{"id":67254,"date":"2025-12-24T10:32:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/incheonganghwa\/2025\/12\/24\/read-7000-languages-in-hangul\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T10:32:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T01:32:45","slug":"read-7000-languages-in-hangul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thekoreantoday.com\/incheonganghwa\/2025\/12\/24\/read-7000-languages-in-hangul\/","title":{"rendered":""Read 7,000 Languages in Hangul""},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Read 7,000 Languages in Hangul”
King Sejong’s 582-Year-Old Design Meets Modern Linguistics<\/span><\/h1>\n

WIA (World Certification Industry Association)<\/strong> has released WIHP (WIA International Hangul Phonology)<\/strong>, a system claiming to transcribe any language’s pronunciation using the Korean alphabet. Here are answers to the most common questions and skepticisms.<\/p>\n

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[King Sejong and IPA Connection]\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

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Q1. “7,000 languages in Hangul?” Isn’t that an exaggeration?<\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> The secret lies in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)<\/strong>. Created by linguists in 1888, the IPA represents ALL human speech sounds using approximately 250 symbols<\/strong>. Every language\u2014English, Swahili, Icelandic\u2014uses combinations of these 250 sounds.<\/p>\n

WIHP maps these 250 IPA symbols to Hangul<\/strong>. Therefore, any language expressible in IPA (approximately 7,000) can be read in Hangul.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[IPA to Hangul Mapping]<\/p>\n

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Q2. Can’t the Latin alphabet do the same thing with IPA mapping?<\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> Great question. But the answer is no<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Consider the “th” sound in English:<\/p>\n