the Korean Language'' and used officially from 1948–1954.

Two obsolete ''jamo'' were resurrected: <ㅿ> (리읃), which alternated in pronunciation between initial /l/ and final /d/; and <ㆆ> (히으), which was only pronounced between vowels. Two modifications of the letter ㄹ were introduced, one for a ㄹ which is silent finally, and one for a ㄹ which doubles between vowels. A hybrid ㅂ-ㅜ letter was introduced for words which alternate between those two sounds (that is, a /b/ which becomes /w/ before a vowel). Finally, a vowel <1> was introduced for variable iotation.

Morpho-syllabic blocks

Except for a few grammatical morphemes prior to the twentieth century, no letter may stand alone to represent elements of the Korean language. Instead, ''jamo'' are grouped into syllabic or morphemic blocks of at least two and often three: (1) a consonant or a doubled consonant called the initial (초성, 初聲 ''choseong'' syllable onset), (2) a vowel or diphthong called the medial (중성, 中聲 ''jungseong'' syllable nucleus), and, optionally, (3) a consonant or consonant cluster at the end of the syllable, called the final (종성, 終聲 ''jongseong'' syllable coda). When a syllable has no actual initial consonant, the null initial ㅇ ''ieung'' is used as a placeholder. (In modern Hangul, placeholders are not used for the final position.) Thus, a block contains a minimum of two ''jamo,'' an initial and a medial. Although the Hangul has historically been organized into syllables, in modern orthography it is instead first organized into morphemes, and only secondarily into syllables within those morphemes, with the exception that single-consonant morphemes may not be written alone. (See Orthography.)

The sets of initial and final consonants are not the same. For instance, ㅇ ''ng'' only occurs in final position, while the doubled ''jamo'' that can occur in final position are limited to ㅆ ''ss'' and ㄲ ''kk''. For a list of initials, medials, and finals, see Hangul consonant and vowel tables.

Not including obsolete ''jamo,'' there are 11 172 possible Hangul blocks.

Jamo placement within a block

The placement or "stacking" of ''jamo'' in the block follows set patterns based on the shape of the medial.

The components of complex ''jamo,'' such as ㅄ ''bs,'' ㅝ ''wo,'' or obsolete ㅵ ''bsd,'' ㆋ ''üye'' are written left to right.

Medials are written under the initial, to the right, or wrap around the initial from bottom to right, depending on their shape: If the medial has a horizontal axis like ㅡ ''eu,'' then it is written under the initial; if it has a vertical axis like ㅣ ''i,'' then it is written to the right of the initial; and if it combines both orientations, like ㅢ ''ui,'' then it wraps around the initial from the bottom to the right:

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=30 height=60|initial||bgcolor=#aaffaa width=30|medial |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=60 height=30|initial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=30|medial |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=30 height=30|initial |bgcolor=#aaffaa width=30 rowspan=2|med.2 |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=30|med. 1 |}

A final ''jamo,'' if there is one, is always written at the bottom, under the medial. This is called 받침 ''batchim'' "supporting floor":

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=30 height=40|initial |bgcolor=#aaffaa width=30|medial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff height=20 colspan=2|final |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=60 height=20|initial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=20|medial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff height=20|final |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=30 height=20|initial |bgcolor=#aaffaa width=30 rowspan=2|med.2 |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=20|med. |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff height=20 colspan=2|final |}

A complex final is written left to right:

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa height=40|initial |bgcolor=#aaffaa colspan=2|medial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff colspan=2 height=20 |final 1 |bgcolor=#aaaaff |final 2 |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa colspan=2 width=60 height=20|initial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=20 colspan=2 |medial |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff height=20 |final 1 |bgcolor=#aaaaff |final 2 |}

{| |-align=center |bgcolor=#ffaaaa width=30 height=20|initial |bgcolor=#aaffaa width=30 colspan=2 rowspan=2|med.2 |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaffaa height=20|med. |-align=center |bgcolor=#aaaaff colspan=2 height=20 |fin. 1 |bgcolor=#aaaaff |fin. 2 |}

Blocks are always written in phonetic order, initial-medial-final. Therefore,

Syllables with a horizontal medial are written downward: 읍 ''eup'';

Syllables with a vertical medial and simple final are written clockwise: 쌍 ''ssang'';

Syllables with a wrapping medial switch direction (down-right-down): 된 ''doen'';

Syllables with a complex final are written left to right at the bottom: 밟 ''balp''.

Block shape

Normally the resulting block is written within a square of the same size and shape as a hanja (Chinese character) by compressing or stretching the jamo to fill the bounds of the block; therefore someone not familiar with the scripts may mistake Hangul text for Hanja or Chinese text.

However, some recent fonts (for example Eun, HY깊은샘물M, UnJamo) move towards the European practice of letters whose relative size is fixed, and the use of whitespace to fill letter positions not used in a particular block, and away from the East Asian tradition of square block characters (方块字). They break one or more of the traditional rules:

Do not stretch initial consonant vertically, but leave white space below it if no lower vowel and/or no final consonant.

Do not stretch right-hand vowel vertically, but leave white space below it if no final consonant. (Often the right-hand vowel extends farther down than the left-hand consonant, like a descender in European typography)

Do not stretch final consonant horizontally, but leave white space to left of it.

