Nathan: I’ve noticed that, too about the “miŭm” looking like a final “mem.” Whether there’s any historical influence, I have no idea. As far as I know, there was no mediaeval Isaac of Hanyang on Sejong’s team of scholars! And yes, it would be better to say that Masoretic Hebrew was an elaboration of non-pointed script. Good point (er, …) on the modern stuff.

Incidentally, many Hebrew syllables also end in consonants. The so-called “silent shewa” is used underneath the consonant that ends a syllable that precedes the next syllable, always started by a consonant (including Aleph).

I have often thought that Korean and Sumerian (which is not a Semitic language) seem distantly related, although I can’t really say why, and I’ve also often wondered what sources Sejong’s scholars used to invent their alphabet–might a Jewish scholar or work have been used as a source? The lateness of the invention of Hangul, the equivalence between aleph and the iung, and the similar way of forming letters (including the odd identically shaped letter, such as “m”) have made me curious. Perhaps you could help me with that last point.

What’s interesting is that syllable formation is very similar in both Han’gŭl and Hebrew. In both, block syllables are typically formed from a consonant and a vowel (with, of course, optionally a final consonant in Han’gŭl). In most cases in Hebrew, the vowel mark is placed under the consonant, in a manner similar to Han’gŭl. As a bonus, both writing systems have a special, silent placeholder consonant (aleph in Hebrew and iŭng in Han’gŭl) that together with the accompanying vowel markings represent a vowel sound. (This applies for marked-up, Masoretic Hebrew. A simplified (and older) form of Hebrew writing omits the vowel markings.)