Hangul Syllable Gwaed

It is one written Korean syllable, built from three parts. A Hangul block combines starting consonant ㄱ, vowel ㅙ, and final consonant ㄷ; Unicode’s decomposed spelling is ᄀ + ᅫ + ᆮ. These building letters are called jamo. The Latin spelling “Gwaed” is Unicode’s label for the sequence, not a Korean dictionary translation. The final ㄷ sits at the bottom, so changing it makes a different syllable.

The National Hangeul Museum’s cited first record dates to 1443; the book explaining the script, Hunminjeongeum, followed in 1446. King Sejong’s project addressed a practical problem: Chinese characters did not map neatly to Korean speech, and writing was difficult for ordinary people to learn. The new script was designed to make reading and writing more accessible.

Over time, Hangul grew from a script promoted for common readers into one used in letters, Buddhist scriptures, novels, and official writing. In South Korea the script is generally called Hangeul; in North Korea it is called Chosŏn'gŭl. Both names refer to the Korean writing system.