About the origin and history of "Hangul"

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In 1443, King Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty completed a project that changed the future for the Korean people. He created the Korean alphabet "Hangul".

Here we introduce you to the alphabet in detail!

Until Hangul was introduced, Koreans used "Hanja", a classical Chinese writing system. This was brought by Chinese who migrated to Korea between the 3rd and 4th centuries. The Koreans did not yet have their own script and used Hanja for their literature and official documents.

Hanja is a logographic script: Each character represents a specific word. At first, Koreans used the script as it was: the upper class learned to speak and write Chinese, and official documents were written in Chinese using Hanja. Later, they used hanja to write in Korean: If a hanja character sounded like a Korean word, it was used to represent that Korean word.

Hanja presented two problems in the long run:

Because logographic scripts like Hanja require each character to be memorized individually, rather than a few letters as in our roman script, only the upper class could read and write. Even today, Chinese must memorize at least 3,500 characters to be able to read. The ordinary Korean population at that time had neither the time nor the money to learn hanja and so had to do without the ability to read and write.

Hanja was not designed for the Korean language, so some words and grammar of the language could not be recorded with Hanja.

King Sejong felt that Korea needed its own script that truly reflected the spoken language. Above all, he wanted to make sure that ordinary people could read and write as well. So the new script had to be as simple and easy to learn as possible. He achieved his goal!

After several years, the king had developed Hangul in late 1443/early 1444. At that time, the alphabet was still known as "Eonmun". On October 9, 1446, a document called "Hunminjeong'eum" (The Right Tones for the Education of the People) was published describing the project.

Hangul is considered to be particularly logical, easy to memorize, and easy to learn! A well-known saying about the scripture states, "A wise person can become familiar with it before the morning is over; even a stupid person can learn it within ten days."

October 9 became "Hangul Day" and is now a public holiday in South Korea. Hangul Day also exists in North Korea; however, there it is called "Chosŏn'gŭl Day" and falls on January 15. Indeed, North Koreans call Hangul "Chosŏn'gŭl" and assume that the document "Hunminjeong'eum" was written on January 15. However, Chosŏn'gŭl Day is not a holiday.

The new Korean alphabet was spread and used mainly by women and writers!

However, it would be many hundreds of years before Hangul was first used in official documents.

In the beginning, the upper classes were particularly opposed: they feared for their status. If suddenly the common people could also read and write, it would be possible for members of the lower class to apply for jobs in the government.

In 1504, it was even forbidden to learn and use Hangul. The king at the time, Yeonsangun, issued the ban after a document was written and published using Hangul that criticized the king. Hangul disappeared for a while and did not revive until the late 16th century, when authors began to write down stories in Hangul.

Finally, in 1890 and the following years, a king named Gojong carried out several reforms. Among other things, he stipulated that henceforth all government documents would be written in Hangul.

In 1994, the first official document written in Hangul appeared, and a year later, the alphabet was taught in schools!

However, the alphabet still had a few changes ahead of it:

After Japan occupied Korea in 1910, Japanese was declared the official language in Korea. However, Hangul was still taught in schools.

Between 1910 and 1913, a man named Ji Sigyeong coined the name "Hangul" (한글 = "Korean") for the alphabet, which until then was still called "Eonmun" (언문 = "folk script"). The alphabet carries the today known name thus only for good hundred years!

Unfortunately, Hangul experienced another low blow a few years later: The Japanese banned the Korean language in schools in 1938 and all publications written in Korean in 1941.

In 1946, shortly after Korea regained its independence, the final spelling of Hangul was officially established.

Over the years, small changes were made again and again, which finally led to the Hangul we know today! In the following years, both South and North Korea tried to adapt the alphabet again, for example by adding new characters, but all these changes were discarded after a short time.

Although Hangul is the predominant writing system, Hanja was still used to some extent. So there was often a Hangul-Hanja mix.

North Korea officially banned the use of hanja in 1949, and in South Korea the Chinese characters are used almost exclusively as abbreviations now. However, knowledge of hanja is still advantageous, especially in the academic field. They help especially to read and study older texts. After all, many of the country's historical documents were written using hanja.

As you can see, Hangul has had a varied history! However, compared to the history of other writing systems, it is rather short: in fact, Hangul is one of the youngest alphabets in the world!

In honor of King Sejong, a six-meter high golden statue stands in the center of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It shows the king sitting on a throne, a book in one hand, the other hand raised. On the sides of the statue are all the Hangul characters.

King Sejong is considered one of the most famous historical figures of Korea: he is especially known for the creation of Hangul, but he also promoted progress in science and technology and enacted important changes in the law.