3. The Signs of the Korean Manual Alphabet
While there are substantial differences between the linguistic
structure of Korean and KSL, outside of their differing modalities
(Korean references?), there is substantially more overlap between the
KMA and Hangul. Most notably, they are both “product[s] of a
deliberate, linguistically informed planning” [14]. Further parallels with
Hangul are drawn by comparisons of Yun Baek Won with King Sejong
and the KMA’s nickname hunnongjeongji (
訓聾正指
– correct fingers
for the instruction of the Deaf), in light of the original name of Hangul
hunminjeongeum (
訓民正音
– correct sounds for the instruction of the
people) [12]. Our description of the KMA shall be broken down into
two parts, first an examination of the signs corresponding to the
consonant graphemes of Hangul, followed by discussion of those
encoding the vowel graphemes.
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3.1 The Consonants of the KMA
The nineteen consonants of Hangul are represented by twelve
KMA handshapes, all but one of which are also used in KSL. Thus the
handshape parameter is of primary importance for distinguishing the
signs of the KMA which correspond to the Hangul consonants. We
choose not to reproduce images of the signs of the KMA in this paper,
but refer the reader to Choi Sang Bae’s analysis of KSL handshapes [4].
Alternatively, full images of the signs of the KMA, rather than just the
handshapes in isolation, are to be found in the online hankwuk swuhwa
sajen,produced by the kuklipkukewen [15], which may be retrieved at
the following URL: http://222.122.196.111/. In the following table we
provided the name of the KSL handshape as given in Choi Sang Bae’s
paper along with information on the Hangul grapheme or graphemes to
which these handshapes correspond.
Handshape Name
Number of KMA
consonant signs using
handshape
Consonant graphemes
corresponding to
handshape
2 hyeng
4
<ㄷ,ㄸ,ㅅ,ㅆ>
6 hyeng
3
<ㄱ,ㄲ,ㄴ>
7 hyeng
2
<ㅈ,ㅉ>
4 hyeng buthim hyeng
2
<ㅂ,ㅃ>
3 hyeng
1
<ㄹ>
2 hyeng kwuphimhyeng
(20 hyeng)
1
<ㅁ>
8 hyeng
1
<ㅊ>
7 hyeng
kemcikuphimhyeng
1
<ㅋ>
N/A
1
<ㅍ>
10 hyeng
1
<ㅇ>
Thikuth hyeng
1
<ㅌ>
Hiut hyeng
1
<ㅎ>
Table 1. The handshapes of the KMA corresponding to Hangul
consonant graphemes.
On the basis of this table, we may make the following
observations. The sign corresponding to <
ㅍ
> is the only handshape not
to appear in KSL, although it does somewhat resemble the handshape
designated 4 hyeng kwupim hyeng (40 hyeng).
Simon Barnes-Sadler, Hangul and the Korean Manual …
7
We also see that handshape is a remarkably distinctive
parameter with regard to the signs of the KMA which represent the
consonant graphemes and the features of orientation and movements
are distinctive in very few cases. Generally, it is the graphemes for lax
consonants and their tense counterparts which are encoded using a
shared handshape. In these cases, movement is distinctive. In the one
remaining case, where neither hanshape nor movement is distinctive,
the signs which represent <
ㄱ
> and <
ㄴ
> are differentiated by their
orientation.
We now describe the handshapes discussed above in lieu of
providing illustrations. A full extension of a digit describes the
extension of both the first and second knuckles of the digit. Where
digits are not mentioned, they may be taken to be fully flexed and not at
all extended. 2 hyeng is a fully extended 2 and 3 digit; 6 hyeng is a fully
extended 1 and 2 digit; 7 hyeng fully extended 1, 2 and 3 digit; 4 hyeng
buthim hyeng is a fully extended 2, 3,4 and 5 digit with all digits
touching their neighbours; 3 hyeng is a fully extended 2, 3 and 4 digit; 2
hyeng kwuphimhyeng (20 hyeng) is the 2 and 3 digits extended at the
first knuckly, but flexed at the second; 8 hyeng is fully extended 1, 2, 3
and 4 digits; 7 hyeng kemcikuphimhyeng is a fully extended 1 and 3
digit with the 2 digit extended at the first knuckle, but flexed at the
second; 10 hyeng is formed by the extension of the 1 and 2 digits at the
first knuckle, and their flexion at the second to form a ring shape while
the remaining digits are all fully extended; thikuth hyeng if formed by
fully extending the 2, 3 and 4 digits, while keeping the 3 and 4 digits
pressed together; hiuh hyeng is the full extension of the 1 digit; finally,
the sign corresponding to <
ㅍ
> is the extension of the 2, 3, 4 and 5
digits at the first knuckle, while the second knuckle remains flexed.