Do not stretch or pad each block to be a fixed width, but allow variable width (kerning) where syllable blocks with no right-hand vowel and no double final consonant can be narrower than blocks that do have a right-hand vowel or double final consonant.

So far, these fonts have been used as design accents on signs or headings, rather than for typesetting large volumes of body text.

Linear Hangul

There was a minor and unsuccessful movement in the early twentieth century to abolish syllabic blocks and write the ''jamo'' individually and in a row, in the fashion of the European alphabets: e.g. ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅡㄹ for 한글 ''hangeul.''

Avant-garde typographer Ahn Sangsu made a font for the "Hangul Dada" exposition that exploded the syllable blocks; but while it strings out the jamo horizontally, it retains the distinctive vertical position each letter would normally have within a block, unlike the century-old linear writing proposals.

While Koreans have largely accepted the European-derived conventions of writing successive syllables left-to-right in horizontal lines instead of in vertical columns, adding spaces between words, and European-style punctuation, they have completely resisted getting rid of syllabic blocks, the most distinctive feature of this writing system.

Orthography

Until the 20th century, no official orthography of Hangul had been established. Due to liaison, heavy consonant assimilation, dialectical variants and other reasons, a Korean word can potentially be spelled in various ways. King Sejong seemed to prefer morphophonemic spelling (representing the underlying root forms) rather than a phonemic one (representing the actual sounds). However, early in its history, Hangul was dominated by phonemic spelling. Over the centuries the orthography became partially morphophonemic, first in nouns, and later in verbs. Today it is as morphophonemic as is practical. The difference between phonetic Romanization, phonemic orthography, and morpho-phonemic orthography can be illustrated with the phrase ''motaneun sarami'':

Phonetic transcription and translation:

:motaneun sarami : :''a person who cannot do it''

Phonemic transcription:

:모타는사라미 :

Morphophonemic transcription:

:못하는사람이 :

Morpheme-by-morpheme gloss:

{| |     ||못–하–는||사람=이 |- |  ||mot-ha-neun||saram=i |- |  ||cannot-do-[attributive]||person=[subject] |}

Modern orthography:

:못하는 사람이

After the Gabo Reform in 1894, the Joseon Dynasty and later the Korean Empire started to write all official documents in Hangul. Under the government's management, proper usage of Hangul, including orthography, was discussed, until Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910.

The Japanese Government-General of Chosen established the writing style of a mixture of hanja and Hangul, as in the Japanese writing system. The government revised the spelling rules in 1912, 1921 and 1930, which were relatively phonemic.

The Hangul Society, originally founded by Ju Si-gyeong, announced a proposal for a new, strongly morphophonemic orthography in 1933, which became the prototype of the contemporary orthographies in both North and South Korea. After Korea was divided, the North and South revised orthographies separately. The guiding text for Hangul orthography is called ''Hangeul Machumbeop,'' whose last South Korean revision was published in 1988 by the Ministry of Education.

Mixed scripts

Since the Late Joseon dynasty period, various ''Hanja-Hangul mixed systems'' were used. In these systems, hanja was used for lexical roots, and Hangul for grammatical words and inflections, much as ''kanji'' and ''kana'' are used in Japanese. Today however, ''hanja'' have been almost entirely phased out of daily use in North Korea, and in South Korea they are now mostly restricted to parenthetical glosses for proper names and for disambiguating homonyms.

Indo-Arabic numerals can also be mixed in with Hangul, as in 2007년 3월 22일 (22 March 2007).

The Roman alphabet, and occasionally other alphabets, may be sprinkled within Korean texts for illustrative purposes, or for unassimilated loanwords. Very occasionally non-Hangul letters may be mixed into Hangul syllabic blocks, as }} ''Ga'' at right.

Readability

The organization of Hangul syllables—with individual phonemes clustered into a syllable, rather than organized in a horizontal line as in English—is thought by some observers to be a powerful reading aid. Because of the clustering of syllables, words are shorter on the page than their linear counterparts would be, and the boundaries between syllables are easily visible (which may aid reading, if segmenting words into syllables is more natural for the reader than dividing them up into phonemes). Because the component parts of the syllable are relatively simple phonemic characters, the number of strokes per character on average is lower than in Chinese characters. Unlike syllabaries, such as Japanese kana, or Chinese logographs, none of which encode the constituent phonemes within a syllable, the graphic complexity of Korean syllabic blocks varies in direct proportion with the phonemic complexity of the syllable. Unlike linear alphabets such as English, the Korean orthography allows the reader to "utilize both the horizontal and vertical visual fields"; finally, since Hangul syllables are represented both as collections of phonemes and as unique-looking graphs, they may allow for both visual and aural retrieval of words from the lexicon.

Style

Hangul may be written either vertically or horizontally. The traditional direction is from top to bottom, right to left. Horizontal writing in the style of the Roman alphabet was promoted by Ju Sigyeong, and has become overwhelmingly prevalent.

In ''Hunmin Jeongeum'', Hangul was printed in sans-serif angular lines of even thickness. This style is found in books published before about 1900, and can be found today in stone carvings (on statues, for example).

Over the centuries, an ink-brush style of calligraphy developed, employing the same style of lines and angles as Chinese calligraphy. This brush style is called ''gungche'' (궁체 宮體), which means "Palace Style" because the style was mostly developed and used by the maidservants (''gungnyeo,'' 궁녀 宮女) of the court in Joseon dynasty.

