Hangul: a Korean king creates a script for the people
King Sejong introduces an alphabet of twenty-eight letters so that a plain man can learn to read in a day—against the Chinese characters open only to the learned.
In 1443 King Sejong of the Joseon dynasty announces a new script, and in 1446 promulgates it with an explanation: twenty-eight letters, in which the shapes of the consonants follow the position of the tongue and lips in speaking. Until then Koreans wrote in Chinese characters, and only the learned were literate. Sejong writes that a clever man will learn the new script before noon, and a dull one in ten days. The scholarly class resists for centuries, holding to the characters; Hangul lives in the letters of women and common people, and becomes the common script of Korea only in the twentieth century. Today it is the only alphabet in the world whose creator, year and design are known exactly.
Sources
Documents of the period
- the Hunminjeongeum—the promulgation of the script with its explanation, 1446 — the design of the letters and the king's words on learning in a day
Scholarship
- studies of the history of Korea — the scholars' resistance and the fate of the script down to the twentieth century
Basis: documents and evidence.