Hangul syllable baelb

The Korean word around it gives this syllable its meaning. 밻 is a Hangul block built from ㅂ + ㅐ + ㄼ: an initial consonant, a vowel, and a final consonant cluster. In Korean writing, each block contributes one syllable to a word. “Baelb” labels those parts; it is not an English translation.

Hangul was created to represent Korean speech more directly than writing based on Chinese characters. The Sejong Sillok, a Korean court chronicle, records Hunminjeongeum, the script's name, in 1443; an explanatory book appeared in 1446. Hanja (Chinese characters used in Korean writing) and Idu (a way of adapting those characters to write Korean) are connected parts of that history. The label eonmun (“vernacular writing”) was used in everyday and literary settings; Hangul gained official standing for government documents in 1894.