Modern styles that are more suited for printed media were developed in the 20th century. In 1993, new names for both Myeongjo and Gothic styles were introduced when Ministry of Culture initiated an effort to standardize typographic terms, and the names ''Batang'' (바탕, meaning "background") and ''Dotum'' (돋움, meaning "stand out") replaced Myeongjo and Gothic respectively. These names are also used in Microsoft Windows.

A sans-serif style with lines of equal width is popular with pencil and pen writing, and is often the default typeface of Web browsers. A minor advantage of this style is that it makes it easier to distinguish ''-eung'' from ''-ung'' even in small or untidy print, as the ''jongseong ieung'' (ㅇ) of such fonts usually lacks a serif that could be mistaken for the ㅜ ''(u) jamo'''s short vertical line.

See also

Featural alphabet

Hangul Day

Hangul consonant and vowel tables

Hangul orthography

Hangul supremacy

Hanja

Hunminjeongeum

Korean language and computers

Korean mixed script

Korean romanization

Sejong the Great

Notes

References

(Volume 4 of the ''London Oriental and African Language Library'').

Kim-Renaud, Y-K. (ed) 1997. ''The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure''. University of Hawai`i Press.

Lee, Iksop. (2000). ''The Korean Language.'' (transl. Robert Ramsey) Albany, NJ: State University of New York Press. ISBN 0-7914-4831-2

The Ministry of Education of South Korea. (1988) ''Hangeul Matchumbeop''.

Silva, David J. (2003). ''Western attitudes toward the Korean language: An Overview of Late NineteenthandEarly Twentieth-Century Mission Literature.'' Korean Studies. 2008, vol 26(2), pp270–286

Silva, David J. (2008). ''Missionary contributions toward the revaluation of Hangeul in late nineteenth-century Korea.'' Int'l J. Soc. Lang. 2008, vol 192, pp57–74

Sohn, H.-M. (1999). ''The Korean Language''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Song, J,J. (2005). ''The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context''. London: Routledge.

External links

Korean alphabet and pronunciation by Omniglot

Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)

Online Hangul tutorial at Langintro.com

Hangul table with Audio Slideshow

Technical information on Hangul and Unicode

Category:Korean language Category:Korean writing system Category:Spelling reform Category:Artificial scripts used in natural languages Category:Brahmic scripts Category:National symbols of Korea

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Coordinates	55°45′06″N37°37′04″N
name	Jay ParkPark Jaebeom박재범朴載範
alt	Park in 2009
background	solo_singer
birth name	Park Jaebeom
birth date	April 25, 1987
birth place	Seattle, Washington,United States
origin	Seoul, South Korea
genre	Hip hop, R&B;, Pop, Rap, Dance, K-Pop
occupation	Singer, rapper, dancer, songwriter, composer, actor
years active	2008–present
label	JYP Entertainment (2008–10)Digital Media Wire (2010–present)SidusHQ (2010–present)
associated acts	AOM, dok2, The Quiett, Prepix, Project Prepix Asia
website	}}

Title	Korean name
Color	khaki
Hangul	박재범
Hanja
Rr	Bak Jae-beom
Mr	Pak Chaebŏm
Tablewidth	245 }}

Park Jaebeom (Hangul: 박재범; Hanja: 朴載範, born April 25, 1987), also known as Jay Park, is a Korean-American recording artist, dancer, rapper, music producer, b-boy, songwriter, composer and actor. He is the former leader of the South Korean boy band 2PM, and is a member of Seattle-based b-boy crew Art of Movement (AOM).

Biography

Early Years

Born in Seattle, Washington, Park showed great interest in hip hop music and breakdancing in particular. In 2003, during his early high school years, he joined a local b-boy crew called Art of Movement (AOM). In 2004, he auditioned in Seattle, Washington, for Korea-based, JYP Entertainment (JYPE). The company's founder, Park Jin-young, watched Park's audition and brought him to Korea in January 2005 to receive further training in dancing, rapping, singing, and the Korean language. Park was raised in Edmonds, Washington where he attended Edmonds Woodway High School and is fluent in Korean and English.

2008-2009: 2PM, MySpace controversy, Park's departure

Park first appeared through MNET's ''Hot Blood'', a documentary-style reality program that showed the future members of idol groups, 2AM and 2PM in training. Park finishing with the most fan votes and was given the position of 2PM's leader. On September 4, 2008, 2PM debuted with the song “10 Points Out Of 10” (10점 만점에 10점) on music program M! Countdown after the release of their first mini-album, ''Hottest Time of the Day'', a few days prior. Park and 2PM garnered further popularity when they were featured on the third season of MBC’s variety show “Idol Army”. However, it was their promotions for their single, “Again and Again,” that catapulted the group’s status in the Korean music scene, and earned them first place awards for 3 successive weeks in music shows like SBS’s ''Inkigayo'' and Mnet’s ''M! Countdown'' in May 2009. Similar success continued for their follow-up single “I Hate You” (니가 밉다).

