Koreans consider their own alphabet, Hangeul, beautiful and are proud of its ingenious combination of vowels and consonants, even though no other country uses it and it creates a welter of problems in a globalized world.

The National Institute of the Korean Language in a survey found that 92.1 percent of respondents found Hangeul beautiful, 91.8 percent rational, and a patriotic 86.8 percent the best in the world pending further information about others. Some 88.9 percent claimed to be interested in Hangeul and its history.

