Re: Hangul: Middle Korean

On 2012.04.19 11:28 AM, Ben Monroe wrote:
> A few examples of what I am looking for:
>
> mol 'horse': ㅁ (m) + ㆍ(o) + ㄹ(l).
> Should be stacked from top to bottom.
> The vowel o (U+318D) is now obsolete.

Just to point out, the jamo at U+3131 to U+318E are characters added for compatibility with some Korean standards and don't combine. The block starting at U+1100 is what you're looking for.

And yes, there are only precomposed characters for the modern syllables; older letters require the syllable to be spelled out. So the way to encode mol (ᄆᆞᆯ) is with the three-character sequence <U+1106, U+119E, U+11AF>. Unfortunately, not all systems display it properly.

> kozolh 'autumn': ㄱ (k) + ㆍ(o) + ㅿ (z) + ㆍ(o) + ㄹ(l) + ㅎ(h).

This would be <U+1100, U+119E, U+1140, U+119E, U+11B6> (ᄀᆞᅀᆞᆶ if your system displays it properly). The Hangul_Syllable_Type property lets the system know that there's a syllable break between the ᆞ and the ᇫ, which is why it's important not to mix up initial and final consonant characters.

> Many Middle Korean words include consonants that are still used today.
> For example, azo 'younger brother' is two consonants a + zo.
> The initial a is written as 아, the same as in Modern Korean.
> When written along with the following -zo (see above), is it
> appropriate for a to remain pre-composed (아) or should it be
> decomposed (ㅇ and ㅏ).

Both are correct, and are canonically equivalent to each other (thus they should be handled by the system in the same way). The precomposed form is usually preferred simply because it's fewer characters.

> And if so, could someone please point me to fonts (free or otherwise)
> that can handle the display?

Unfortunately, I can't help you there. I'm also in need of such a font.

I hope that explanation helps.

—Ben Scarborough
Received on Thu Apr 19 2012 - 01:51:25 CDT