Aside from 2PM's music activities, Park created the song "正" (''"Jeong"'') with Yeeun of the Wonder Girls for the television drama "Conspiracy in the Court"'s original soundtrack, and V.O.S's ''"To Luv..."''. He also participated in special stage performances such as Navi's "마음이 다쳐서" (''"Heart Damage"'') on May 3, 2009, and K.Will's "1초에 한방울" (''"One Drop per Second"'') on June 20, 2009. He also became a regular cast member in several variety programs, including ''Star King'' and ''Introducing a Star's Friend''. In August 2009, he and Kara member, Nicole Jung, became the new hosts for a cultural variety show called ''Nodaji''.

On September 4, 2009, unfavorable comments towards Korea were found on Park’s personal Myspace account from 2005. The comments, written in English to a friend, were translated by Korean media, quickly spreading across hundreds of news articles. In this letter, he explained the unhappiness that he experienced during his early days as a trainee in an unfamiliar country where he lacked family, the ability to easily communicate, and an understanding of the culture. Although outraged protesters demanded that Park should be removed from 2PM, JYP Entertainment's CEO, Park Jin-young, stated on September 7, 2009, that he was going to continue as a part of the group. The following day, Park announced on his official fancafe that he would be leaving the group for a while to calm the situation and return to his hometown in Seattle, Washington, United States. He also apologized to the other 2PM members, and promised “I will come back a better person.” However, Park Jin-young suddenly confirmed that 2PM would continue as a 6-member group. Additionally, due to the sensitive topic of Park's departure, all 2PM members were withdrawn from their regular appearances on variety shows, and the final episode of their reality show, ''Wild Bunny'', was postponed indefinitely. The remaining 6 members of 2PM re-filmed their music video for "Heartbeat" without Park on October 31, 2009. During a press conference, it was revealed that Park's vocals would not be removed from the older songs he promoted with 2PM, but he would be completely absent from the newer tracks.

2PM's first official album was titled ''"1:59PM"'', to symbolize Park's absence (according to the 6 remaining members). Through their acceptance speeches at end-of-year award shows for ''Again & Again'', the members thanked Park and reiterated their wish for his return. At the M.net Asian Music Awards, the group paid homage to him during their performance of "Again & Again" with a spotlight shown over his usual position in the dance formation and his lines left unsung. The six 2PM members also mentioned their plan to distribute their income from their 1st album with him. Information on a press conference planned for January 24, 2010 regarding Park's situation was leaked by the press, but this was shortly denied by JYP Entertainment.

2010: Solo career and American activities

On February 25, 2010, JYPE announced that they had permanently terminated Park’s contract with collective agreement among the other 6 members of 2PM. The company claimed a moral, but not illegal, personal “mistake” he had made in December of the previous year. No other explanation was offered, despite multiple reassurances given by JYPE on his status in 2PM during the period between December and this announcement, including the publicity for the group’s first full-length album, ''1:59PM'', which asserted to the public and their fans that a 2PM without Park was incomplete. A conference that JYPE held two days after the announcement later for 87 representatives from major 2PM fan communities reaffirmed the company and members’ collective decision to continue 2PM with six members but failed to provide any further justification behind the dismissal of Park, the group’s leader. Fans reacted in anger because they believed JYPE did not protect Park and this has led public to assume that JYPE was only using Park's name and controversy since the beginning to promote the ''Heartbeat'' album. After Park's termination was officially announced, it has been reported that around 60 fansites of 2PM were closed and shut down immediately worldwide to show their protest and sadness.

After Park returned to the United States, fans changed their perspective on the matter when they realized that his MySpace messages had been severely mistranslated and taken out of context. Several protests and projects were immediately put into action, designed to inform JYP Entertainment and the general public about the huge support for Park's return to 2PM.

Boycotts on 2PM-endorsed products and protests for Park's return to the group began to take place, not only in South Korea, but internationally as well. Various Jay Park-dedicated forums and fansites all over the world organized silent protests and flash dance mobs. International fans also raised money for the ''Jay Sky Banner'' project, for which they arranged for a rented jet to fly across Seattle at 2:00PM with a banner that says ''"J, WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?"''. Seattle's local broadcasting news station, ''KOMO News'', did a brief segment about the event.

Several 2PM fan communities also donated generously to charities in Park's name. A major Korean fanclub called ''UNDERGROUND'' donated a total of $10,000 USD to the children's foundation in Haiti under the name ''"People Waiting For 2PM Leadja Park Jaebeom"''. By May 2010, their donations to different charities have been estimated to be around $100,000 USD. International fansites also organized charity drives, with a North American-based fan community donating $1,000 USD to send books to international Korean adoptees every year.

On several instances, Park was the number one trending topic on Twitter, even topping the Oscars on March 8, 2010. Park's fanbase revealed that they plan to release a self-produced album in his honor on March 27, 2010, to commemorate the 200th day anniversary of his departure from Korea. However, because the album had been prepared since January, during the time where public opinion on 2PM had changed, the fans decided it would be in the best interest to not release the CDs, instead mailing 10-20 copies to Park's hometown in Seattle.

Beginning in November 2009, eagle-eyed fans found and spread footage of b-boying battles, which he had attended and participated in, uploaded on YouTube, despite his initial efforts to cover his face from the view of cameras. On March 6, 2010, Jaebeom and the Art of Movement crew participated in the charity event ''"Breakin' 4 Haiti"'', with the proceeds going to Haiti victims.

