Korean Alphabets - Vowels

Vowels  (모음 ):

korean language consists of 14 basic vowels, which in turn give birth to other 7 mixed or combined vowels. Vowels in Korean language have a fixed sound and they as any other language transfer their sound to consonants, in simple cases.
Now coming to alphabets in Korean Language. Below is the list of Korean Vowels. The initial 14 are the basic vowels.

Vowel Chart:

Simple

Palatalized

Labiovelarized

 Upper tone

ㅏ [a]

ㅑ [ya]

 

 

ㅐ [ae]

ㅒ [yae]

 

 

ㅓ [o^]

ㅕ [yo^]

 

 

ㅔ [e]

ㅖ [ye]

 

 

ㅗ [o]

ㅛ [yo]

ㅘ [wa]  
ㅙ [wae] 

ㅚ [oe]

ㅜ [u]

ㅠ [yu]

ㅝ [wo^] 
ㅞ [we] 

ㅟ [ui]

ㅡ [u^]

 

 

ㅢ[u^i]

ㅣ [i]

 

 

 

Dictionary order:

ㅏ(ㅐ, ㅒ), ㅑ, ㅓ (ㅔ, ㅖ), ㅕ, ㅗ (ㅘ, ㅙ, ㅚ), ㅛ, ㅜ (ㅝ, ㅞ, ㅟ), ㅠ, ㅡ (ㅢ), ㅣ

A little bit of historical or Traditional classification of vowels.

T

raditionally vowels originated from three different classifications. 1st one is “yang” (bright), “yin” (dark) and neutral. This is important lesson while learning the conjugation of predicates and some phonological aspects of Korean. This also symbolizes the harmony in Korean vowels structures, an Altaic language family trait. The main distribution is as follows:

yang (bright) -- ㅏ and ㅗ series (ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅘ)
yin (dark) -- ㅓ and ㅜ series (ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅜ, ㅠ, ㅝ)
neutral -- ㅡ and ㅣ

Read more about Pronunciation of Vowels with English words