(경) 한글날 (축) !!!
Happy Hangul Day everyone! October 9th in Korea is a day to celebrate the invention of the Korean alphabet by Great King Sejung [1419-1450], known as the Regenerating Ancestor. His goal was to create a Korean set of characters that would be scientific and easy to learn. To this end, he presented his creation, the Hangul alphabet, after years of study, in 1443. It was officially put into practice by royal decree in 1446.
The Hangul/Hangeul alphabet served tremendous importance in Korea, especially in governmental matters, from the start. In fact, it did as much for Korea as the English and German Bibles did for the West. Until Sejung's time, government officials and scholars used Chinese characters which were burdensome and time consuming to study (therefore also expensive) to learn. With the creation of simple syllabic alphabet of domestic origin, the benefits of literacy became much more easily extended to the Korean people as a whole. Even in this day and age, for a foreigner such as myself who is struggling to learn Korean, the writing style is admittedly easy to pick up. Though I couldn't and usually still don't understand the meaning of the words, a foreigner can learn to read the language easily within a couple of months. Because it is a phonetic system, as opposed to iconographic like (Chinese), learning the alphabet also becomes a gateway to learning the Korean language with greater fluency and proficiency in pronunciation. Part of me believes that had I chosen (get it... Chosun.... that was a pun) to go to Japan or China, I may have already given up learning the language there. Here in Korea, the ease at which the alphabet can be learned encourages one to continue studying. Also, the incorporation of Western words into the language, even when displayed in hangul, allow for a much easier sense of navigation when travelling in Korea. Often seeing the characters for K (ㅋ), T (ㅌ) or P(ㅍ) are quick indicators that the word you are looking at is something Western in origin. Words like Coffee and Computer (커피 = Kaw-pee, and 컴퓨터 = Kum-Pyoo-Tuh) always stand out in a crowd, even when written in Korean. Hard phonetic sounds such as these exist in Korean but usually the language uses the softer sounds of G (ㄱ), D (ㄷ), and B (ㅂ), respectively. There is some confusion in the romanization of Korean words because of this. The city of Pusan now goes by "B"usan for instance, to better reflect that it's name actually begins with B (ㅂ) in Hangul. From time to time you will notice that I alternate spellings of words, even within a single post. (This, by the way, is not only to show my readers the variety of spellings, but is also a blatant attempt for me to maximize search engine results *smirk*).
Further to its original purpose, Hangul is at the centre of a debate on language purism in Korea by which many advocates seek to remove traces of Chinese letters from Korea altogether. In North Korea, this ideology has gone further in an attempt to remove even words of foreign origin-- including the Western words like those I mentioned already, which have been embraced by the south, and also words of Japanese origin which date largely to the occupational period (1910-1945).
For his contribution to Korea, Great King Sejung is now featured on the 10,000 Won bill. There is also a museum in Seoul that bears his name. He is no doubt the most famous Korean king and maybe ties for recognition only with the famous admiral Yi Soon Shin, of Im Jin War fame (who I'll write about next month on the anniversary of his greatest victory). 경축, 한글날 !
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