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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The Korean language's writing system has most definitely changed over time. Though it is now mainly known as "hangul", Korean used to have different parts: hangul (the modern alphabet), and hanja (Chinese characters incorporated in Korean). Hanja was used back then due to the heavy influence of Chinese and though it is not entirely Chinese, Koreans used it either represent the original meaning of a character or simply to pronounce a certain sound. Nowadays, the Korean alphabet consists of 24 characters, consisting of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, but also includes 5 double consonants (stressed) and 11 dipthongs (double vowels). Just like the English alphabet, the letters are combined together to form words and sentences. This is significantly different to Chinese, since symbolism from characters is not used in hangul. I do not believe there are large differences between manuscript and print, but there is definitely a difference in the relationship between oral and written language since the written manner of Korean is extremely formal while oral Korean can vary according to the age of a person. The Korean language system essentially works by combining consonants and vowels together to combine them as one sound.
Hangul is the Korean alphabet system that has been used to write the Korean language since 15th century. The alphabet usually has 24 consonant and vowel letters but Hangul letters are grouped into blocks such as 한, each one is transcribes as a syllable. For example, 한 is composed of three letters :ㅎ h, ㅏ a, and ㄴ n. Those blocks are arranged horizontally from left to right or vertically from top to bottom. And the graph of Hangul is shown below:
Consonant names have two-syllable names and it comes both at the beginning and end of the name which is shown below in table:
Vowel letters are simple, written with ㅇ ieung and the vowel being named. Here is the table for vowels:
Table of Hangul:
Korean is spoken by about millions of people in South Korea, North Korea, China, Japan, and Russia. The relationship between Korean and other languages is not known for sure, though some linguists believe it to be a member of the Altaic family of languages. Grammatically Korean is very similar to Japanese and about 70% of its vocabulary comes from Chinese.
Type of writing system: alphabet
Direction of writing: Until the 1980s Korean was usually written from right to left in vertical columns. Since then writing from left to right in horizontal lines has become popular, and today the majority of texts are written horizontally.
Number of letter: 24 (jamo): 14 consonants and 10 vowels. The letters are combined together into syllable blocks.
The shapes of the the consontants g/k, n, s, m and ng are graphical representations of the speech organs used to pronounce them. Other consonsants were created by adding extra lines to the basic shapes.
The shapes of the the vowels are based on three elements: man (a vertical line), earth (a horizontal line) and heaven (a dot). In modern Hangeul the heavenly dot has mutated into a short line.
Spaces are placed between words, which can be made up of one or more syllables.
Urdu has a writing system. It is written right to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet. There are 38 alphabets. It took about 5 to 6 centuries to standardize grammatical structures of Urdu.Origin of Urdu is traced back to the mid of 10th and beginning of 11th century, but these were the formative years of Urdu language and no significant either literary or grammatical work was done during this period;Later on in 14th century this language was introduced in Southern India, here also the vocabulary expanded; many words and idioms of local languages were embedded to the language. The expansion of vocabulary continued and this hybrid language came to be considered the forerunner of modern Urdu language. The standardization of Urdu took place in 16th and 17th century when synthetic character of Urdu acquired a complete form and greater content and power.
Korean has a pretty intricate alphabet. There are about 10ish basic consonants and vowels, and they combine in order to form complex words and sentences like in English. There are certain characters that have no sound, while there are others that have different sounds given the context. Many characters are borrowed from Mandarin, so there are apparently a lot of cognates between the two languages. All in all, it's a pretty hard writing system for English speakers to understand, because there are some sounds that do not exist in the English language that we have to cope with.
Historically, the old writing system for Korea was Hanja, which were Chinese characters. China had a huge influence in Korean culture, especially language in the early development of the country. The educated upper class was proficient speakers and writers of Hanja, which was difficult for the common people to learn. Rather than create a large discrepancy among the social classes, King Sejong had an idea of creating a new writing system by forming a Korean alphabet system around the 1440’s. This was how Hanguel came to be in Korea. The writing style has not changed much through history despite the challenges or reduction of Hanguel and Hanja during Japanese occupation. Modern Korea uses Hanguel in much of the modern literature and day to day; meanwhile, Hanja is still taught in schools because much academic writing and old literature use a mixture of Hanja and Hanguel. Children in the Korean school systems are expected to learn about 1800 to 2000 chinese characters (Hanja) before graduating. There is much debate currently on whether to only use Hanguel or continue the mixture of Hanja and Hanguel. King Sejong created the Korean alphabet based on the structure or shape the tongue makes or the sound, so the written should match the phonetic noise. There are 24 letters in the Korean alphabet with 14 being consonants and 10 vowels. The punctuations in Korean writing is similar to Western style writing, but Korean was first written in column forms (vertical) which later transition to rows (horizontal), similar to Western.
