The Alphabet Somebody Sat Down and Designed

Every other writing system on earth grew. This one was made - finished in 1443, published in 1446, so that ordinary people could learn to read in a morning. And the design shows: the letters are pictures of the mouth making the sound, so a child says "mmm", feels their lips close into a square, and looks at a square. Twenty-four letters, almost none of which have to be memorized, and at the end of them you can read a Korean sign.