Total number of the Hangul Characters?

[null]

Someone has a rough idea about this?

Is it theoretically an open set?

[Karavinka]

The number of the theoretically possible Modern Hangul syllables in Unicode is: 11,172. Among these, the top 2350 syllables occupy 99.9% of all that is used.

Initial consonant 19 * Middle vowel 21 * (Final consonant 27 + No final 1) = 11,172.

Among these, there are 3.192 possible syllable combinations possible in Korean phonotactics:

Initial consonant 19 * Middle vowel 21 * (Final consonant 7 + No final 1) = 3,192.

This is because Korean phonetics merges different morphological phonemes in the final position into one among: ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ, ㅂ, or ㅇ. "South Korean Standard" also specifies pronunciation rules where certain vowels are pronounced the same, and this renders 2,904 possible syllables pronouncced distinctly in Standard Korean.

If one includes all obsolete consonants and vowels from Medieval Korean in consideration, the number becomes much higher. Unicode 5.2 includes 124 initial consonants, 95 middle vowels and 137 final consonants. Some of these are the sounds lost over time, while many others represent transcription symbols for the foreign sounds.

Rough Hangul syllable count then becomes: 125 * 96 * 138 = 1,656,000. Among these, 16,989 of them (124*137) are not possible combinations for a simple reason that they lack a vowel. Hence, the all possible Hangul syllable combination is: 1,639,011, as of Unicode 5.2.

[null]

i've just got another answer from another Korean forumer:

Since there are only 2 or 3 characters per block, and since there are 24 characters, then the maximum number of blocks would be 24*24*(24+1)=14400. But many of these blocks would be unreadable since they cannot be made of three consonants or three vowels -- rather 2 consonants and 1 vowel, or 1 consonant and 1 vowel. Therefore, I estimate the maximum readable number of blocks is around 14*10*(14+1)=2100. This is an approximation, but I think it is not so far from the reality.

[Karavinka]

i've just got another answer from another Korean forumer:

Since there are only 2 or 3 characters per block, and since there are 24 characters, then the maximum number of blocks would be 24*24*(24+1)=14400. But many of these blocks would be unreadable since they cannot be made of three consonants or three vowels -- rather 2 consonants and 1 vowel, or 1 consonant and 1 vowel. Therefore, I estimate the maximum readable number of blocks is around 14*10*(14+1)=2100. This is an approximation, but I think it is not so far from the reality.

I find his method problematic.

There are 24 basic characters, fourteen "consonants" and ten "vowels." Additional five double-consonants ㄲ/ㄸ/ㅆ/ㅉ/ㅃ can be placed on the first position, and ㅆ can be placed on the final. Moreover, several more double graphemes can be placed on the final position, ㄳ ㄵ ㅄ etc. More possible diphthongs have their own graphemes, such as ㅘ ㅒ ㅖ ㅟ ㅞ etc. These are generally not included in "24" because they are made from two basic components.

So-
All possible initial position (C): 19. ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ
All possible middle position (V): 21. ㅏ ㅐ ㅑ ㅒ ㅓ ㅔ ㅕ ㅖ ㅗ ㅘ ㅙ ㅚ ㅛ ㅜ ㅝ ㅞ ㅟ ㅠ ㅡ ㅢ ㅣ
All possible ending position (C): 28. (null) ㄱ ㄲ ㄳ ㄴ ㄵ ㄶ ㄷ ㄹ ㄺ ㄻ ㄼ ㄽ ㄾ ㄿ ㅀ ㅁ ㅂ ㅄ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ

So, simple calculation yields 11,172.

This would yield many syllables not used at all, such 꿶 흾 떇 etc but they still remain pronounceable. Following the rule of the final consonant, they are pronounced /꿴/ /흽/ /떅/.

[null]

Thanks, noir.

You are truly an expert.

[Senyani]

WOW!

I never knew that! I wonder why they have syllables that aren't used at all in the first place? Imagine if they still used the Hangul Jamo......XD

Thanks for this!

[Karavinka]

WOW!

I never knew that! I wonder why they have syllables that aren't used at all in the first place? Imagine if they still used the Hangul Jamo......XD

Thanks for this!

Because Hangul is technically alphabetic. The merely possible combinations just exist, without ever being used... For example, how many syllables can you write using Latin alphabet? Probably as many or more (since Latin allows consonant clusters) but not all of them will be used in a given language.

[Senyani]

Thanks! That's amazing though. Even more so for me because I thought that it was around 1000 or 2000.