How Korean Alphabet Was Made and Why It Is So Important

Ah, Korea. The land of K-pop and angry congressmen. However, it is not only K-pop and angry congressmen that make Korea distinct from the other Asian countries. While countries in Asia use a writing system that is primarily based on memorization, Korea has a system that is based on tone and voice. Let me demonstrate, the rectangular-looking letters make an mmm sound and the line sounds like eeee, so the rectangle a with a line is me, and…that is it, simple. The story behind it and its usages are pretty spectacular. So, how did Hangul, the Korean writing system, bring Korean communication to a new level (like level one to level 100)?

So, first, let’s imagine living in medieval Korea. Life is good, but it can be better. How, you might ask? Well, you are middle-class, however, you can be noble. In Joseon, the Korean dynasty during 1392–1897, you had to take a test by writing a short essay, basically an early SAT if you might. However, there’s a problem. It is quite a big problem as the test was an essay. You see, you are illiterate, and don’t worry, most of the whole population is also illiterate. Korea is and was very Confucian, literature and writing were very important. So unlike European nobility, Korean nobility could be earned not by fighting on battlefields. However, a second problem emerges. Well, the writing system is…well very inefficient. See, Korea used Chinese characters for their writing system, but using Chinese characters in Korean is like putting a round peg in a square hole, it doesn’t work. And this comes with many many side effects to the illiterate population. For example, to execute someone, a King must approve it, however, if the executioner is illiterate, and most of them were, they would execute prisoners without regard to what the King’s orders actually were. Other things such as communication and letters would be useless if only the higher class, which usually are a minority in the population, could read. The government has tried multiple ways to fix the problem. Once even putting pictures instead of writings, but when you can not describe what is going on in the picture, it usually doesn’t work. To simplify, it is dreadful to be illiterate. To fix the Titanic-sized illiterate issue, one man stood up from his throne and promised himself to fix this. This man was King Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty.

He decided to make a new writing system from scratch. So, to make a new writing system, he asked one of his daughters, princess Cha Nyeu, to record all the dialects and their pronunciation across the kingdom as different regions had different dialects. After the research was complete, two of Sejong’s sons (he had many sons, 18 to be exact), and several scholars started to develop a new writing system. The sons’ names were Jang Nam and Cha Nam. After three years of research, a new writing system was made, not Hangul, but Onn Hae. The term Hangul was actually made in the 20th century. There are some differences between Hangul and Onn Hae. Most notably discarding few consonants.

Now, before I start to talk about how it affected Korea, I wanted to talk about why Hangul was a scientific wonder. The writing itself was actually made so that it looks like the tongue and the letter. Also, making a letter was like a Subway sandwich. Imagine there are three things: the bread (consonants), the toppings (vowels), and the sauce (lower consonants). To make a sandwich, you need the bread and the toppings (the consonants and vowels), the sauce (lower consonants) are not required to make a complete sandwich (letter), but by putting the sauce, it will give a new taste (sound). There are a total of 14 constants and 14 vowels in Hangul. There are also the lower consonants. So if including all of that, there are a possible number of 11,172 sounds you could make with the new writing system, big potential, and unlimited combination, just like a Subway sandwich. Unlike English, these new letters only had one pronunciation, one syllable per character, and only 28 letters to know, making them quite easy. Even though there are 26 letters in English, English is never clear. Let me demonstrate, cake and face. The C in cake is like K, and C in the face is S. Making English quite complicated for beginners. So, remember the part when I mentioned that the old writing system was hard and just didn’t match with Korea? Well, with the new writing system, that is fixed and made better.

So, how did people react to this new writing system? Let’s start with the lower class. To start it off, they loved it. They could finally have a chance to read and write. What about the nobles and scholars? To start it off, they hated it. The only thing that they had, except money and power, was the ability to read and write. If the lower class could read, they would rise and the nobles and scholars would fall. Immediate, it started to have effects.

Due to an easier writing system, the earlier mentioned executions would be stopped and something astonishing happened. The lower class started to write complaints and corruption that was happening in the town square, exposing corrupt bureaucrats. Letters and books could finally be read to the lower class. This simply gave Korea a new way of communication. While we look at a writing system like nothing else than tools for our languages, it was a luxury back in the past, a way of writing down what we said or what we believed, and now, the luxury of writing and reading was to everyone.

However, how did it spread; there must have been teachers or a person who already knows to teach others? Now, this is where it really gets interesting. It was the women who spread Onn Hae/Hangul. Women, from the start, hadn’t had an easy life in Asia. Similar to Europe, women were only present in households. While some lucky individuals did know how to write with the Chinese character, the majority could not. So, when an easier writing system was made, it was amazing. Many high-class women started to write letters in the new writing system. It spread like wildfire if every tree was coated with gasoline.

Over the years, the writing system was constantly rejected by the higher class and loved by the lower class. When the Joseon dynasty came to an end with the Japanese Occupation of Korea, Onn Hae/Hangul was banned by the Japanese. Thankfully, the books and script were found, so Onn Hae, now called Hangul, was saved. Today Hangul is both written by North and South Korea…and Indonesia, what? Yes, the Cia Cia tribe in Indonesia writes in Hangul. The Cia Cia tribe did not have a writing system, so they decided to use Hangul. It is not only the Cia Cia tribe but also the Solomon islands too.

Some accomplishments are that UNESCO made a prize called the King Sejong Literacy Prize in 1989 to celebrate the creator of Hangul. The prize is given to a person who gave special work and development in their language and writing. The UN also decided to teach Hangul to countries without a writing system. Finally, thanks to the writing system, South Korea has one of the highest literacy rates in the world.

Due to Hangul, writing and reading were not only resided to the rich, a writing system not only boosted communication to everyone, it also broke social barriers. Knowledge and ideas could now be spread and influence anyone who is wishing to read it. Hangul made Korean communication efficient, but it also broke class division and helped other nations to rise in communication.

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. 문화체육관광부, www.mcst.go.kr/

usr/child/s_culture/korean/koreanCul.jsp. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021. This is a

timeline from the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The

timeline shows the simplified history of Hangul. When it was made, when it

adopted, when it was erased due to nobles, when it was saved from the

Japanese, and when it adopted once again by the new ROK government.

KBS 역사스페셜 — 소리문자 훈민정음 어떻게 만들어졌나. 2019.

Directed by 장영주, KBS. This documentary was made by KBS, Korean

Broadcast System, the official channel by the ROK government. The

documentary is the full version of Hangul history. Why it was and even some

interesting facts.

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. 문화체육관광부, www.mcst.go.kr/

usr/child/s_culture/korean/koreanInfo.jsp. Accessed 15 Feb. 2021. This is

an article by the ROK’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. It

explains why Hangul day is on October 9th and the history, whereabouts, and

more about the book that explain Hangul

Lee, Young-Gwan. “A Reassessment on the Significances of the Invention of

Hangul.” Soonchunhyang U. Data set. This was written by Young-Gwan Lee, a

professor at Soonchunhyang University. He wrote this paper to show the

importance and effect on Korea as a nation, culture, and communication.

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KimChin, Chin-W. “Three Notes on Globalization of Hangul.” U of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign. Data set. This was written by Chin-W Kim, a professor at

the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He shows how Hangul

globalized Korean culture and managed to spread to other counties to help

with their communication, like Ccia-Ccia tribe in Indonesia.

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