![]() Because the quickly learnable hangul fit naturally to the spoken language of Korea, it could be taught to the poor, and particularly to women. The practical effects of hangul’s creation were at first slow but steady, and then revolutionary. When chicken-and-beer restaurants were first introduced to Korea, college students merely combined the first syllables of chicken (치킨) and beer (맥주) to create the now well-known portmanteau chi-maek (치맥). Because of that ease, Korea is a nation with almost no illiteracy, and the clustered-letter syllabic nature of hangul makes the creation of new words near-instantaneously possible. Hangul’s relative simplicity and small number of letters makes it surprisingly easy to learn (theoretically possible in less than a day) and read. If you learned the stroke patterns for one vowel or consonant, you would essentially know all of them. The alphabet uses an ingenious system in which strokes are added to the base forms of vowels and consonants to create new and similar sounding letters, all following consistent patterns. Consequently, the shapes of the basic consonants mirror those of the speech organs. In addition, at least in principle, the base consonants of hangul, ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅅ, and ㅇ, were composed according to observations of the movements of the speech organs forming those consonants. Here, for example, is how the National Hangul Museum renders that idea in both hangul and English: It can also lead to increased legibility, and reading speed. ![]() The result takes up less space and suits either horizontal or vertical writing. King Sejong’s search for simplicity drove him to create a language that stacked consonants and vowels, rather than laying them out in a linear fashion, as in English. The alphabet was originally called by the depressingly bureaucratic name hunmin chong-um. Hangul originally used 28 letters, but over time that number has declined to 24, and the pronunciation of some of those letters, distinct in spelling but not in speaking, grows increasingly redundant still today. Still, the creation of hangul remains his best-known accomplishment October 9th, Hangul Day, is a national holiday. King Sejong was also responsible for the creating of a fully “Korean” calendar, free of Chinese influence. Sejong preferred achievement to traditional position, and under Sejong’s guidance a national agricultural handbook was written, as were two important works on Korean medicine. (King Sejong could not have foreseen it, but this also makes his alphabet, particularly among Asian alphabets, uniquely suited to computer keyboards and smartphones!) Hangul is phonetic, so non-Koreans who understand the rules can read it and often pronounce it quite accurately. King Sejong also had a semi-philosophical goal in mind: the (mainly) three-letter syllables were constructed so the initial consonant represented the moving sky, the middle vowel the stationary earth, and the final consonant the human being, both still and in motion. The letters are very easy to learn, and it is my fervent hope that they improve the quality of life of all people. Out of my sympathy for their difficulties, I have created a set of 28 letters. Therefore, many common people have no way to express their thoughts and feelings. In an effort to make it easier for “normal” Koreans to read and write, Sejong imagined a set of letters that were Korean, simple to learn, based on the position of the organs of speech when spoken, and formed by two- and three-letter syllables.Īt the beginning of the hangul project, King Sejong clearly stated his reasons for creating the alphabet:īeing of foreign origin, Chinese characters are incapable of capturing uniquely Korean meanings. King Sejong had been unhappy with the idea that peasants, uneducated in hanja, were therefore essentially illiterate. Officially it was created in 1443, but it actually took a few years beyond that, and then it slowly became the language of literature (very slowly, in fact, as even today some Chinese characters, or hanja, are still used in South Korea). Chinese had historically been the language of the literati, but the development of a national literature required a writing system of Korea’s own.ĭuring the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897), King Sejong decided to create a Korean alphabet. ![]() Perhaps the most important advancement for Korean literature in the Middle Ages was the development of the Korean alphabet, h angul. You can find links to previous selections at the end of the post. The LARB Korea Blog is currently featuring selections from The Explorer’s History of Korean Fiction in Translation, Charles Montgomery’s book-in-progress that attempts to provide a concise history, and understanding, of Korean literature as represented in translation. Billed Into Silence: Money and the Miseducation of Women. ![]()
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