Restoring parts of the original Hunminjeongeum could allow hangul to represent sounds unique to each language; Hangul Festa 2026 draws 385 entries from 58 countries in 55 languages; Italy's Picchioni Claudia wins top Sejong Award

The Sejong Award-winning entry by Italy's Picchioni Claudia at Hangul Festa 2026. [Kyung Dong Navien]
The Sejong Award-winning entry by Italy's Picchioni Claudia at Hangul Festa 2026. [Kyung Dong Navien]

lady-ㄹㄹㅔㅣ디, water-ㆆㅜㅗ터ᄛ, kids-킫ㅿ, family-ㆄㅐ밀리.

Revive parts of the original hangul script — Hunminjeongeum — and something close to these renderings becomes possible, offering far more precise transcriptions of English sounds than modern hangul allows.

Modern hangul's weakness is its inability to accurately represent sounds unique to individual languages. The v, f, z and θ sounds found in Greek, Latin and Cyrillic scripts have no equivalent in the current system, yet they closely match the Hunminjeongeum characters ㅸ, ㆄ, ㅿ and ㅼ (the last being closer to ㄸ). The nasal m sound common in French, meanwhile, resembles the sound value of ㅱ.

Restoring even a handful of Hunminjeongeum characters — as was done with the so-called Cia-Cia hangul writing system — significantly broadens the range of sounds hangul can represent across languages. The Hangul Nuri Foundation has developed a system called Nuri Hangul that incorporates transcription frameworks for English, Chinese, Spanish and Japanese. Nuri Hangul restores four Hunminjeongeum characters — ㆁ, ㆆ, ㅿ and ㆍ — and uses the throat-sound letters ㅇ, ㆆ and ㅎ, the half-tooth-sound letter ㅿ, and the tongue-sound letter ㄹ as diacritical markers to express language-specific sounds with greater precision. It also structures compound vowels — diphthongs and triphthongs — by writing the trailing vowel in a smaller size.

The Hangul Nuri Foundation held Hangul Festa 2026 over three months from May through August. The competition received 385 entries from 58 countries written in 55 languages, a 53 percent increase from the previous year. This year's event drew particular attention for attracting participants from Nepali (Nepal), Slovenian (Slovenia), Khmer (Cambodia), Kom (Cameroon) and Tumbuka (Malawi) language communities.

The Sejong Award — given to the single best entry across both the hangul and Nuri Hangul categories — went to Picchioni Claudia of Italy, who entered the Nuri Hangul category in Italian. Her work introduces, in Nuri Hangul, the shared culinary traditions of Italy's "quinto quarto" and Korean food culture.

The first-place prize went to Ha Hai Anh of Vietnam, who entered in Vietnamese, and Pamela Elizabeth Coloma Rivadeneira of Ecuador, who entered in Spanish.

"The reach has expanded from Asia and Africa into Europe," the Hangul Nuri Foundation said. "It is deeply impressive that the top prize winner came from Italy — the very birthplace of the Roman alphabet."

The foundation plans to expand Nuri Hangul beyond its current four languages. Kyung Dong Navien is sponsoring the foundation in support of broader hangul adoption.


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