>>| because Jamo is an alphabet.
>>
>>I can sympathize with that point of view, and certainly agree that
>>Jamo could have been used as an alphabet like all the others. That is
>>not how it is used, however.
>
>Of course it is. The principle feature of an alphabet is that it has
>symbols denoting consonants and vowels. Linear presentation of these,
>whether horizontal or vertical, is not the underlying feature.
>Syllable clustering of alphabetic letters in Hangul is a typographic
>feature of the script. It takes nothing away from its alphabet-nature.
>>Hangul is structured from an alphabet (the jamo). That alphabet is
>>so tightly coupled to the phonology of Korean that it can be
>>considered a phonemic alphabet -- it is very regularly related to
>>the sound of Korean.
>
>Oh well. I guess you never heard about all the liaisons
>and things that go on with final consonants and consonant
>clusters. Hangul was order-made for Korean, but Korean has
>changed. In many ways, it's similar to the current state
>of French. It's definitely not as nice as Finish or Italian,
>but not as bad as English.