Ryan Lee '24
This past October 9th was Hangul Day. While Hangul Day probably sounds unfamiliar to many of you, it’s actually one of the most significant memorial days in Korea. Hangul Day was created to commemorate the creation of Hangul, the Korean Alphabet. Now, let's delve into the amusing history of Hangul!
Those of you who made it through Cate’s Sophomore World History curriculum, I hope that you remember learning about China’s influence on other countries. Located right beneath China, South Korea, like many other countries, was greatly influenced by its neighbor in many aspects: traditions, culture, and social system. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to find aspects of Korea that are not influenced by China. As Chinese culture was the global standard for East Asian countries, the word “Hangul” was also adapted from Chinese characters. Since most of Korea’s population at the time used Chinese, it seemed impossible that Korea wanted to change its national language. Imagine Joe Biden declaring to change the national language of the United States from English to a language he invented. The reaction of the general demographic, especially the nobles, when King Sejong declared to change Korea’s national language -- from Chinese to a completely new type of language one invented -- was similar to the reaction you imagined in the aforementioned ‘what if’. The noble class especially resisted this declaration, as they believed using their own language instead of Chinese was a sign of opposition towards the country, which could justify the suppression of Chosun (Korea’s dynastic kingdom 1392-1897). Additionally, allowing the non-noble class to learn the language easily will endanger their position of being noble.
Despite the reluctance and opposition, after three years of study and research in the shadows, Hangul was invented and declared on September 10th, 1446 (October 9th by solar calendar) by King Sejong, considered the greatest king of Chosun of all time. In fact, its name was not really Hangul but Hunminjeongeum (訓民正音), literally meaning “Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People”. The meaning connects back to the reason why King Sejong created Hangul. Although Chinese was the national language of Chosun from its beginning, it was too difficult to learn, and non-noble people had neither time nor energy to learn such a difficult language. For these reasons, most of the non-noble people were illiterate. The extreme illiteracy rate among non-noble classes forced them to be oblivious of the country's laws and therefore go through unfairness or be punished without knowing what they did wrong. To improve their lives, King Sejong invented Hangul.
Similar to English, Hangul also distinguishes consonants and vowels; 14 and 10 respectively. These characters were created to be able to make as many sounds as possible. There are 1,638,750 sounds that can be made with the combination of modern Hangul characters. In the past, there were 17 consonants and 11 vowels, which would have allowed people to make even more sounds than now. While being able to create a wide range of sound, it is also easily accessible to learn since Hangul is composed of phonetic characters. By learning 24 characters (which is less than the 28 alphabetic characters) you can create thousands of different sounds and words. Such accessibility allowed the people in Chosun to learn Hangul without obstacles they had in learning Chinese.
Thus, to honor the creation of Hangul and King Sejong, Koreans set October 9th as Hangul day to remember the history and celebrate the invention of their language. Although people were reluctant to learn Hangul in the beginning, it is now widely acknowledged as one of the best-structured languages around the world.
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