Korean Translation Tip: The Lowdown on Korean Alphabetical Order

I’m occasionally asked if Korean has an alphabetical order.  Yes, it does!

There are officially 24 letters in the Korean alphabet, but here are the 14 used to separate a printed Korean dictionary into sections.

ㄱ ㄴ ㄷ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅅ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

The above sequence is the basic set of consonants. However, five of these can be doubled (called “tense consonants”).

That gets us to this new sequence.

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

Are we done? No…

I won’t try to explain why, but all of the vowels are filed under the ㅇ consonant and there is an order to those also. The bare-bones order is ㅏ ㅓ ㅗ ㅜ ㅡㅣ.

So, version #3:

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ (ㅏ ㅓ ㅗ ㅜ ㅡㅣ) ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

This is the basic sequence of Korean letters in Korean alphabetical order.

However, hold on to your seats; we’re about to go extreme…

There are two additional ways to complicate things, and these also factor into alphabetical order.

That’s because four of the six basic vowels can also be combined with a “y” sound (ㅏㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡㅣ; these are called “iotized vowels”), which results in this new expanded list.

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ(ㅏㅑ ㅓ ㅕ ㅗ ㅛ ㅜ ㅠ ㅡㅣ) ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

And then there are 11 more ways that the vowels can be combined with each other (called “dipthongs” apparently).

ㅐㅒ ㅔ ㅖㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟㅢ

Thus, the exhaustive list (of more than 24!) goes like this:

ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ(ㅏㅐㅑ ㅒㅓㅔ ㅕㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ  ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢㅣ) ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

If this seems too complicated, just check out the following tip to keep things simple.

Korean Translation Tip – You can quickly alphabetize Korean in Excel if you’ve got the Korean language support installed. Just put your list of words/phases into a column, select the column, and then choose Sort in the Data menu. It’s the exact same process as sorting alphabetically in English. Excel’s already got those complicated alphabetizing rules figured out. (Major CAT tools such as memoQ also do a fine job of sorting segments in Korean alphabetical order.)

You might be interested to know that the Korean keyboard is structured in a very simple way: consonants on the left and vowels on the right. Once you’ve installed the Korean keyboard in Windows, to get one of those double consonants, hold down Shift while pressing the key for the consonant. (If it’s not a “double-able” consonant, then pressing Shift won’t do anything.)

And one more thing… the names of the first three letters are pronounced “ga”, “na” and “da”. So, the word for “alphabetical” in Korean is “ganada”!

This tip should help you to mind your “biups” and “kiuks”, dot your “hiuts” and cross all of your “tiguts”…

Steven Bammel

Steven S. Bammel is president and chief translator/consultant at Korean Consulting & Translation Service, Inc. A graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington (B.B.A. Economics) and Hanyang University (M.S. Management Strategy), Steven has worked for over twenty years in Korean business and translation. | more about Steven

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