In the next section we shall demonstrate that this gives the signs
of the KMA which correspond to the Hangul consonant graphemes a
much higher degree of iconicity that those which correspond to the
vowels. This choice could be explained as an attempt on the part of the
designer to make the signs for the consonant graphemes of Hangul
strong visual matches to the graphemes which they encode, or
alternatively, to prevent the signs from resembling one another.We now
turn our attention to the vowels of KMA.
3.2 The Vowels of the KMA
Unlike the consonants, little effort seems to have been made to
have the appearance of the signs of the KMA conform to the design of
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8
Hangul graphemes. Only five handshapes are used to represent all
twenty Hangul simple and complex vowel graphemes. Again,
according to Choi Sang Bae’s analysis, all of these handshapes are used
in KSL. The names and uses of these handshapes in the context of the
KMA may be seen in the table below.
Handshape Name
Number of KMA
vowel signs using
handshape
Vowel graphemes
corresponding to handshape
1 hyeng
9
<ㅏ,ㅓ,ㅜ,ㅗ,ㅘ,ㅝ,ㅙㅞ,ㅡ>
2 hyeng
4
<ㅑ,ㅕ,ㅛ,ㅠ>
Yewuhyeng
7
<ㅐ,ㅔ,ㅚ,ㅟ,ㅙ,ㅞ,ㅢ>
Ceypihyeng
2
<ㅒ,ㅖ>
Yecahyeng
1
<ㅣ>
Table 2. The handshapes of the KMA corresponding to Hangul
consonant graphemes.
Two facts stand out from an examination of this table. First, the
total number of vowel signs listed above exceeds the number of vowel
graphemes in Hangul. This is due to the fact that two handshapes are
used in forming the signs which correspond to the /w/ on-glides <
ㅙ
>
and <
ㅞ
>, therefore these graphemes count towards the totals of the
number of vowel signs using each handshape more than once. These
are the only signs of the KMA which exhibit any local or hand internal
movement. Second, only one handshape, 2 hyeng, is shared with the set
of handshapes which correspond to the consonant graphemes of Hangul.
One result of this is the signs corresponding to the Hangul graphemes
<
ㅠ
> and <
ㅅ
> are identical.
The handshapes may be described as follows. The handshape
designated 1 hyeng is a fully extended 2 digit; 2 hyeng is as described
above in the discussion of the consonants of the KMA; yewuhyeng is a
fully extended 2 and 5 digit; ceypihyeng is a fully extended 2, 3 and 5
finger; finally, yecahyeng is a fully extended 5 digit.
In the following section we offer a brief introduction to Hangul
as a featural writing system before going on to argue that the graphical
features of Hangul are encoded in the internal structure of the KMA.
4. The Korean Manual Alphabet as a featural system.
Hangul has been characterised as a featural writing system [16].
Unlike other writing systems which have purely arbitrary relationship
Simon Barnes-Sadler, Hangul and the Korean Manual …
9
between graphical representation and sound, at the time of its creation,
Hangul represented a phonological analysis of Late Middle Korean [17].
The graphemes representing the lax or lenis consonants of the language
are thought to have been designed as stylised representations of the
speech organs when they produce the corresponding sounds. These
characters are regularly modified by graphical features to represent
phonological distinctions.
The form of all the vowels of Hangul are built from three
graphical elements: the vertical stroke - <
ㅣ
>, the horizontal stroke -
<
ㅡ
> and the dot - <∙>, now more commonly written as a short stroke
perpendicular to a vertical or horizontal line. These represented the
Confucian concepts “man”, “Earth” and “heavens”, respectively.
At the time of their creation, the structure of these graphemes
was largely transparent. The vertical and horizontal lines both
represented single sounds and the addition of a new graphical element
would modify that sound in predictable ways. For example, the vertical
line was both the grapheme <
ㅣ
>, representing the sound /i/ and could
be added to other graphemes in order to represent /j/ off-glides as in the
grapheme <
ㅐ
>, which is composed of <
ㅏ
> and <
ㅣ
>. It must be noted
that the modern graphemes retain their archaic structure despite sound
change since the LMK period. Thus, the /j/ off-glides are no longer
present in the contemporary language.
4.1 The Encoding of Phonological Features in Hangul
As mentioned above, there are nineteen Hangul consonant
graphemes. We may divide these into five consonant series, which
share a place of articulation, however it must be noted that the
grapheme <
ㄹ
> is a systematic irregularity which is not part of any
consonant series. Modern graphemes of these consonant series along
with their classification according to the Hwunmincengumhaylye are
given below.
Name in Hwunmincengum
Graphemes
牙音 (Molar Sound)
<ㄱ,ㅋ,ㄲ>
舌音 (Tongue Sound)
<ㄴ,ㄷ,ㅌ,ㄸ>
脣音 (Lip Sound)
<ㅁ,ㅂ,ㅍ,ㅃ>
齒音 (Tooth Sound)
<ㅅ,ㅈ,ㅊ,ㅆ,ㅉ>
喉音 (Throat Sound)
<ㅇ,ㅎ>
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Table 3. The classification of the contemporary Hangul
consonants according to the Hwunmincengumhaylye.
The left-most grapheme in the right hand column of this table
represents the “basic” shape of the consonant series, which is then
modified. The two graphical features most commonly used to derive
new consonant graphemes from the “basic” graphemes are stroke
addition and character gemmination. For example, when a single
horizontal stroke is added to the grapheme <
ㄴ
> to form <
ㄷ
>, the
continuent /n/ becomes the stop /t/. A horizontal stroke is also used to
mark aspiration, as it is when distinguishing between the graphemes
<
ㄱ
> and <
ㅋ
>. The gemmination of the “basic” grapheme represents a
consonant pronounced with greater articulatory tension. While the
modifications to the “basic” consonant graphemes are made
systematically to represent the distinctive features of spoken Korean, it
must be noted at this point that the relationship between phonemic
distinction and its graphical representation is entirely arbitrary.
Finally, the gaps in the contemporary system must be
acknowledged. The consonants classified as “throat sounds” have been
re-assigned since their creation and one of their number is no longer
used, so the graphemes are a better fit to the sounds of Contemporary
Korean. Furthermore, the featural nature of the Hangul seems to be
only very inconsistently retained in the labial series of consonants. The
reasons for this are not known, but it has been suggested that this
system maintains stroke addition in a less visually iconic form while
minimising confusing similarity between graphemes [18].
While vowel harmony is no longer as important a part of the
Korean language as once it was, it is still reflected in the graphemes of
Hangul. Notably in the form of the simple yang and eum vowels, which
are mirror images of one another, as in <
ㅏ
> and <
ㅓ
> and in the way
that yang and eum vowel graphemes may not combine with each other
to form /w/ on-glides, as in <
ㅙ
> and <
ㅞ
>.
4.2 The Encoding of Graphical Features in the KMA
A particularly striking feature of the distribution of handshapes
over the consonant series is the fact that, while the same handshape is
used to represent the graphemes which are used to represent the lax and
tense phonemes of Korean, with the same place of articulation, the
aspirated consonants which share a place of articulation are typically
encoded with a separate handshape. From this description, it seems that
Simon Barnes-Sadler, Hangul and the Korean Manual …
11
the signs which encode the aspirated consonant graphemes of Hangul
are not distinguished systematically from the signs which encode the
lax consonants; this is an artefact of the description of signs. While it is
not as regular a reflection of the graphical features of Hangul as the
movement feature discussed below, aspiration tends to be marked by
digit extension. This digit extension, though, is not systematic in that
the digit which is extended cannot be predicted and seems to be
determined by ergonomic factors, which digits are available for
extension in addition to those which are already extended for the basic
handshape and even visual fidelity to the graphemes of Hangul. It must
also be noted that, where digit extension would lead to identical
handshapes, other means are used to keep them distinct. For example
the signs corresponding to <
ㄹ
> and <
ㅌ
> are distinguished only by the
configuration of the extended 3 and 4 digits and the signs
corresponding to <
ㅈ
> and <
ㅋ
> are distinguished by the contrast
between the full extension of the 2 digit in the 7 hyeng handshape and
extension of only the first knuckle in the 7 hyeng kemcikuphimhyeng
handshape, respectively.
We now turn our attention to the encoding of the Hangul tense
consonant graphemes. In these cases there is a regular feature of
movementwhich corresponds to the graphical feature of character
germination. This movement takes the form of a path movement, the
sign representing the lax consonant being moved contralaterally along a
path, right to left, usually in the signing space just in front of the signers
torso. This movement is a shared feature of all the signs of the KMA
which correspond to Hangul’s geminate graphemes, therefore this path
movement may be said to be analogous to the graphical feature of
grapheme gemmination.
In some cases, handshapes are used to represent consonants
from separate series, for example 2 hyeng is used to represent both
dental stops and alveolar fricatives. Here, orientation is the means by
which the signs corresponding to <
ㄱ
> and <
ㄴ
>, <
ㅅ
> and <
ㄷ
> and
finally <
ㅆ
> and <
ㄸ
>may be distinguished. We may speculate that this
choice was made so that the sign bears a greater resemblance to the
grapheme than would be the case were another handshape used.
We now illustrate the foregoing discussion with an example.
