The Brain Recognises Hangul as an 'Image'... The Science of Block Writing

Hangul is a unique and scientific writing system unparalleled in the history of global scripts. Since its creation by King Sejong, it has been praised as 'letters that can be learned in a morning', but recent research trends go beyond its historical excellence. Particularly, the book Analyzing the Korean Alphabet: The Science of Hangul by Professor Hye K. Pae in 2024 re-examines Hangul from the perspectives of modern psycholinguistics and grapholinguistics, revealing the astonishing mechanisms by which the human brain processes Hangul.

Hangul, Not Just a Simple Alphabet but a 'Morphosyllabic' System

Classifying Hangul simply as an 'alphabet' does not fully explain its structural characteristics. Professor Pae defines Hangul as a 'morphosyllabic alphabet'. This means that while it has the characteristics of an alphabetic script, it visually blocks syllables and further preserves the morpheme's original form in its orthography.

Unlike typical alphabets like the Roman script, which have an arbitrary relationship between the shape and sound of letters, Hangul is the world's only featural script that visually implements the properties of sounds by adding strokes to consonants (ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅁ, etc.). Its most significant feature is the adoption of the 'block writing' method, where letters are arranged within a square space rather than horizontally. This gives Hangul a two-dimensional geometric structure, dramatically increasing information density.

Visual Complexity Enhances Reading Efficiency

The block writing structure of Hangul has higher visual complexity compared to the fewer strokes of the Roman script. However, research has shown that this complexity does not hinder reading efficiency but rather promotes it. This is explained by the 'foveal load' theory. By presenting information compactly, Hangul reduces the number of saccades and allows more information to be acquired in a single fixation. In other words, the high information density per unit area speeds up reading.

Reading Hangul Through Neuroscience: A Duet of Analysis and Intuition

The cognitive mechanism of reading Hangul is characterised by the coexistence of constituent processing and gestalt processing.

• Constituent Processing: When reading unfamiliar words or for novice readers, the consonants and vowels within a block are decoded individually. The high regularity of Hangul aids this bottom-up processing.

• Gestalt Processing: Skilled readers recognise frequently encountered syllable blocks holistically, like an image. This top-down processing allows immediate access to the meaning of words without analysing individual letters.

Professor Pae proposes the 'Synergistic Model' to explain this. Readers achieve optimal reading efficiency by processing visual form, sound, and meaning integratively, rather than sequentially or in parallel.

Beyond Perfection: The Balance of a 'Near-Optimal' System

Scientific analysis evaluates Hangul as a 'near-optimal' system, finding a delicate balance between ease of learning and efficiency of use. The morphosyllabic orthography (e.g., not writing 'gapsi' for 'gapsi') slightly increases writing difficulty but maximises reading efficiency by allowing readers to visually grasp meaning instantly.

In the modern digital environment, the status of Hangul has been further strengthened. The Cheonjiin input method on mobile devices proves that King Sejong's combinatorial principle perfectly aligns with 21st-century digital interfaces. Hangul is not just a cultural heritage of a nation but one of the most intellectual and efficient information transmission systems devised by humanity, with high value for neuroscientific research as a universal intellectual asset.