Book chapter
Does Korean Hangul Qualify as an Alphasyllabary? A Comparison with Brahmi-Derived Scripts
Handbook on the Korean Language and Literacy: Insights into Hangul and Text Processing, pp.539-555
Springer Nature Switzerland, 1st
27/08/2025
Appears in Recent Faculty of Health Publications
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Abstract
Korean Hangul has been characterised as an alphabetic syllabary (Pae, 2011) or alphasyllabary (Taylor & Taylor, 2014) as it has both alphabetic and syllabic characteristics. The terms alphasyllabary (Bright, 1996) and abugida (Daniels, 1996), often used interchangeably, are widely used to refer to the Brahmi-derived scripts. These scripts share many features and characteristics as they are historically related and descendants of the ancient Brahmi script. In contrast, Korean Hangul is a man-made and purpose-built script. The aim of this chapter is to compare the distinctive characteristics of Korean Hangul with the South and Southeast Asian Brahmi-derived scripts such as Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Tibetan, Lao, and Thai, specifically in relation to the following: (1) visual complexity and size of the grapheme inventory; (2) representation of phonemes and syllables; and (3) representation of consonants and vowels. The available research on reading and learning to read in related areas in Korean and the Brahmi-derived scripts as well as other writing systems such as English and Chinese, will be contrasted. Based on this review, we will address the question of to what extent Korean Hangul shares characteristics with the Brahmi-derived writing systems. Another key aim is to investigate the challenges of learning to read and write these diverse writing systems, and what features or characteristics facilitate or prolong the task of learning to read and write.
Details
- Title
- Does Korean Hangul Qualify as an Alphasyllabary? A Comparison with Brahmi-Derived Scripts
- Creators
- Heather Winskel - James Cook University Singapore
- Contributors
- Hye K. Pae (Editor) - University of CincinnatiHeather Winskel (Editor) - James Cook University SingaporeSay Young Kim (Editor) - Hanyang University (Korea (Republic of), Seoul
- Publication Details
- Handbook on the Korean Language and Literacy: Insights into Hangul and Text Processing, pp.539-555
- Publisher
- Springer Nature Switzerland; Cham
- Edition
- 1st
- Identifiers
- 991013309819502368
- Copyright
- © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025
- Academic Unit
- Human Sciences; Faculty of Health
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter