Hangul Syllable Bbaenj

It writes one Korean syllable sound; the full word supplies the meaning. Hangul syllable blocks combine consonant and vowel letters called jamo. Here, ᄈ is the starting consonant, ᅢ is the vowel, and ᆬ is the final jamo, a compound ending made from ㄴ + ㅈ. At a syllable end, ㄵ is pronounced like n; when a vowel-initial ending follows within the same Korean word, ㅈ moves into the next syllable. Unicode’s algorithmic name “Bbaenj” lists the written parts, so its final j is not the sound you hear alone.

Why was Hangul created?

It gave Korean a writing system designed for its own speech. In 1443, King Sejong created Hangul, originally called 훈민정음, meaning “proper sounds for instructing the people.” Before it, writers used Chinese characters and adapted ways of using them to write Korean, which was difficult because Korean speech differed from written Chinese. A book titled 훈민정음, published in 1446, explained the script’s purpose and design.