Before the 15th century AD, Korea used Chinese characters, but they were not well suited to the language
In about 1440 King Sejong invented the Hangul (Great Script) an alphabet
28 letters (24 still used)
each letter shape based on phonetic features
sometimes called a featural alphabet
letters used to form syllable frames
Today, Hangul is written left to right
often referred to as an alphabet
contains 85 syllabemes
Invented in about 1820 by Sequoyah
original shapes looked nothing like English
in 1828, printed shapes adopted by the Cherokee tribe, formed by the printer Elias Boudinot