Jamo 자모

jamo · from Korean

What is jamo?

Jamo are the individual letters of Korean Hangul, consonants and vowels, combined into syllable blocks.

Modern Hangul has 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels, plus doubled consonants and compound vowels for a total of 40 commonly listed letters. Each block stacks an initial consonant, a vowel and optionally a final consonant (batchim). The name comes from Sino-Korean 字母, letter.

Examples

ㄱ g, ㄴ n, ㅏ a, ㅗ o; 한 = ㅎ h + ㅏ a + ㄴ n; 국 = ㄱ + ㅜ + ㄱ

Kungfucius says: Twenty-four basic letters and a free afternoon: that is how long Hangul takes to learn.