On March 15, 2010, Park created his own YouTube channel, "jayparkaom". His first post was a video where he sings a rendition of "''Nothin' On You''" (with his own rap and lyrics) in his bathroom. The video went viral and reached over 2,000,000 views in less than 24 hours. In Korea, the original song by B.o.B and Bruno Mars topped the Cyworld background music chart in a matter of hours upon the video's release, beating Girls' Generation's song ''"Run Devil Run"'' that was released the following day. "''Nothin' on You''" also reached #1 on other music sites such as Dosirak, Melon, MNET, Bugs, and Soribada, profiting $300,000 in sales through the effects of Park's video. On his 'About Me' page, Park left a message thanking his fans for their support. He also encouraged fans not to hate remaining 2PM members on his behalf.

On March 18, 2010, an American online entertainment channel, ''"stirfrytv.com",'' did a brief report on Park's video during their ''"But, What Do I Know?"'' segment, garnering much attention from international online viewers. On March 19, Digital Media Wire published an article emphasizing Park's potential of crossing over to the American entertainment market.

On October 29, 2010, Park also appeared in Ryan Higa's Channel on Youtube. Ryan Higa (Nigahiga) is one of the most subscribed personalities on the popular online video sharing website. Park acted along side Ryan for the short video skit titled, "Word of the Day - Bromance". The video, put together by Ryan, Park, and Phil of WongFu Productions, has been viewed over ten million times to date.

On March 29, 2010, ''Rutgers Korean Student Association'' announced on their website that Park and fellow Art of Movement members Dialtone, ChaCha, and Junior would appear as surprise special guests at an annual Korean American festival event called ''Project Korea III: KSA Cinderella Story'' at Rutgers University, New Jersey, on April 3, 2010. Merely hours after the festival finished, several videos of the event were uploaded onto internet portal sites, where footage of Park acting as an MC and dancing to Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" on stage drew much positive interest.

On April 14, 2010, an associate involved in the production of American dance film, ''Hype Nation'', confirmed that Park had been cast as one of the movie's main characters. Filming would begin in June 2010, with more than 70% of the scenes to be shot in South Korea. It was stated that Park will also contribute to the original soundtrack.

On April 20, 2010, it was announced on ''allhiphop.com'' that Park is recording under Teddy Riley and has completed tracks with Snoop Dogg and T-Pain. This was later confirmed to be for Park's solo album. On the same day via notification through Defense Productions' official Twitter, it was also announced that Park will be participating in a concert presented by ''Defense Productions & Epidemic'' to be held on May 30, 2010, performing along with Art of Movement, Kero One, MYK and Dok2 from Mapthesoul.com, and Dumbfoundead. Sponsored by ''Allkpop'', this concert will mark Park's second major public appearance.

On April 24, 2010, Dumbfoundead released a collaboration track featuring Park and Clara Chung on his website, titled "Clouds". The same day, ''stirfrytv'', featured Park in a ''"Youtube Spotlight"'' video, where he gives his first interview since the Myspace controversy. In the video, he also confirms his role in ''Hype Nation'' and thanks his fans for their support.

It was revealed that Park will return to Korea through Incheon International Airport with the staff of ''Hype Nation'', members of his Art of Movement crew, and his parents between May 31 and June 1, 2010. Also being prepared are a press conference for Park's involvement in the movie (which was later revealed to be falsely reported), and a fanmeeting.

Park is to release his first official single titled "Demon", produced by Teddy Riley and originally meant for Michael Jackson, as well as singing 4 songs for ''Hype Nation'''s original soundtrack. Also confirmed was Park's participation in the ''Hype Nation'' world tour with B2K that will begin in December, touring across 10 American cities and major cities in Asia.

On May 22, 2010, Park took part in major hip-hop event, ''Claws Out: Seattle'', as a judge, while fellow Art of Movement member, Junior, competed.

On May 29, 2010, Los Angeles-based entertainment attorney, Ned Sherman, also Founder and CEO of Digital Media Wire, Inc., announced that he would be Park's entertainment legal representative, also stating that several projects for Park were in the works.

On May 30, 2010, Park appeared with Kero One, Dumbfoundead, MYK and DOK2 at The Showbox Sodo in Seattle, Washington, for a concert, along with a few members of AOM.

On September 5, 2010, Park participated in the 3rd International Secret Agents Los Angeles concert held in Cerritos, California, together with well-known YouTube celebrities such as Nigahiga, KevJumba, AJ Rafael, Alyssa Bernal, Far East Movement, and America's Best Dance Crew Season 5 champions, Poreotix. Park's performance drew many positive responses.

On June 18, 2010, Park arrived in Korea through Incheon International Airport. He received a warm welcome from thousands of fans, making history as the biggest crowd ever at the said airport 'Park Jaebeom's returned' became the biggest headline in Korea that day. "JayIsBack" shot up immediately on the trending topics on Twitter on June 18 at 9:30 AM GMT. Pictures of Park in ''Hype Nation'' were released on July 2, and Park was able to meet with the Korean media for interviews for the first time, talking about his current activities. It was also revealed that his single "Demon" would be included in ''Hype Nation'''s original soundtrack.

On July 6, 2010, Park had finished featuring in a song by a famous Korean composer for a rookie female singer preparing for debut, as well as having received love calls for a drama appearance. Aside from holding a series of nationwide fanmeetings for his Korean fans starting August 3, 2010 in Seoul, it was confirmed he held 8 other Asian fanmeetings in Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia throughout the month of September to November. 12 of the fanmeetings were reportedly sold out within one day.

