Gari Ledyard Gari Keith Ledyard ( born 1932 , Syracuse , New York ) is Sejong Professor of Korean History Emeritus at Columbia University . He is best known for his work on the history of the hangul alphabet . Biography . Ledyard was born while his family happened to be in Syracuse for work during the Depression . He grew up in Detroit and Ann Arbor , Michigan , and moved with his family to San Rafael , California in 1948 . After high school , he attended the University of Michigan and San Francisco State College , but did not do well , and in 1953 he joined the army to avoid the draft . Luckily , he missed so much basic training due to illness that he had to repeat it , and during that time opportunities opened up for language training , one of his interests . He was scheduled for one year intensive Russian language training at the Army Language School in Monterey , but was soon reassigned to Korean . He graduated too high in his class to be sent to Korea , but after a few months was able to get a posting in Tokyo in July , 1955 , and then a transfer to Seoul in November . While there he looked up the families of his Korean teachers , ate in town , and taught at the American Language Institute . When his superiors found out , he was accused of fraternization and reassigned to Tokyo , after only nine months in Korea , and returned to the US in December . The next spring he enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley , in Chinese language and literature , studying under , among others , Peter Alexis Boodberg and Zhao Yuanren , as there was no Korean Studies program in the United States at the time . For his Bachelor degree in 1958 he translated the " Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye " into English ; for his Master degree in 1963 he documented early Korean – Mongol diplomatic relations ; and with a year for research in Seoul for his dissertation , he received his PhD in 1966 and a position at Columbia , at the Centre for Korean Research , succeeding William E . Skillend . He was made a full professor in 1977 , and retired in 2001 . Ledyard ' s dissertation was " The Korean Language Reform of 1446 , " on King Sejong ' s alphabet project , but concerned with the political implications and controversies of hangul as much as its creation . Unfortunately , he failed to copyright his dissertation , and it was distributed in microfilm and photocopy , so that he could not copyright it and publish without substantial revision . He was finally convinced to do so by the first director of the National Academy of the Korean Language , Lee Ki - Moon , and the book was published in Korea in 1998 . He has also published on Korean cartography , the alliance between Korea and China during the first Japanese invasions , and the relationship between the wars of the Three Kingdoms and the founding of the Japanese state from Korea . He also wrote a book about the journal written by the 17th century Dutch explorer Hendrick Hamel who was held hostage in Korea for 13 years . The title of this book is ' The Dutch come to Korea ' and was first published in 1971 . He was invited to visit North Korea in 1988 . Research on the origin of hangul . Ledyard believes that the basic hangul consonants were adopted from the Mongolian Phagspa script of the Yuan dynasty , known as the 蒙古篆字 " měnggǔ zhuānzì " ( Mongol seal script ) . Only five letters were adopted from Phagspa , with most of the rest of the consonants created by featural derivation from these , as described in the account in the " Hunmin Jeong - eum Haerye " . However , which letters the basic consonants were differs between the two accounts . Whereas the " Haerye " implies that the graphically simplest letters ㄱㄴㅁㅅㅇ are basic , with others derived from them by the addition of strokes ( though with ㆁㄹㅿ set apart ) , Ledyard believes the five phonologically simplest letters ㄱㄷㄹㅂㅈ , which were basic in Chinese phonology , were also basic to hangul , with strokes either added or subtracted to derive the other letters . It was these five core letters which were taken from the Phagspa script , and ultimately derive from the Tibetan letters ག ད ལ བ ས . Thus they may be cognate with Greek Γ Δ Λ Β and the letters C / G D L B of the Latin alphabet . ( The history of the S sounds between Tibetan and Greek is more difficult to reconstruct . ) A sixth basic letter , ㅇ , was an invention , as in the " Haerye " account . The creation of the vowel letters is essentially the same in the two accounts . Consonantal design . The " Hunmin Jeong - eum " credits the 古篆字 " " Gu " Seal Script " as being the source King Sejong or his ministers used to create hangul . This has traditionally been interpreted as the " Old " Seal Script , and has confused philologists because hangul bears no functional similarity to the Chinese seal script s . However , 古 " gǔ " had more than one meaning : besides meaning " old " , it could be used to refer to the Mongols ( 蒙古 " Měng - gǔ " ) . Records from Sejong ' s day played with this ambiguity , joking that " no one is more " gu " than the " Meng - gu " " . That is , " Gu Seal Script " may have been a veiled reference to the Mongol Seal Script , or Phagspa alphabet . ( " Seal script " is a style of writing , used for name seals and official stamps . Phagspa had a seal script variant modeled after the appearance of the Chinese seal script of its day . In this guise it was called the 蒙古篆字 Mongol Seal Script , with only the initial character distinguishing it from the 古篆字 credited by the " Hunmin Jeong - eum " as the source of hangul . ) There were many Phagspa manuscripts in the Korean palace library , and several of Sejong ' s ministers knew the script well . If this were the case , Sejong ' s evasion on the Mongol connection can be understood in light of Korea ' s relationship with China after the fall of the Yuan dynasty , as well as the Korean literati ' s contempt for the Mongols as " barbarians " . Indeed , such China - centered resistance kept hangul out of common use until the dawn of the twentieth century . Although several of the basic concepts of hangul came from Indic phonology through the Phagspa script , such as the relationships among the homorganic consonants and , of course , the alphabetic principle itself , Chinese phonology also played a major role . Besides the grouping of letters into syllables , along the lines of Chinese characters , it was Chinese phonology , not Indic , that determined which five consonants were basic , and therefore to be retained from Phagspa . These were the tenuis ( non - voiced , non - aspirated ) plosives , " g " for ㄱ , " d " for ㄷ , and " b " for ㅂ , which were basic to Chinese theory , but which were voiced in the Indic languages and not considered basic ; as well as the sibilant " s " for ㅈ and the liquid " l " for ㄹ . ( Korean ㅈ was pronounced in the 15th century . ) ( It is somewhat problematic that hangul ㅈ [ ts ] has been derived from Phagspa " s " [ s ] rather than from " dz " [ ts ] . However , the shape of the Phagspa " s " may have been more conducive to deriving multiple hangul letters than Phagspa " dz " would have been . Such a shift could easily have happened if the entire Phagspa alphabet were first used as a template for the new alphabet , and then whittled down to a minimal set of basic letters through featural derivation , so that a more convenient shape from among the Phagspa letters " " could be used as the basis for the hangul letters for the sibilants . ) The basic hangul letters have been simplified graphically , retaining the essential shape of Phagspa but with a reduced number of strokes . For example , the box inside Phagspa " g " is not found in hangul ㄱ [ k ] . This simplification allowed for complex clusters , but also left room for an additional stroke to derive the aspirate plosives , ㅋㅌㅍㅊ . On the other hand , the non - plosives , nasals " ng " ( see below ) ㄴㅁ and the fricative ㅅ , were derived by " removing " the top of the tenuis letter . ( No letters were derived from ㄹ . ) This clears up a few points . For example , it ' s easy to derive ㅁ from ㅂ by removing the top of ㅂ , but it ' s not clear how you ' d get ㅂ by adding something to ㅁ , since ㅂ is not analogous to the other plosives : if they were derived , as in the traditional account , we ' d expect them all to have a similar vertical top stroke . Sejong also needed a null symbol to refer to the lack of a consonant , and he chose the circle , ㅇ . The subsequent derivation of the glottal stop ㆆ , by adding a vertical top stroke by analogy with the other plosive s , and the aspirate ㅎ parallel the account in the " Hunmin Jeong - eum " . The phonetic theory inherent in this derivation is more accurate than modern IPA usage . In the IPA , the glottal consonants are posited as having a specific " glottal " place of articulation . However , recent phonetic theory has come to view the glottal stop and [ h ] to be isolated features of ' stop ' and ' aspiration ' without a true place of articulation , just as their hangul representations based on the null symbol assume . The " ng " is the odd letter out here , as it is in the " Hunmin Jeong - eum " . This may reflect its variable behavior . Hangul was designed not just to write Korean , but to accurately represent Chinese . Besides the letters covered here , there were quite a few more used to represent Chinese etymology . Now , many Chinese words began with " ng " , at least historically , and this was being lost in several regions of China by Sejong ' s day : that is , etymological " ng " was either silent or pronounced in China , and was silent when borrowed into Korean . The expected shape of " ng " had the additional problem that , by being just the vertical line left by removing the top stroke of ㄱ , it would have been easily