Hangul Syllable Sek

It names a syllable sound, not a complete thought. The Korean sound is approximately “sek”: s + the vowel in “bed” + a final k. In running text, read it with the rest of the word; sent alone, it leaves the sender's intended message open.

Why is 셐 written as a block?

A block groups the sounds of one Korean syllable. 셐 has an opening consonant, a vowel, and an ending consonant. Its decomposed Unicode parts are ᄉ + ᅦ + ᆿ: the initial, middle, and final pieces.

Hangul was created under King Sejong as a learnable way to write Korean; its creation is recorded in 1443, and a book explaining its purpose and design appeared in 1446. Before Hangul, Korean was also written with Chinese characters, called Hanja in Korean. Methods called Idu and Hyangchal used those characters to write Korean sounds and words; Gugyeol added reading cues to Chinese texts so readers could read them in Korean.

The name Hangeul became widely used in the early 20th century. This is the history of the script's name; 셐 itself is one syllable formed by Hangul's rules.