Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/405

 COBBAN ALPHABET. 375 alphabet is so beautifully simple, that half-an-hour's study is, sufficient to master it ; and as, like Pitman's Phonography, it is employed phonetically* it is universally known and used by men, women, and children. So much so, that a Corean, who " did not know a single character " — ^implying Chinese — sat down to a MS. copy of John's Gospel, and left it off only when he had read it all, not a single word having escaped him. This proves the great superiority of Corean over Chinese for the purposes of translation. This alphabet consists of thirteen initial consonants, which, in the order of the Corean alphabet, are — g, n, d, r, m, b, 8, h, ds (j)f ta (ch), t, p and k; — ^five simple vowels — a, u, o, oo, i; — nine compound vowels — ia, iu, io, iw, (i^o), vxi, wo, wi (Eng. we), WW (Eng. won), woo ; — ^two composite vowels — e of let, by combining a and i ; and i, the a of made, by u and i.* There are besides, nine finals proper, though any vowel may be a final — g, n, d, r, m, b, 8, i, and ng; and as the vowel always reata upon a consonant^ a circle or cypher stands before the vowel, which initials a syllable. 1) final is, however, never employed ; the letter for 8 occupying its place. The following notes are extracted from my Corean Primer : — " The same letter stands for da and j, for ta and ch, for I and r. But Chinese I is trans- literated by n, not by r. Our w (double oo) is formed by prefixing o to the vowel'' When closing a syllable the finals b, g are pronounced like English final p, h; and a for final d, like English t, holding an intermediate position between Corean p> b, k, g, t, d, which are like the Chinese ; d and t are as in Chinese, pronounced from the edge of the upper row of teeth instead of from the roof of the mouth." " In pronouncing lip, the Chinaman is compelled to make two syllables, li-pu; the English speaker opens his lips after forming the p, but utters no them in my Mandarin Primer— a of far, u of fun, even when dosing a syllable; o of lot, 00 of moon, and t of it, I felt compelled to adopt oo to avoid the inevitable confusion arising from the double power of «, from whieh duality Japanese alone seems happily exempt.
 * All the vowels are named with the uniform and oonatant value which is given