On July 8, 2010, it was reported that Park will sign a contract with Sidus HQ for his domestic Korean activities in terms of acting and singing, where his management states that he plans to redebut as a rookie artist. It was also revealed that Jung Hoontak, President of Sidus HQ, has been involved in Park's activities since May when Park traveled to Taiwan to film a music video. The contract with Sidus HQ was finalized on July 16, 2010.

In addition to having featured on "Nothin' on You", Park will also release a single album titled "믿.어.줄.래" (''"Will You Believe Me"'') containing 3 tracks, including a rearranged Korean version of ''"Nothin' on You"''. Renowned composer Park Geuntae, who was a part of the production, revealed that the song will have a newly added melody and style to fit Park's characteristics. The English and Korean lyrics were written by Park himself. Announced to be released on July 13, 2010. The song immediately reached #1 on Cyworld and Bugs music charts, and also on other music sites as Monkey3, Soribada, Dosirak, and Melon within the hour of its release. On YouTube, Park also uploaded a short music video for the song on the same day. The single album sold 21,989 physical copies on the first day of release, coming in at #1 in sales and #7 in the overall ranking of albums released from January 2010 to July 13, 2010. With more than 41,316 copies sold at the end of 2010 making the album place at #32 on Gaon's year end chart, Park earned approximately 700 million won from his single album, which placed him at #3 in the overall annual ranking of album released until at the end of July 2010.

Sidus HQ released the news on their official website that other American Dance Movie than Hype Nation 3D, Park also will be cast as one of the lead actors in the upcoming Korean Movie titled 'Mr Idol'. The movie will be in the cinema around Summer 2011. The film features an idol group who is forced to replace their lead singer with an indie band member.

Park announced through his twitter 'jaybumaom' that he will be making his official solo comeback to Korean entertainment as he is currently preparing his Korean mini album. The album is to be released in April 2011, to coincide with his birthday, and it has been confirmed that the tracks on the album will be written by Park himself.

On October 10, 2010, Park was one of the performers alongside Se7en, Taeyang, Musiq Soulchild at the Seoul Soul Festival held at the War Memorial of Korea. Park and MusiqSoulChild also performed a duet song titled "Love" at the Festival.

2011: ''Take A Deeper Look'' and ''New Breed Part 1''

On January 6, 2011, Park was announced as the winner in ‘Best Web Video’ Category around the globe for his song ‘Nothin' on You’ at the Mashable Awards. This video has a special meaning to his fans who have been missing him since it was a sign for his comeback after he had been on hiatus for the past months. He also has been nominated in ‘Must Follow Personality’ category and finished 2nd as a runner up.

Park was chosen to be the sole opener for Ne-Yo in his first concert in Seoul for the "2011 Hyundai Mall 40th Anniversary Concert" held on March 29, 2011. He also cooperated with Ne-Yo for a charity event for children dreaming to become musicians on March 28 at the Dream Academy in Seoul.

On March 28, 2011, Park was a finalist and received the most votes in the special category 'Connecting People Award', a joint venture between Shorty Awards and Nokia for his contribution in connecting communities worldwide and encouraging people to do good deeds, donate to charities, and many more. Park also was a finalist in the 'Celebrity' category at the same event.

Park released his first Korean mini-album, titled ''Take a Deeper Look'', on April 27, 2011, with the title track "Abandoned". This mini album contained 7 songs where 6 out of 7 seven songs were written and produced by Park himself. His first performance of his title track, "Abandoned" was on April 30, 2011, at the 9th Annual Korean Music Festival in Los Angeles, California, where he performed as one of the headlining acts. The album received explosive response from the public as 50,000 copies album sold out within 5 days of its release. It has been reported the album already sold more than 71,000 copies in less than 2 weeks and the album is ranked #2 in yearly Hanteo chart. Music Industry predicted that the album will probably take over #1 spot in anytime. In addition, Park ranked consistently high on the iTunes top 10 R&B;/Soul albums chart and ranked #1 in Canada, #1 in Denmark, #2 in United States, #3 in Australia, #3 in Norway, #4 in Japan, #5 in Italy and #6 in France. ''Take A Deeper Look'' debuted at #3 in the Billboard World Album Charts and ranked #26 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums Chart. Park also made his debut stage on Korean music shows such as Music Bank on May 7, 2011 for the first time in 2 years as a solo artist and made history as the first artist crowned winner at a debut stage. He won Music Bank again on May 13, 2011.

On August 6, 2011, Park participated in his first KBS ''Immortal Song 2'' episode. He performed "Candy" by H.O.T. with Moon Hee-joon. He had won his round and received 2nd place overall on his first episode. Park followed up with his own R&B; rendition of "Aemo" by Kim Soo-hee on the next episode. His remix was well received. On his third episode of "Immortal Song 2", Park performed "Tell Me the Truth" by Jinusean with Solbi, Jang Hyuk and Kim Sooro. That performance won Park the competition for that episode, allowing him to choose the order for the next episode. For his fourth episode, Park again made his own R&B; version of "Feel Good Day" by Kim Wan-sun. On his fifth episode, Park performed a remixed version of "Look Back at Me" by Deux, where he received attention from his fellow castmates for his incredible and dangerous b-boy moves. On his sixth episode and final appearance on the show, he performed "Dear, Do Not Change" by Nam Jin and won the last trophy. It was revealed that Park will return to ''Immortal Song 2'' for a special episode "King of Kings" with other singers that have claimed the #1 spot. This special episode will record November 7 at the KBS Open Hall and air November 19.

