TheKorean language has used variouswriting systems with varyingorthographies andpunctuation over time. Writing systems that saw significant use for Korean includeHanja,Idu,Kugyŏl,Hyangch'al, and theKorean alphabet.
The Korean alphabet is now the dominant system in use in both North and South Korea. That alphabet is calledHangul internationally,Hangeul in South Korea, andChoson'gŭl in North Korea.Hangul orthography and punctuation have changed over time. The original punctuation system,kuduchŏm, was quite limited; circles were largely used to mark significant breaks in reading.Spaces between words were not used.Tone markings [ko] were used to indicate supposedtones ofMiddle Korean, although some scholars argued that Korean was instead apitch-accent language.
Hangul punctuation practices were in flux until the late 19th and 20th centuries, when significant standardization efforts began. Western punctuation practices were largely adopted, although Hangul in both North and South Korea maintains some other East Asian and local practices.
In the traditional Korean system of writing, which was largely based on the Chinese writing system, punctuation was primarily used to make corrections or to help with the understanding ofhanja, or Chinese characters.[1] Some of the corrective punctuation marks included ⟨◦⟩ called 끼움표 (kki-umpyo), which was used for inserting, and ⟨▯⟩ called 삭제부 (sakjebu) which was used for deleting.[1] The traditional writing system known asgugyeol, used punctuation to interpret Chinese characters in a way Korean speakers could understand.[2][3] One of the marks used ingugyeol was a dot ⟨•⟩ called 역독점 (yeokdokjeom), which was used to indicate reading order.[1] The conclusion of an idea or thought was indicated by starting a new line of characters from the top, as opposed to the western style punctuation of periods and commas which had not been introduced yet.[4]
The original punctuation system was calledkuduchŏm (구두점;句讀點).[5] In the 15th century, a small circle was used to mark major phrasal and sentential/clausal endings. If the circle was placed in the center after a syllable, it marked the end of a major break within a sentence. If it was placed in the right corner of the cell of the final syllable, it possibly indicated either the end of a sentence or a rising tone indicating a pause for that final character.[6]
Tone markings [ko], calledbangjeom orpangchŏm (방점;傍點;lit. side dots), were originally used in Hangul to indicatetones. They were marked by dots to the left of a Hangul character:[7][8][9][10]
The writers of theHaerye designed this system because they thought that Middle Korean had tones, similar to those of Chinese. However, a number of modern scholars disagree with this. Several argue that Middle Korean was apitch-accent language that had pitches,[12][13] possibly two: high and low.[14][15]
Several scholars have argued that the tone marking system was overly influenced by Chinese linguistics.[14] Lee and Ramsey emphasize that, while the tone system was not perfectly suited to Korean, it was and is still useful and "accurately [represents] the Korean data".[8]
Tone markings were widespread until their decline in the 16th century.[16][17][18] Kim-Renaud argues that, by this point, pitches were relatively predictable, and thus marking them was redundant.[17] Lee and Ramsey argue that, by the early part of that century, the same characters received different tone markings when compared to past texts, which indicates that the pitch system was in flux. By the 1580s, texts were being produced without tone markings.[19] Sohn argues that all vowels that had a rising tone became long, whereas vowels with a high or low tone remained short.[20]
Some texts, when using Hangul to transcribe foreign languages, used a variety of relatively unique punctuation for various purposes. Some commonalities were identified by linguist Sven Osterkamp. For several Hangul works on theManchu andMongolian languages, circles were used asdiacritics to indicate unusual pronunciation. Also, as Hangul originally did not havespaces, Hangul transcriptions of Manchu and Mongolian indicated where spaces were inManchu orMongolian scripts using comma-like marks (resembling、) to the lower right of the preceding character.[21]
Some Hangul works onJapanese borrowed thedakuten diacritic from theJapanese script to indicatevoicing.[22]
The modern Korean punctuation system is largely based on European punctuation, with the use of periods (마침표;machimpyo), commas (쉼표;swimpyo), and question marks (물음표;mureumpyo).[4][1] Modern Korean is typically written horizontally using European punctuation. However, when it is written vertically, Korean writing tends to follow East Asian punctuation which includes ⟨。⟩ (고리점;gorijeom) as a period, ⟨、⟩ (모점;mojeom) as a comma, and ⟨『...』⟩ (겹낫표;gyeomnatpyo) as quotation marks.[1]
The South Korean orthography provides guidance on punctuation used in horizontal writing, and not those for vertical writing. Below is a summary of its guidance on punctuation (excluding those used very similarly in English).[23]
The North Korean orthography gives the following guidance for horizontal writing:
For vertical writing, the guidance is largely the same as horizontal writing. Some guidance is given on the placement and rotation of the preceding characters. For example, the comma and period are put on the bottom right of the preceding character (i.e. to the top right of the following cell). While the exclamation point and question mark are not rotated, most other punctuation marks are, like the tilde.[30]
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