Korea borrowed the Chinese system of writing, including its numerals and calculating methods, in the third or fourth century CE. During the reign of King Sejong the Great, a unique and rare “featural” type of alphabet was developed for writing the Korean language, invented either by the king himself or by scholars he commissioned. This alphabet, known as Han’gŭl, bases the shapes of its letters on “articulatory features,” the movements made by the mouth in pronouncing Korean words. As a featural alphabet, Han’gŭl lacks semasiographic signs (these are signs that lack pronunciation clues), including numerals. The Han’gŭl numerals are in fact the Korean words for numbers, written glottographically (that is, written lexically or phonographically in a way that provides clues for pronouncing the Korean number-words). A parallel in English would write numbers as words: “one,” “two,” “three.” The Han’gŭl numerals are unique, since numeral systems around the world are semasiographic rather than lexical, phonetic, or glottographic. In lacking semasiographic numerals, the Korean writing system joins the small minority of writing systems that lack such signs.