On 13 Oct 2001, Lars Marius Garshol wrote:
JS> | Yes, it's my principal point that Hangul is an alphabetic script
JS> | because Jamo is an alphabet.
LMG> I can sympathize with that point of view, and certainly agree that
LMG> Jamo could have been used as an alphabet like all the others. That is
LMG> not how it is used, however. If you look at the other alphabets they
LMG> all follow a very similar model where the basic symbols follow one
LMG> another linearly, each denoting a single letter.
Well, in the early 20th century, some Korean linguists (esp.
Chu Shi-gyong) experimented with and actively promoted this way of
'arranging' Jamos although it didn't catch up with the public. This way
of method is sometimes used in some limited context.
LMG> Hangul does not fit
LMG> this model at all. Because of this I think it is misleading to call
LMG> Hangul an alphabet, even though the basic symbols, the Jamo, may be
LMG> alphabetic.
IMHO, your definition of alphabet is too narrow. I'm afraid that
you give too much emphasis to the typographic arrangement of Jamos in
rejecting Hangul as an alphabet. I don't think linearly enumerating
consonants and vowels should be an essential requirement for any script
to be alphabetic. My (and many others') notion of alphabet is exactly
the same as Peter's.
PC> An alphabet, an abjad and a syllabary are
PC> destinguished on the basis of a relationship between the writing system
PC> and the phonology being represented in terms of the types of units
PC> represented -- one represents all phonemes, another represents
PC> consonantal phonemes, another represents syllables.
Daniels and Bright also define, in xxxix of The World's Writing System,
'alphabet' as 'a type of writing system that denotes consonants and
vowels'. They don't have anything about how vowels and consonants are
arranged when defining 'alphabet'.
Moreover, if you think Hangul is featural because
of the way Jamos are arranged to form syllables in square/rectangular
blocks, your notion of 'featural' doesn't seem to agree with mine.
For sure, Ken's (and your) notion makes sense, but you also have to note
why others (including Michael) 'traditionally' think of Hangul as featural
(see the excerpts from Ross King below).
JS> To me, that Daniels and King came up with two different
JS> 'designations' for Hangul just strengthens the case that Hangul
JS> cannot be put into any single type, but it is both. And other
JS> scripts may have similar characteristics so that I think it'd better
JS> to life the restriction of 'pigeon-holing'.
JS> There is actually no such restriction, but I have yet to find a script
JS> that I feel rightly belongs as an instance of two different types.
I certainly think Hangul is one of them. (Michael gave other
examples in what I quote below) Even if you don't regard it as
alphabetic, it belongs to two groups in your classification, featural
and syllabic. However, I think it is also alphabetic. As Michael and
Peter summarized very nicely, it's a featural alphabet at lower level
and a syllabary at the higher level. Taylor (1979) (as quoted by Ross
King in Daniels and Bright) calls it an 'alphabetic syllabary'.
PC> Since these classifications are defined on different bases that are
PC> somewhat independent, it is potentially possible for one writing system
PC> to fit into more than one of these various classes (but one writing
PC> system couldn't fall into two classes that are defined on the same
PC> basis).
I completely agree to this point of view. That is why I suggested
the restriction of assigning a single classification to a given writing
system be lifted when classes defined on multiple bases/classification
schemes are used/mixed (as is the case in your web page). Now that you
wrote there's no restriction, you may assess what I and others wrote and
may (or may not) decide to put some scripts into multiple groups.
ME> Shavian, Sweet's phonetic shorthand, and Cirth are featural alphabets.
ME> Tengwar then is a featural abjad (though it can be used
ME> alphabetically just as the Hebrew abjad is used alphabetically to
ME> write Yiddish).
ME> And Canadian Syllabics and Ethiopic are featural syllabaries.
KW> So the Korean writing system, as Jungshik suggested, is both
KW> an alphabet (at the lower level) and a featural syllabary (at
KW> the higher level).
ME> I think rather that it is a featural alphabet (at the lower level)
ME> and a syllabary (at the higher level)
PC> So, Korean Hangul can be featural on one basis of
PC> characterisation, alphabetic on another basis of characterisation; and
PC> alphasyllabaryic on yet another basis of characterisation.
Let me quote Ross King (RK) in Daniels and Bright (although I wrote
something along this line in my prev. mesg.):
RK> Hankul has an additive structure. By doubling, or adding strokes
RK> to, the five basic consonant shapes for k,n,s,m,ng, one derives the shapes
RK> for the aspirates, tens unaspirates, affricates, etc. (In pre-modern
RK> Korean, the doubled letters represented the voiced stops and affricates
RK> of Chinese.). Likewise, the three basic fifteenth-century vowel shapes
RK> of vertical line, horizonal line, and dot (in modern era, it's either
RK> a short line either vertical or horizontal) combine to give all
RK> the possible vowels, as well as diphtongal combinations.
RK> This has led Sampson (1985) to call Hankul a featureal system.
- Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985 Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction.
Stanford, Standford University Press.
- Taylor, Insup, 1979. "The Korean Writing System: An Alphabet?
A Syllabary? A Logography?" In Processing of Visible Language 2, ed.
Paul A. Kolers, Merald E. Wrolstad, and Herman Bouma,
pp. 67-82. New York: Plenum
Jungshik Shin
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