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language

language

The Korean language like Hungarian, Turkish, Mongolian and Finnish, is classified into the Ural-Altaic language group. Hangeul (the Korean alphabet) is composed of 10 simple vowels and 14 consonants. A group of scholars under the patronage of King Sejong the Great developed this systematic rendition of spoken sound in 1443. It is widely acclaimed by linguists as an ingenious invention. The chart on the above right presents the romanization of the 24 hangeul letters based on the new romanization system proclaimed by the Korean government in 2000. For your understanding, major changes of the new system are listed below.

  1. The previously used diacritical mark breve (˘) and apostrophe (‘) have disappeared in the new system. For example, the vowels 어, 으, 여, and 의 are romanized as eo, eu, yeo and ui instead of the erstwhile ˘o, ˘u, y˘o and ˘ui.
  2. When the sounds ㄱ, ㄷ, ㅂ, and ㅈ appear before a vowel, they are transcribed by g, d, b and j, but for the sake of phonetic consistency they are transcribed by k, t, p and t when followed by another consonant or forming the final sound of a word. Don’t worry―when Koreans hear foreigners pronounce Pusan or Busan, both sound similar and there shouldn't be any confusion.
  3. ㅋ, ㅌ, ㅍ, and ㅊ are romanized as k, t, p and ch instead of former k’, t’, p’ and ch'’used.

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