The modern Hindi alphabet is written in Devanagari script which evolved from Sanskrit origins. The word Devanagari comes from two Sanskrit words "deva" meaning God and "nagari" meaning of urban origin. This mode of writing has origins as early as the 5th century BC. This script is used not only for Hindi but also for Nepali and other Indic languages. The script is easily identified by a horizontal line written over the top of each word. Words are delineated by stops in the horizontal line. Each consonant is assumed to be followed by a schwa vowel "ah" unless otherwise noted. For instance क (the equivalent of k in English) would be pronounced as "ka". A dot above a letter means that is nasalized. When adding vowels to consonants, there are some weird rules. The vowels are not written out in their full form unless they begin a word. For instance क + आ (k + aa) is not written as कआ but as का, only the vertical line is kept. Some other vowels like इ (i) are written in shorthand before the consonant. For instance कि would make the sound "ki", the vertical line with the right swoop before the क making the "i" sound. The ordering of Devanagari script is very interesting and sheds light on the advanced phonetic studies of ancient India. Consonants are written in a specific order relating to their place of articulation and whether they are voiced or unvoiced. This script can be said to be more simple than English in that it is completely phonetic. Each letter corresponds to only one sound, unlike in English where the sound of a letter is dependent on its environment.
“Hangul” is the formal writing system used in both North and South Korea. It is an alphabet so it consists of consonants and vowels. However, back in the 1500s, Hangul did not exist and Korea did not have any writing system-communication was mostly oral. If a Korean desired to read and write, they learned Chinese. However, only wealthy and educated Koreans had access to study Chinese, leaving the majority of Koreans illiterate. Thus, many Koreans experienced frustration in not being able to communicate their thoughts and feelings in written words. Even for the literate Koreans, Chinese script could not fully express the words and thoughts unique to the Korean spoken language. All of this changed in 1446 when King Sejong invented Hangul, a simple writing system that allowed even the poorest Koreans to read and write. Out of the 28 original letters of Hangul, only 24 are used today. The basic Korean syllable is divided into three parts: ch’osong (initial consonant), chungsong (peak vowel) and chongsong (final consonant). Some Korean words vary from this structure, such as those that have final vowels instead of final consonants. In the end, Hangul has revolutionized many aspects of Korean society. Some say that one of the main reasons that South Korea advances in computing so quickly is because Hangul can be easily entered into PCs and phones. One of the country's greatest achievements, however, is its boost in literacy rates: nowadays, illiteracy is practically nonexistent in Korea due to the learnability of Hangul.
The Hebrew Script is Israel's writing system. The Hebrew alphabet first emerged during the late second to first millennia BC. The alphabet was influenced by a Proto-Hebrew/Early Aramaic alphabet. Then, it was closed related to the Phoenician alphabet, which developed from a Proto-Canaanite one in the 15th century BC. Its influence stemmed from its use in proximity to the Israelites: when trading around the Mediterranean and in Northern Africa.
Hebrew's type of writing system is known as "abjad." Abjad incorporates scripts "where each symbol stands for a consonant, leaving the reader to supply the appropriate vowel." Moreover, the horizontal direction of writing is from right to left, and has 22 consonants and "final" letters and diacritics. Long vowels are expressed by three letters, the alef, vav, and yod, and short vowels are not used expect in the Bible and books that suit learners of the language.
Biblical Hebrew, or Classical Hebrew, on the other hand, was formed in the 10 century BC and used until the 2nd Century AD. This form of Hebrew was used in Israel and Judah. Classical Hebrew is used in the Hebrew Bible (Torah), and other religious and historical writings such as the Talmud. It was first written in the Phoenician script, which then developed into the Paleo-Hebrew script in the 10th century BC. However, by the 6th century BC, the Aramaic script started to become the dominant Paleo-Hebrew script.
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/hebrew.htm
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