Hangul syllable Rwan

It marks one Korean syllable; context supplies its meaning. In Revised Romanization, it is written rwan: ㄹ begins with a light r-like sound, ㅘ is roughly “wa,” and ㄴ ends with n. The consonant and vowel letters that build a syllable are called jamo.

Hangul was designed under King Sejong as a direct way to write Korean. The first notice of 훈민정음, Hangul’s original name, appears in the royal annals Sejong Sillok in 1443; an explanatory book with that title followed in 1446. The title is commonly translated as “Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People.”

Before Hangul, Korean writers adapted Chinese characters to record names and later whole sentences through systems such as idu, hyangchal, and gugyeol. These are earlier ways of writing Korean, not visual ancestors: Hangul’s letter shapes are not derived from Chinese characters. The National Hangeul Museum dates official recognition as Korea’s national writing system to 1894; Japanese colonial rule ended that status in 1910. Modern Korean is written primarily in Hangul.

Why is 롼 one block?

Hangul packs letters into a block for each syllable. In 롼, ㄹ + ㅘ + ㄴ form the syllable; the compound vowel ㅘ combines ㅗ and ㅏ. The same syllable can be stored as one precomposed character or as its component jamo sequence, then recomposed into a block.

A Korean IME, or keyboard software that assembles Hangul, joins consonants and vowels entered in sequence. The standard two-set layout keeps consonant and vowel keys in separate groups.