3.3 Korean

The Korean language uses a combination of two different writing systems--hanja characters and hangul characters.

Hanja characters are derived from Traditional Chinese characters and are often used for formal written communication and proper names. An example of hanja is shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4 Hanja characters

Hangul characters are formed by combining one or more consonant and vowel signs from a syllabary consisting of 24 basic elements called jamos. There are approximately 11,000 hangul characters. An example of hangul is shown in Figure 3-5.

Figure 3-5 Hangul characters