Hangeul - Introduction

Hangul was invented In 1446, King Sejong published this Korean letter as Hunmin chong-um. The book which is also named as Hunmin chong-um includes the reason for the invention, the aim and the date when it was published. But the stubborn ministers were against the using of Hangul because they thought that Han-ja(Chinese letters) is the best which they had been using for thousands of years. Thereafter for about 400 years Hunmin chong-um had been ill-treated by nobilities but then it became popular among common people in literature.In the early days of the 20th century, as the invasion of the Japanese took place for 36 years, Japanese forbade Koreans from neither writing and reading Hangul nor speaking Korean language but the Chosun Linguistics Association and the Independece Movement did their best in order to keep Hangul. Also during those days Hangul specialist 'Ju Shi Kyung' used the name 'Hangul' for the first time.The name Hangul was gradually spread and after the independence of Korea, Hangul has been confirmed as the Korean alphabet. In 1997, Korean language has been chosen for the American Standard Aptitude Test, S.A.T's optional foreign language subject and the Korean proficiency test has been taken in various countries such as Japan, China, Kazahastan, Uzbekistan.Hunmin chong-um means exact "The right sound to teach people", which was not only the name of new character, so called "Hunmin chong-um", but also the name of interpretation book into Chinese character written by the Jiphyunjeon court scholars in September of 1446. Hunmin chong-um consists of courtesy part, comment part and introduction part. It includes backgrounds and the reason of creating Hangul, numbers of alphabet, the system & principle and the usage of it. in 1447 the courtesy part of Hunmin chong-um was translated in Hangul. This book is also called Hummin chong-um. So the first Hunmin chong-um is called the original book of Hunmin chong-um and the other one is called the translated book. Also Hunmin chong-um was acknowledged and registered as the 'Memory of the World' of Unesco in 1997.The background of inventing Hangul was well described in the chapter 42 of Sejongsilrok which is a history book written in the old days. In case of consonants ,they made basic 5 of them after the shape of organs which produces sounds(such as mouth and throat) and the rest was made with combination of those basic 5 letters.G.Sampson who is a famous professor working at the computer department at Sussex University in U.K mentioned as follows."There is no doubt that Hangul is the greatest writing system in the world from a scientific viewpoint. There is no precedent in the world, as Hangul was made according to certain principles. Above all, Hangul is a scientific system, invented systematically following the shapes of vocal organs as they make sounds. Furthermore, the writing system reflects the characteristic of the sounds.......Each letter of han-gul was made in this way, with the shapes of the vocal organs in mind.Many Western scholars and intellectuals who are knowledgeable about the scientific aspects of Hangul are very impressed by the principles behind its invention."Also Prof.Byun of the computer department from Dong-Kuk University in Korea had said that "The computer, which we think of as all-powerful, is driven by the repetition of two numbers--0 and 1-according to certain rules, but it has propelled the world into the information age almost instantaneously. It is the same with music.In Western music, seven notes--do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti-are used to create innumerable scores from the classical works of Mozart to the rap songs of Seo Taiji that Korean adolescents love. The same is true with Hangul. It is a characteristic of Hangul that the limited code of 24 letters, sfter several rules are applied, creates an unlimited number of sounds. In this way, Hangul is more scientific than any other writing system, and it is based on the same principles as the computer, a product of modern science."