Has the writing system changed over time? Is there an alphabet? If yes, how many letters? What do they represent? Are there significant differences between manuscript and print? If there is no alphabet, what is the relationship between oral and written language? How does the system work?
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Koreans used to solely use Chinese characters in their writing. Hangul with 24 characters was invented in the 1400s, but it was not widely practiced until the 1900s as the elite preferred to use Chinese (hanja). There are certain letters and combinations of letters that have since been eliminated from Korean, but the structure of the alphabet has remained largely the same. Consonants in hangul follow a natural progression. For example, the letter ㅇ, which denotes a vowel or an -ng sound, when it is stressed more, becomes ㅎ, which is an "h" sound, and the two lines above ㅇ reflect that. For other consonants, hangul shows a progression from the normal syllable to a double (ssang) syllable, which is more stressed, to an aspirated syllable, which simply has a line added to the letter. Thus, j, jj, and ch become ㅈ, ㅉ, and ㅊ respectively.
Today, hanja is not as widely used, but makes up a large percentage of Korean words, particularly more formal/academic/governmental words. So words that have hanja will be more present in formal writing, and sometimes the Chinese character may be included to denote the full meaning, as hangul is a phonetic alphabet and does not contain the meaning of the word, unlike its Chinese roots.
The Korean writing system has 24 letters and 10 vowels. However, when hangul was first created, it actually consisted of 28 letters. Before Hangul was established, Koreans used "hanja" which is Chinese characters which was adopted into Korean. However, to have a unique Korean language, and to make a language used by the common people, King Sejong created "hangul."
Each korean character has a unique sound, and consonants must be paired with a vowel to make a word. For example, a "ㄱ" which makes a "g" sound would not mean anything until it is paired with "ㅏ" which makes the "ah" sound, to make 가, pronounced "gah."
The partition of the Indian Subcontinent was not just the slicing of the “Jewel of the Crown of the British Empire”; it was the partition of religions, cultures, traditions and peoples. Similarly, the languages of South Asia were also affected by the breakup. Languages of India took up the Sanskrit writing system. Languages on the Pakistani side adopted the Persian writing system. These moves were heavily motivated by the religious inclinations of the two states. These destructive forces influenced Siraiki too. The language embraced the Persian writing script.
In comparison to Urdu, Siraiki has more characters. While Urdu has 42 characters, Siraiki has 66. There are sounds in the Siriaki language that have no equivalents in either Urdu or English, for that matter. However, Siraiki is not an established language, in the sense that it is not taught in schools. After the partition, it has taken a back seat and become a purely oral tradition: it is passed down from one generation to the other primarily orally. Except in a few cities, one cannot expect to even find Siraiki literature, magazines, newspapers etc.
American Sign Language is not a written language, but I can use this post to talk about how the deaf understand and read English. Written English can sometimes be hard for the deaf, because even though the words are the same, the grammar of English and ASL are different. It is hard to sign and speak at the same time, because the words will often go in a different order. Because of this, the deaf will sometimes write English backwards or in a way that is not grammatically correct. They are, however, often very good spellers, because there are so many words in ASL that need to be finger-spelled because of a lack of a sign.
Deaf children often have a hard time attending hearing schools because they constantly need a translator. They are basically learning two languages at once, one that is written and one that is signed and it often gets confusing. My religion offers magazines called "The Watchtower" and also provides the deaf with videos of people signing what the articles in the magazines say. My language partner told me that most of the deaf need to read the magazine and watch the video to fully understand what is being said. So even though ASL is a language all on its own, it seems to me that there are sometimes nuances that can only be expressed in written English.
The Korean language has an alphabet with 24 letters, 14 which are consonants and 10 vowels. Each letter has it's own name and pronunciation so if you memorize the alphabet, you'll be able to read Korean. The Korean writing system has changed throughout its history. It first originated from the Chinese language, but has since been adopted to its own written system known as hangul. Although, you will still find written Chinese characters in Korea every now and then.
Letters make a character and characters make a word. You read Korean words left to right. But the characters can be read left to right or up and down depending on their orientation. Something I found really interesting is that every Korean word has to start with a consonant. So if you have a word where there is only a vowel, you still have to place a place marker before the vowel. They use the circle letter (-ng [this is the sound, I don't know the name, sorry]) placed before any word with just a vowel.
Korean has an alphabet that consists of 24 letters; 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Each letter has its specific pronunciation so people are able to read Korean characters after learning Korean alphabet.
Korean written language originates from Chinese. Then it later developed into three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal (향찰/鄕札), Gukyeol(구결/口訣) and Idu (이두/吏讀) (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/korean.htm). It is written from left to right, similar to modern Chinese. Interestingly, these systems were similar to those developed in Japanese.
Now, most modern Korean literature and informal writing is written entirely in hangeul, however, a mixture of hangeul and hanja have appeared in academic papers and official documents.
Hangul Example
ㅎ(h) + ㅏ(a) + ㄴ(n)= 한 (han)
ㄱ(g) + ㅡ(u) + ㄹ(l) = 글 (gul)
We then combine syllables to form words, just as we do in English.
한(Han) + 글(gul) = 한글(Hangul)