The dental series of consonants are prototypical of the featural
approach taken to the design of the Hangul consonant graphemes. The
KMA does not reflect this perfectly, however, since it is not digit
extension alone which characterises the distinction between the signs
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12
corresponding to <
ㄴ
> and <
ㄷ
>, but a change in handshape. This
decision was likely taken to ensure greater visual similarity between the
handshapes and graphemes in question, however it is extension of the 4
digit which distinguishes the signs for <
ㄷ
> from the sign for <
ㅌ
> and
path movement, as described above which distinguishes the sign for
<
ㄷ
> from the sign for <
ㄸ
>. Thus we may say that this series of signs
is also representative of the KMA as digit extension broadly
corresponds to stroke addition, but other factors take precedence when
determining which digit is extended or whether stroke addition is
reflected by this mechanism at all. Character germination, though, is
reflected entirely regularly in the path movement.
It is interesting to note that consonant series which do not have
regular, systematic graphical distinctions, for example the labial series,
lack such systematic, featural distinctions in the handshapes of the
KMA. Reasons for these systematic gaps have been suggested based on
orthographic naturalness [18]; however the reasons for choosing to
reflect this irregularity in the KMA must remain a matter of speculation
only.
Thus we see that the graphical features of Hangul consonants
are encoded in the KMA as follows:
Digit extension is roughly analogous to stroke addition
in the Hangul consonants, although this is not wholly systematic or
regular.
While orientation is feature which distinguishes
between some consonant signs of the KMA, it does not do so with any
regularity.
Contralateral path movement regularly maps to
character gemmination.
Moving on to the signs of the KMA which represent the vowels
of Hangul, we see a much more regular and systematic encoding of
graphical features than was the case for the consonant signs of the
KMA. The handhsape 1 hyeng generally encodes graphemes which are
combinations of the graphical elements <∙> and either <
ㅣ
> or <
ㅡ
>.
The one exception is the grapheme <
ㅡ
> which is also represented by
this handshape, perhaps for reasons of visual fidelity with the grapheme.
It is only the feature of orientation which distinguishes the signs which
correspond to the graphemes <
ㅏ
>, <
ㅓ
>, <
ㅗ
>, <
ㅜ
> and <
ㅡ
>. The
orientation of the handshapes is largely arbitrary, although it may be
observed that the orientation of <
ㅗ
> is fingertips upwards with the
Simon Barnes-Sadler, Hangul and the Korean Manual …
13
palm towards the signer, while the orientation <
ㅜ
> is the mirror image
of this as the grapheme is, that is, fingertips downwards with the palm
towards the signer. This mirroring of pairs of yang and eum vowels is
not a consistent feature of the signs for the vowels of Hangul, though,
we may speculate for ergonomic reasons. The only so-called basic
vowel to be encoded using a handshape other than 1hyeng is <
ㅣ
>,
which is encoded by the handshape yeca hyeng.
The graphical feature which regularly indicates a /j/ on-glide
for the simple vowels is an additional dot or short stroke. This is
regularly reflected in the KMA by the modification of the handshape of
the basic vowel signs from 1 hyeng to 2 hyeng by the extension of the
3 digit. Furthermore, the archaic /j/ off-glides of Hangul are regularly
reflected by the extension of the 5 digit, the digit which is selected in
the yeca hyeng handshape. Finally, archaic /j/ on-and-off-glides, for
example <
ㅖ
>, can be formed by forming the <
ㅓ
> handshape and
extending the 3 and 5 digits. Signs which derive from the same “basic”
vowel share their orientation. Thus we see that digit extension is
analogous to stroke addition in the formation of the signs which encode
the vowels of Hangul, too, but it is more regular than the digit extension
reflecting stroke addition to the consonant graphemes of Hangul.
The /w/ on-glides of Hangul graphemes are formed by
combining two other Hangul graphemes. The KMA forms the signs
which correspond to these graphemes using a similar method, however
in the signed modality these signs must be combined sequentially,
rather than simultaneously as they are in the written modality.
Therefore, these are the only vowels signs in the KMA which exhibit
any movement. In contrast to the path movement, which distinguishes
the signs for lax consonants from those of tense consonants, we see
these signs exhibit hand-internal or local movement, specifically a
change of orientation in the case of <
ㅘ
> and <
ㅝ
> which is
supplemented by a change in handshape in the case of <
ㅙ
> and <
ㅞ
>.
As a result of reflecting the graphical features of these graphemes rather
than their spoken phonological features, we may say that the LMK
restrictions on combining yang and eum vowels are retained in the
encoding of these graphemes in to the KMA.
The graphical features of Hangul vowels are encoded in the
KMA as follows:
Orientation of the hand encodes the “orientation” of
basic vowel graphemes on the page, but arbitrarily.
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Extension of the 3 digit is analogous with short-stroke
addition as in the /j/ on-glides of Hangul.
Extension of the 5 digit is analogous with long-stroke
addition as in the archaic /j/ off-glides of Hangul.
Graphemes may be combined in processes analogous to
the composition of the /w/ on-glides of Hangul.
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