The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul in South Korea is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. It has been described as a "syllabic alphabet", as it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, although it is not necessarily an abugida. Modern Hangul orthography uses 24 basic letters: 14 consonant letters and 10 vowel letters.