A Guide to using Python-Jamo

DISCLAIMER: This library is still in beta. Some features may not work as described.

Hangul is a wonderful writing system. Originating in 1443 to represent the Korean language, it is an alphabet of 24 consonants and vowels, each of which are called jamo (자모/字母).

Let’s analyze it’s phonemes by decomposing some Hangul. Maybe even construct some Hangul afterwards.

Hangul Decomposition

The python jamo library aims to provide a straightforward interface to Hangul decomposition:

>>> from jamo import h2j
>>> h2j("한굴")
['ᄒ', 'ᅡ', 'ᆫ', 'ᄀ', 'ᅮ', 'ᆯ']
>>> h2j("자모=字母")
['ᄌ', 'ᅡ', '\\x00', 'ᄆ', 'ᅩ', '\\x00', '=', '字', '母']

That was easy! Notice that the characters may not have rendered correctly. This is because there are actually two sets of jamo in Unicode. We printed the U+11xx set. The set that computers actually use for rendering individual jamo characters is in U+31xx. To learn more, read more about Hangul Compatibility Jamo (here on referenced as HJC). Also related, Gernot Katzers has an excellent writeup on Hangul representation in unicode worth a read.

Say we wanted to get the display characters:

>>> from jamo import h2cj
>>> h2cj("한굴")
ㅎㅏㄴㄱㅜㄹ
>>> h2cj("자모=字母")
ㅈㅏㅁㅗ=字母

Decomposing Hangul is as simple as that.

Hangul Synthesis

There are two functions for Hangul synthesis. The first combines a lead, vowel, and optional tail:

>>> from jamo import j2h
>>> j2h('ㅇ', 'ㅕ', 'ㅇ')
영
>>> j2h('ㅇ', 'ㅓ')
어

Ambiguity may arise when there is a long string of jamo. The library does its best to guess what the original Hangul was:

>>> from jamo import synth_hangul
>>> synth_hangul("...")
(True, ...)
>>> synth_hangul("...")
(False, ...)

Note that when there are ambiguous cases, False is returned as the status.

Large Texts

When working with large files, we will end up with lots of output. To handle large files, it is recommended to use the generator functions:

>>> from jamo import hangul_to_jamo
>>> long_story = open("구운몽.txt", 'r').read()
>>> hangul_to_jamo(long_story)
<itertools.chain at 0x7f31baf89cc0>

and for HCJ:

>>> from jamo import hangul_to_hcj
>>> long_story = open("구운몽.txt", 'r').read()
>>> hangul_to_hcj(long_story)
<itertools.chain at 0x7f31baf89cc0>