On September 5, 2011, the long awaited single "Demon" was finally released through various Korean digital music websites. The music video was also finally released on the same day. However, a lot of people were disappointed with the quality of the music video, which took over a year to be released. Park himself commented on that, stating he had no control over the release of both the music video and the song, and didn't know himself when it was going to be released, and apologized for the matter on Twitter. On September 13, 2011, a slightly different version of the song was released on iTunes.

On October 1, 2011, Park returned to the USA to perform in the International Secret Agents Los Angeles concert. The biggest ISA concert to date was a 14-artist act including celebrities like B.o.B, Far East Movement, and Sean Kingston. The concert drew a crowd of more than 3,000 people for ISA's first all-day outdoor festival concert, held at The Queen Mary Events Park in Long Beach, California. Park performed his most recent released song, "Abandoned," and also sang "Down" and "U Got it Bad." His b-boy crew, Art of Movement, also made a guest appearance as they showcased their dance talents.

On October 29, 2011, Park delivered a performance to over 25,000 fans as he headlined the MTV EXIT (End Exploitation and Trafficking) Live in Manila Concert held at the SM Mall of Asia. The concert also featured Californian alternative rock band, Evaline, and international singer/songwriter, Jason Mraz.

On November 3, 2011, Park released his new single "Girlfriend". The song was produced by American producers Da Beat Freakz.

On December 28, 2011, Park released Part 1 of his first full-length Korean album, "New Breed".

2012: ''New Breed'' and present

Park will release his first full-length Korean album "New Breed" on February 7, 2012.

Park was chosen by KT Tech to be the official model of TakeHD, a new smartphone by the brand. On January 10, 2012, a staff affiliated with KT Tech revealed that they will produce a digital album, "Take HD Special Maxi Album - Take Variety of My Life" for Jay Park, to celebrate the release of their smartphone, TakeHD. This album will be released on February 7, 2012, as a digital album. It will be in four genres : dance, acoustic, electronic and R&B;, and will have music videos.

On January 11, 2012, Park received the Disk Bonsang for his mini album "Take A Deeper Look" on the first day of the 26th Golden Disk Awards, which was held in Osaka. He was the only solo artist to receive the Disk Bonsong among the other Bonsang winners. He performed a remix of his title track "Abandoned", "Star", and "Up And Down" on stage.

On January 18, 2012, Park received the Popular Artist Award of the Asia Model Awards, which was held in Seoul. He performed his single "Girlfriend" on stage.

Park made a guest appearance on Far East Movement's new music video, “Jello”, per request of the worldwide hip-hop group. On December 25, 2011, Far East Movement revealed still cuts from their music video where Park can be seen in hip-hop fashion wear showing off his dance skills amongst other dancers and Far East Movement members. The music video was released on January 19, 2012 on YouTube.

Park produced and composed a song with Cha Cha Malone for Korean-American singer & friend Brian Joo, titled "Can't Stop" for the first part of his album "ReBorn" released on January 26, 2012. Park wrote the Korean version of the song, while Joo wrote the English Version. Park featured in both Korean and English versions of the song along with Korean rapper Beenzino from 1llionaire Records for the Korean version and Korean-American rapper Dumbfoundead for the English version.

Discography

Korean Discography

Studio Albums

2012: '' New Breed''

Extended plays

2010: '' 믿어줄래''

2011: ''Take A Deeper Look''

Single Albums

2010: ''Bestie''

2011: '' Girlfriend''

English Discography

Single Albums

2010: ''Bestie''

2010: '' Speechless (With Cha Cha Malone)''

2011: '' Demon''

Singles

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" border="1" ! rowspan="2"|Year ! rowspan="2" style="width:25em;"|Title ! colspan="1"| Peak positions ! scope="col" rowspan="2" style="width:15em;"| Album |- ! align="center"|KOR |- |align="center" rowspan="1"|2010 ! scope="row"| "믿어줄래 (Nothin' On You)(Full Melody Korean Version)" |align="center"|2 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''믿어줄래 (Count On Me)'' |- |align="center" rowspan="5"|2011 ! scope="row"| "Abandoned" (featuring Dok2) |align="center"|6 |align="center" rowspan="2"|''Take A Deeper Look'' |- ! scope="row"| "오늘밤 (Tonight)" (featuring Kang Min Kyung Of Davichi) |align="center"|22 |- ! scope="row"| "Demon" |align="center"|14 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''—'' |- ! scope="row"| "Girlfriend" |align="center"|28 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''—'' |- ! scope="row"| "별" |align="center"|17 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''New Breed'' |- |}

