Featural alphabet

· from English

What is a featural alphabet?

A featural alphabet encodes how sounds are made in the letter shapes themselves; Korean Hangul is the classic example.

Hangul was promulgated in 1446 under King Sejong. Basic consonant shapes depict the speech organs (ㄱ the tongue root, ㅁ the mouth, ㅅ a tooth), and extra strokes add aspiration (ㄱ to ㅋ). Letters are grouped into syllable blocks, so it looks like Chinese characters but works like an alphabet.

Examples

ㄱ g/k, ㅋ k (aspirated: extra stroke), ㄲ kk (tense: doubled); 한 = ㅎ + ㅏ + ㄴ; 한글 Hangeul

Kungfucius says: An alphabet designed on purpose by a king. Most scripts just happened; Hangul was engineered.