Writing, Alphabets, Printing and Manuscripts

 Hangul syllabic blocks

This week we covered several chapters grouped as the "Prologue to Graphic Design", covering the invention and evolution of written and printed communication.  As I worked my way through this weeks material, one item in particular stood out and captured my attention.  The Korean alphabet, Hangul.

Hangul is somewhat unique among written languages in part because of it's system of grouping letters into blocks, each representing a syllable, and partly due to the structure of the individual letters, each an abstract representation of the position of the mouth and tongue when spoken.  I was fascinated by this extremely logical and intentional approach to developing a writing system so I did some further research on the internet and uncovered some interesting facts.

The Korean script is classified as a Featural Alphabet, meaning that the shapes of the letters are not arbitrary but representative of the spoken elements of the language.  In Hangul, the basic shapes of the consonants are representative of the position of the tongue and mouth when speaking them.

Other featural alphabets include several shorthand systems and the Canadian Aboriginal Sylabics, which are used for many dialects of native Canadian people including Algonquian, Inuit and Cree.  Like Hangul, the sylabics were intentionally created by James Evans, a British missionary, to represent the phonetic elements of the native spoken languages.  Evans created this script after native people showed significant struggle in adapting the Latin alphabet to their spoken languages.

1841 publication of Evans' script

Also included among the featural alphabets is Tengwar, the fictional script invented by J.R.R. Tolkien and used in Lord of the Rings.

Tengwar. Nerd love!!!

Some links I found useful and enjoyable:

History of Hangul

How to Learn Hangul

Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics

Featural Alphabets

Tengwar!!!