Hangul syllable ggeolm

껆 groups three Hangul jamo into one syllable block.

Jamo are Hangul's consonant and vowel letters: ㄲ is the initial, ㅓ the vowel, and ㄻ the final cluster. Their arrangement shows how the syllable is spelled; by themselves, they do not identify a complete word.

Hangul was designed to write Korean speech more directly. The Sejong Sillok, the annals of King Sejong, first records Hunminjeongeum in 1443; an explanatory book introducing the script was published in 1446.

How did Hangul get its name?

The script began under the name Hunminjeongeum; later names included jeongeum, eonmun, banjeol, and gukmun/gukseo. Records use Hangeul in the early 1910s, and the name became widely used in 1928.

Hanja, Chinese characters used in Korean writing, was a predecessor writing practice. Hangul's letter shapes were designed for Korean sounds, not derived directly from Chinese ideographs. Conjoining jamo can also form older Hangul syllable blocks.

Why does 껆 look different across fonts?

Fonts change the block's drawing, not its identity.

Unicode encodes 껆 as a precomposed syllable, while a font determines the shapes, size, and placement of its components. Different Hangul fonts can make the block look wider, tighter, or otherwise unfamiliar without changing the character.