Other Charted Songs

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;" border="1" ! rowspan="2"|Year ! rowspan="2" style="width:25em;"|Title ! Peak positions ! rowspan="2" style="width:15em;"|Album |- ! align="center"|KOR |- |align="center" rowspan="4"|2010 ! scope="row"| "Count On Me (Nothin' On You)(Full Melody English Version)" |align="center"|33 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''믿어줄래 (Count On Me)'' |- ! scope="row"| "베스티 (Bestie)" |align="center"|21 |align="center" rowspan="3"|''Bestie (Digital Single)'' |- ! scope="row"| "베스티 (Bestie) (Remix)" |align="center"|73 |- ! scope="row"| "스피치리스 (Speechless)"(With Cha Cha Malone) |align="center"|74 |- |align="center" rowspan="4"|2011 ! scope="row"| "너 없이 안돼 (I Can't Be Without You)" |align="center"|45 |align="center" rowspan="3"|''Take A Deeper Look'' |- ! scope="row"| "Touch The Sky"(featuring The Quiett) |align="center"|41 |- ! scope="row"| "Level 1000"(featuring Dok2) |align="center"|46 |- ! scope="row"| "I'll Be There"(featuring Jay Park) |align="center"|31 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''-'' |}

As featured artist

{|class="wikitable plainrowheaders" border="1" !|Title !|Release Date !|Album |- |"正(정)"Jeong (Ye-eun (Wonder Girls) featuring Jay Park & Shorty Jang-goon) |align="center"| July 7, 2007 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''한성별곡 OST (Conspiracy In The Court OST)'' |- |"To Luv ..."(V.O.S featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| May 27, 2009 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Routine Free (EP)'' |- |"Clouds"(Dumbfoundead featuring Jay Park & Clara C) |align="center"| April 23, 2010 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Clouds (Digital Single)'' |- |"Nothin' On You"(B.o.B featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| June 15, 2010 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''B.o.B Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray (Korea Edition)'' |- |"Doin' Good (Remix)"(Dok2 & Rado featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| July 29, 2010 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''It's We (EP)'' |- |"울고 싶단 말야"I Want To Cry (Brave Brothers With Jay Park) |align="center"| September 3, 2010 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''The Classic'' |- |"Catch Me If You Can (Remix)"(Decipher featuring J.Reyez, Dumbfoundead, Flowsik, Chan, Johnnyphlo, Jay Park, Ailee) |align="center"| December 22, 2010 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Catch Me If You Can (Remix) (Digital Single)'' |- |"I'm Ready"(Decipher featuring Dumbfoundead & Jay Park) |align="center"| January 5, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''The Effect'' |- |"힙합 (Anthem Ver.)"Hip-Hop (Anthem Ver.) (Dok2 & Double K featuring Beenzino, B-Free, Bizzy, Jay Park, Paloalto, Swings, The Quiett & Yankie) |align="center"| January 25, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Flow 2 Flow (EP)'' |- |"Maybe One Day"(J.Reyez featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| January 29, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Maybe One Day (Digital Single)'' |- |"I'll Be There"(Swings featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| April 8, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''I'll Be There (Digital Single)'' |- |"My Love"(Dok2 featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| April 19, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Hustle Real Hard'' |- |"Single Life"(Cha Cha Malone featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| September 16, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Single Life (Digital Single)'' |- |"Mr. Lonely Part 1"(The Quiett featuring Jay Park) |align="center"| November 23, 2011 |align="center" rowspan="1"|''Stormy Friday (EP)'' |- |"Can't Stop"(Brian Joo featuring Jay Park & Beenzino) |align="center" rowspan="2"| January 26, 2012 |align="center" rowspan="2"|''ReBorn Part 1'' |- |"Can't Stop (Eng Ver.)"(Brian Joo featuring Jay Park & Dumbfoundead) |}

Filmography

Movies

!Year	!Title	!Role	!Notes
2010	''Hype Nation 3D''	Darkness	Not yet released
2011	''Mr. 아이돌'' (''Mr. Idol'')	Zio	Korean release date November 3

Other works

!Year	!Title	!Role	!Notes
2010	"Word of the Day - Bromance"	himself	short video skit alongside Ryan Higa and Phil of Wong Fu Productions
2011	5Dolls - "Lip Stains"	cameo	5Dolls first debut music video
2011	5Dolls - "It's You"	cameo	5Dolls second debut music video
2012	Far East Movement - "Jello (feat. Rye Rye)"	cameo	Jello music video

Awards

!Year	!Awards	!Country	!Result	!Notes
2010	Naver Male Solo Most Popular Search	Korea
2011	Best Web Video - Mashable Awards	USA		for his cover of "Nothin' On You" YouTube video
2011	Must Follow Personality - Mashable Awards	USA	1st Runner-Up
2011	Connecting People Award - Shorty Awards	USA	Finalist	received the most votes, joint venture with Nokia
2011	Best Celebrity on Twitter - Shorty Awards	USA	Finalist
2011	Disk Bonsang - Golden Disk Awards	Korea		for his mini album Take A Deeper Look
2012	Popular Artist Award - Asia Model Awards	Korea

References

External links

Jay Park's Official Twitter

Jay Park's Official YouTube

Category:1987 births Category:2PM members Category:South Korean idols Category:Actors from Washington (state) Category:American actors of Korean descent Category:American breakdancers Category:American composers Category:American musicians of Korean descent Category:American pop singers Category:American rappers of Asian descent Category:American rhythm and blues singers Category:Hip hop singers Category:Living people Category:People from Seattle, Washington Category:Rappers from Washington (state) Category:Songwriters from Washington (state)

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