confused with the vowel ㅣ . Sejong ' s solution solved both these problems : the vertical stroke from ㄱ was added to the null symbol ㅇ to create ᇰ , graphically representing both regional pronunciations as well as being easily legible . ( If your browser doesn ' t display this , it ' s a circle with a vertical line on top , like an upside - down keyhole or lollipop . ) Thus ᇰ was pronounced " ng " in the middle or end of a word , but was silent at the beginning . Eventually the graphic distinction between the two silent initials ㅇ and ᇰ was lost . Two additional details lend credence to Ledyard ' s hypothesis . For one , the composition of obsolete ᇢᇦᇴ " w , v , f " ( for Chinese initials 微非敷 ) , from the graphic derivatives of the basic letter ㅂ " b " [ p ] ( that is , ㅁㅂㅍ " m , b , p " ) by adding a small circle under them , is parallel to their Phagspa equivalents , which were similarly derived by adding a small loop under three graphic variants of the letter " h " . Now , this small loop also represented " w " when it occurred after vowels in Phagspa . The Chinese initial 微 represented either " m " or " w " in various dialects , and this may be reflected in the choice of ㅁ [ m ] plus ㅇ ( from Phagspa [ w ] ) as the elements of hangul ᇢ . Not only is the series ᇢᇦᇴ analogous to Phagspa , but here we may have a second example of a letter composed of two elements to represent two regional pronunciations , " m " and " w " , as we saw with ᇰ for " ng " and " null " . Secondly , most of the basic hangul letters were originally simple geometric shapes . For example , ㄱ was the corner of a square , ㅁ a full square , ㅅ was a caret - like Λ , ㅇ was a circle . In the " Hunmin Jeong - eum " , before the influence from Chinese calligraphy on hangul , these are purely geometric . However , ㄷ was different . It wasn ' t a simple half square , like we might expect if Sejong had simply created it " ex nihilo " . Rather , even in the " Hunmin Jeong - eum " , it had a small lip protruding from the upper left corner . This lip duplicates the shape of Phagspa " d " [ t ] , and can be traced back to the Tibetan letter " d " , ད . Vocalic design . The seven basic vowel letters were not taken from Phagspa , but rather seem to have been invented by Sejong or his ministers to represent the phonological principles of Korean . Two methods were used to organize and classify these vowels , vowel harmony and iotation . Of the seven vowels , four could be preceded by a " y - " sound ( " iotized " ) . These four were written as a dot next to a line : ㅓㅏㅜㅗ . ( Through the influence of Chinese calligraphy , the dots soon became connected to the line , as seen here . ) Iotation was then indicated by doubling this dot : ㅕㅑㅠㅛ . The three vowels which could not be yotized were written with a single stroke : ㅡㆍㅣ . The Korean language of this period had vowel harmony to a greater extent than it does today . Vowels alternated according to their environment , and fell into " harmonic " groups . This affected the morphology of the language , and Korean phonology described it in terms of " yin " and " yang " : If a word had " yang " ( ' bright ' ) vowels , then most suffixes also had to have a " yang " vowel ; and conversely , if the root had " yin " ( ' dark ' ) vowels , the suffixes needed to be " yin " as well . There was a third group called " mediating " ( ' neutral ' in Western terminology ) that could coexist with either " yin " or " yang " vowels . The Korean neutral vowel was ㅣ " i " . The " yin " vowels were ㅡㅜㅓ " eu , u , eo " ; the dots are in the " yin " directions of ' down ' and ' left ' . The " yang " vowels were ㆍㅗㅏ , " ə , o , a " , with the dots in the " yang " directions of ' up ' and ' right ' . The " Hunmin Jeong - eum " states that the shapes of the non - dotted letters ㅡㆍㅣ were also chosen to represent the concepts of " yin " ( flat earth ) , " yang " ( sun in heaven ) , and mediation ( upright man ) . ( The letter ㆍ " ə " is now obsolete . ) There was a third parameter in designing the vowel letters , namely , choosing ㅡ as the graphic base of ㅜ and ㅗ , and ㅣ as the base of ㅓ and ㅏ . A full understanding of what these horizontal and vertical groups had in common would require knowing the exact sound values these vowels had in the 15th century . Our uncertainty is primarily with the letters ㆍㅓㅏ . Some linguists reconstruct these as , respectively ; others as . However , the horizontal letters ㅡㅜㅗ do appear to have all represented mid to high back vowels , . References . Ledyard , Gari K . " The Korean Language Reform of 1446 " . Seoul : Shingu munhwasa , 1998 . Ledyard , Gari . " The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People . " In Young - Key Kim - Renaud , ed . " The Korean Alphabet : Its History and Structure " . Honolulu : University of Hawai ' i Press , 1997 . Andrew West . " The Mĕnggŭ Zìyùn " 蒙古字韻 " Mongolian Letters arranged by Rhyme "