Using Korean in Spacemacs

I’ve started trying out Emacs because I lost patience while trying to set up Haskell development environment in Vim. Some random person on the Internet suggested Spacemacs as an alternative, so I decided to give it a try. So far I’m liking it - it works out of box without much configuration. Unfortunately the documentation on setting up Korean language environment was a bit outdated and/or fragmented for an Emacs newbie like me to easily understand. After some researching I’ve come up with a working configuration so I’ll share it here. I’m using D2Coding font, but feel free to use whatever you like.

I’m using Ubuntu 16.04.4 and Emacs 26.1.

;; ~/.spacemacs

(defun dotspacemacs/user-config ()
  (set-language-environment "Korean")
  (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8)
  (setq default-korean-keyboard "3f")
  (global-set-key (kbd "<kana>") 'toggle-input-method)
  (global-unset-key (kbd "S-SPC"))
  (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'hangul '("D2Coding" . "unicode-bmp"))
  ;; EDIT: There's no need to specify unicode ranges as below. The above line should be good enough.
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x1100 . #x11ff) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '#x20a9 '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x302e . #x302f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3130 . #x318f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3200 . #x321e) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3260 . #x327f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xa960 . #xa97f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xac00 . #xd7a3) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xd7b0 . #xd7ff) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xffa1 . #xffdc) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  ;; (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '#xffe6 '("D2Coding" . "iso10646"))
  )

This is what the setting means line-by-line:

  • (set-language-environment "Korean"): Load Korean language environment. Use command C-h L Korean <RET> to see what it does.
  • (prefer-coding-system 'utf-8): Korean language environment has ISO-2022-KR, EUC-KR, and CP949 coding systems. I use utf-8 instead.
  • (setq default-korean-keyboard "3f"): Default is 2-beolsik, but I use 3-beolsik-final. You won’t need this line if you use 2-beolsik. To see the list of available input methods, try C-h I hangul.
  • (global-set-key (kbd "<kana>") 'toggle-input-method): Assign input toggle function to Korean/English key.
  • (global-unset-key (kbd "S-SPC")): By default, Shift+Space is the input toggle key. I unbind it because I keep unintentionally switching the input.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x1100 . #x11ff) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Use D2Coding font for characters between U+1100-U+11ff, called Hangul Jamo in iso-10646 Unicode standard.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '#x20a9 '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for halfwidth Korean Won symbol in Currency Symbols.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x302e . #x302f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for characters that represent medieval Korean tones in CJK Symbols and Punctuation.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3130 . #x318f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Hangul Compatibility Jamo.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3200 . #x321e) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Korean characters enclosed in parenthesis in Enclosed CJK Letters and Months.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#x3260 . #x327f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Korean characters enclosed in circle in Enclosed CJK Letters and Months.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xa960 . #xa97f) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Hangul Jamo Extended-A.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xac00 . #xd7af) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Hangul_Syllables.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xd7b0 . #xd7ff) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for Hangul_Jamo_Extended-B.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '(#xffa1 . #xffdc) '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for halfwidth Korean characters in Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms.
  • (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" '#xffe6 '("D2Coding" . "iso10646")): Font setting for fullwidth Korean Won symbol in Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms.