Understanding Sinosphere Characters through a Comparison of Korean, Chinese, and English Characters

Since ancient times, the application of Chinese characters went beyond China’s borders to regions such as the Korean peninsula, the Japanese archipelago, and northern Vietnam; their use was a necessary means of educating intellectuals and sharing culture. The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea, was created by King Sejong the Great in 1446 and employs phonograms that give the sound of characters by combining graphemes, as in English. However, while there is a morphological difference of linguistics compared to Chinese characters (i.e., ideograms), one principle of the Korean alphabet established during its inception was that it should be used in combination with Chinese characters. Therefore, the Korean alphabet naturally absorbed intrinsic denominators such as syllable-based writing in a square frame and vertical writing. This common denominator contrasts the phoneme-based horizontal writing of English in that the graphemes, radicals (i.e., bushu), and basic characters are arranged within the limited range of the square frame. In such a system, the size, slant, proportion, and arrangement of the graphemes and radicals mutually affect each other in the writing process at a level above the word impulse. Based on the basic structure of the Korean alphabet, this paper focuses on understanding the differences between the Korean, Chinese, and English characters, as well as the correlations between square frame structure and vertical writing, which are an intrinsic feature of Sinosphere3 characters. Accelerated globalization requires Forensic Document Examiners (FDE) to better understand these various characters and their correlations with English characters plus gain an understanding of the Korean and Chinese cultures they came from. Therefore, this paper examines the square-framed, syllable-based writing form, as well as the vertical writing system with regards to handwriting analysis in forensic document examination.