Talk:Hangul

Renaming the article to "Korean alphabet"
Given how the writing system has a different name in North and South Korea, wouldn't it be better to use the neutral term "Korean alphabet"? Marmartoo (talk) 05:18, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Under the guidelines here, we'd decide that based on prevailing usage in reliable English-language sources. 10:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * What is the "prevailing usage"? No doubt in technical texts people use hangul, but this is a technical term, and not really an English word. In non-technical contexts, I bet the overwhelmingly most common is to say "the Korean alphabet", and in a newspaper article, for example, then tell readers that it is known as "hangul". Frankly I think it is a bizarre idea to have topics in an English-language encyclopedia which will not be known to the typical reader who is out to learn something. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * See the relevant guidelines at WP:COMMONNAME, as well as all the previous discussions on this very matter in the archives, starting with Talk:Hangul/Archive 2, so you can see what arguments for and against changing the title have been made before and how they've been judged to be consistent with the guidelines. By the way, your last sentence is weirdwe should show readers who are out to learn something only things they already know? Largoplazo (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * My last sentence is intended to illustrate the problem, and on the contrary, your last sentence is weird - consider someone who wants to know the Korean (or "technical") name of the Korean alphabet. OK, I will try to be more pedestrian: "Frankly I think it is a bizarre idea to have topics in an English-language encyclopedia identified by names which will not be known to the typical reader who is out to learn something." The ordinary reader of English does not know the word hangul (nor vast numbers of other WP article titles, even though they may appear in some dictionaries). Notice, incidentally, that by tradition the WP article for TOPIC starts something like "The TOPIC is .... known as ...". You can identify the TOPIC of this article that way. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:14, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * In addition to hangul being the COMMONNAME, phrasal descriptors often redirect (as Korean alphabet does) for a reason. No one is trying to type in Korean alphabet and walking away disappointed because they don't know the name hangul. Remsense  诉  04:33, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Expanding on Remsense's observation, titles are based on the terminology most used by sources that discuss the topic, not on the most likely guess or generic description from someone who doesn't know the topic. Titling and searching are two different things, and the latter is covered by redirects. Largoplazo (talk) 11:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Not to undercut my own point, but we careen startlingly quickly into unsettled philosophical controversies if we tug on this thread too hard, i.e. "what is a name". I'm hoping my preferred causal theory of reference is logically consistent for my case here. Remsense  诉  11:41, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I simply don't agree that "Korean alphabet" is the COMMONNAME over hangul. People who don't know it's called hangul might not know to call it an alphabet either. Remsense  诉  04:17, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Obligatory ngrams (to be taken with a grain of salt, as always) Remsense  诉  04:29, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * To be honest, in my view, if we're going to call the page Hangul, we should have more details on its applications in Jeju. Compare Arabic script vs. Arabic alphabet. AG202 (talk) 07:44, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Theknightwho (talk) 09:02, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Makes sense to me. Remsense  诉  09:20, 21 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I can't argue with that. Largoplazo (talk) 11:37, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Linguistics in the Digital Age
— Assignment last updated by Sun Snow Bear (talk) 09:24, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Changing example
I don’t really like the current example (꿀벌) of the correct way to write Hangul. I think we should change it either to 조선글 or the word for either “line” or the first person singular pronoun, both of which are only one syllable. 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:95D5:228D:3A88:24BC (talk) 16:41, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Can you give any explanation at all of why you do not like the honeybee? I can't see any obvious reason to want a single syllable; but I can see that a simpler example might be better, 서울 for example. It is definitely a bad idea to use the topic itself as an example word. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:44, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I just prefer 조선글 over 꿀벌 for the longer ones. For shorter ones, we could possibly use the first person singular pronoun (나). 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:1946:E2D:F45:B356 (talk) 21:55, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Would it be OK to change to 서울? I think so. 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:1946:E2D:F45:B356 (talk) 21:56, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I have now changed 꿀벌 to 서울. 2601:C6:D200:E9B0:FD4C:A8C1:338A:A961 (talk) 15:24, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Do we capitalize "hangul" on this article and elsewhere?
As title. Currently "Hangul" seems to be capitalized throughout this article. Is this "preferred" practice for this and other articles?

I guess it's possible that either capitalization is fine and that intra-article consistency is what matters, but considering that this article sets an implicit standard for how we capitalize "hangul" in other articles, I think it'd be nice to establish a consensus here about what's "better".

Some relevant Wikipedia pages:


 * MOS:CAPS Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
 * MOS:PEOPLANG
 * Talk:Hangul/Archive 4 (interesting point made here)
 * Talk:Hangul/Archive 3

A poll of dictionaries:


 * Lower: Merriam-Webster (specifies "often capitalized"), Collins
 * Upper: American Heritage, Random House (based on archive 3 discussion)

Other evidence:


 * Upper: Ency Britannica, ngrams (Take with grain of salt; probably counting occurrences at beginning of sentence)

Not a reliable source, but Wiktionary seems to consider Hangeul to be canonical.

Does anyone know how the linguistics literature capitalizes it? So far common capitalization practice seems unclear to me. 104.232.119.107 (talk) 04:51, 15 June 2024 (UTC)


 * In my library (focusing on sinograms and East Asian writing at-large) usage is literally split 50/50, right down the middle. I've opted for lowercase in Chinese characters for congruence with direct cognates like kanji, and related terms generally being lowercase. I don't think that has to apply elsewhere though. Remsense  诉  04:57, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think Korean linguistics books almost always capitalize it, but with a variety of romanization methods (though they seem to have converged on "Hangul"). Here's a survey of some "general" reference works on Korean:
 * A Reference Grammar of Korean (1992) by Samuel E. Martin: uses "Hankul"
 * Korean (1994) by Ho-min Sohn: uses "Han'gul", although the term itself doesn't appear very often in the book
 * The Korean Language (1999) by Ho-Min Sohn: uses "Hankul"
 * The Korean Language (2000) by Iksop Lee and S. Robert Ramsey: uses "Hangŭl"
 * The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context (2005) by Jae Jung Song: uses "Hankul"
 * A History of the Korean Language (2011) by Ki-Moon Lee and S. Robert Ramsey: uses "Hangul"
 * The Handbook of Korean Linguistics (2015) ed. Lucien Brown and Jaehoon Yeon: uses "Hangul"
 * An Introduction to Korean Linguistics (2016) by Eunhee Lee, Sean Madigan, and Mee-Jeong Park: uses "Hangul"
 * Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar, 2nd ed. (2019) by Jaehoon Yeon and Lucien Brown: uses "Hangul"
 * Korean: A Linguistic Introduction (2019) by Sungdai Cho and John Whitman: uses "Hangul"
 * The Cambridge Handbook of Korean Linguistics (2022) ed. Sungdai Cho and John Whitman: uses "Hangul", "Hangŭl", "hangul", and "hangŭl" (a few occurrences)
 * I also looked through Google Scholar, and it seems like "Hangul" is usually capitalized in linguistics papers. That said, it's possible that usage is more mixed outside of specialized sources. Malerisch (talk) 16:06, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I would opt against capitalising, on the basis that there's nothing in the manual of style that suggests we should be capitalising, really. I could potentially support italicisation on the basis of MOS:FOREIGNITALIC, though. Theknightwho (talk) 02:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
 * MOS:CAPS, as the OP mentioned? The question is whether the consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources criterion is satisfied. Malerisch (talk) 03:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)