Not Optimal yet Near-Optimal Writing System and Hangul

This chapter begins with a discussion of the relations between spoken language and written language, followed by the typology of writing systems. It enlarges what constitutes a good writing system by focusing on the learnability, decipherability, efficiency, and automatizability of reading. As orthographies vary in specific mapping between written signs and linguistic units among writing systems, the roles of phonemes, graphemes, and syllables in orthotactic rules are reviewed. A discussion of optimal writing centers on the form, function, and use of writing systems, followed by a comparison between English and Korean. The representability, producibility, and utility of the Korean writing system are discussed. A writing system that coalesces both alphabetic and syllabic characteristics may be more suitable for the psychoacoustic reality of reading and for promoting the automaticity of processing words. The chapter lastly discusses Hangul’s learnability for novice readers’ learning to read and efficiency for expert readers’ reading to learn, which makes Hangul qualify for not an optimal yet near-optimal writing system.