The Alphabet in the Dictionary

Korean dictionaries employ a bewildering variety of Han’gul alphabetizations. However, they can be divided into two broad types. The first is most common in South Korea, the second is official in North Korea. The South Korean dictionaries embed all the vowel signs under the letter ㅇ, whereas the North Korean dictionaries relegate the letter ㅇin its Zero reading (i.e., preceding vowels) to the back of the dictionary. In the early stages of your course you will not need to consult a dictionary much, but later on you will do so considerably, so you will probably want to refer back to this section at some stage. (1) Republic of Korea (South Korea) (Read from left to right.) Consonant Order

Vowel Order (within the Zero ‘consonant’ sign –/ng ㅇ )

There are three variations on the South Korean ordering: a) Ignore double consonants except where entries are otherwise the same. b) Ignore double consonants except where entries are otherwise the same, but keep a difference for final double consonants analogous to that of the singlets:

c) Recognize double consonants both initially and finally, making separate places for the initial double consonants (as in parentheses above), and keeping the final double consonants in the order shown in (2).

(2) DPRK (North Korea) In North Korea, they place the doubled consonants and all the vowel signs at the back of the dictionary: Consonant Order

Vowel Order (within the Zero ‘consonant’ sign –/ng ㅇ )