hangeul.day

ACT I

// HANGEUL.SYS
// Created: 1443.10.09
// Author: Sejong the Great
// License: PUBLIC DOMAIN
init Hunminjeongeum
// The correct sounds for
// the instruction of the people

A writing system engineered from zero. No evolution. No inheritance. Pure design. 1443: a king watched his people locked out of literacy by borrowed Chinese characters and decided to build something new overnight.

28 letters. Phonetically complete. Learnable in a single morning. The most deliberate act of information liberation in human history.

ㅎ

hieut -- the aspirated breath. The beginning of 한글.

ACT II

THE CONSONANTS

const consonants = [
  'ㄱ', 'ㄴ', 'ㄷ', 'ㄹ', 'ㅁ',
  'ㅂ', 'ㅅ', 'ㅇ', 'ㅈ', 'ㅊ',
  'ㅋ', 'ㅌ', 'ㅍ', 'ㅎ'
]
// Each shape maps to the
// position of the tongue,
// lips, and throat

14 basic consonants. Each one is a diagram of the mouth. ㄱ traces the tongue touching the soft palate. ㄴ maps the tongue behind the teeth. ㅁ is the shape of closed lips. Not arbitrary. Engineered.

ㄱ giyeok

ㄴ nieun

ㄷ digeut

ㄹ rieul

ㅁ mieum

ㅂ bieup

ㅅ siot

ㅇ ieung

ㅈ jieut

ㅊ chieut

ㅋ kieuk

ㅌ tieut

ㅍ pieup

ㅎ hieut

ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ

ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ

ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

14 consonants. Each one a map of the mouth that speaks it.

ACT III

THE VOWELS

const cosmicOrigins = {
  heaven: 'ㆍ', // dot - the sun
  earth:  'ㅡ', // flat - the ground
  human:  'ㅣ', // upright - standing
}
const vowels = [
  'ㅏ', 'ㅑ', 'ㅓ', 'ㅕ', 'ㅗ',
  'ㅛ', 'ㅜ', 'ㅠ', 'ㅡ', 'ㅣ'
]

Three cosmic symbols. Heaven: a round dot. Earth: a horizontal line. Human: a vertical line. Every vowel in Korean is a combination of these three elements.

ㅏ = human + heaven (to the right). ㅓ = heaven + human (to the left). The direction of the dot encodes the darkness or brightness of the sound. Cosmology embedded in typography.

ㅏ a

ㅑ ya

ㅓ eo

ㅕ yeo

ㅗ o

ㅛ yo

ㅜ u

ㅠ yu

ㅡ eu

ㅣ i

ㅏ ㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ

ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡ ㅣ

10 vowels. Heaven, earth, and human -- combined.

ACT IV -- THE MERGE

ㅎ ㅏ ㄴ

한

Three components. One block. ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ = 한. Initial, medial, final. Consonant, vowel, consonant. Stacked into a single square. Every Korean syllable is a microcosm of this assembly.

ACT V

THE SYSTEM

const choseong  = 19 // initial consonants
const jungseong = 21 // medial vowels
const jongseong = 28 // final consonants (+null)
const totalSyllables =
  choseong * jungseong * jongseong
// => 11,172
function compose(cho, jung, jong) {
  return 0xAC00 +
    (cho * 21 + jung) * 28
    + jong
}
// Unicode Hangul Syllables Block
// U+AC00 .. U+D7A3
// Every possible combination
// pre-composed and indexed

19 × 21 × 28 = 11,172 unique syllable blocks. Every one algorithmically derivable. Every one assigned a Unicode codepoint. A writing system that is also a compression algorithm.

가 나 다 라

말 글

힘

11,172 syllables. Infinite expression.

ACT VI

THE LEGACY

// Unicode Hangul Blocks
Hangul Jamo       U+1100..U+11FF
Hangul Compat     U+3130..U+318F
Hangul Syllables  U+AC00..U+D7AF
Hangul Jamo Ext-A U+A960..U+A97F
Hangul Jamo Ext-B U+D7B0..U+D7FF
// 1443: Hunminjeongeum published
// 1446: Official promulgation
// 1949: Exclusive national script
// 1991: Unicode 1.0 inclusion
// 1996: Full syllable block set
// 1997: ISO 10646 standard

From bamboo brush to digital encoding. 580 years of survival through colonization, suppression, and technological revolution. Now the most systematically encoded writing system in Unicode. Every syllable computed, every Jamo indexed.

1443 훈 Hunminjeongeum

1446 민 Promulgated

1949 한 National script

1991 유 Unicode

From ink to electrons. The signal endures.

ACT VII -- THE SIGNAL

한글

October 9, 1446