Until the 15th century, while Koreans had their own unique language, all written forms were limited to what has become known as Classic Chinese. The complexities and inability of Classic Chinese to encapsulate the phonemic nuances and grammatical structures of the spoken Korean language relegated the average Korean to illiteracy. The Classic Chinese writing was reserved for a select class of people, typically the wealthy, royalty, or those in governmental positions were the only ones that had any literacy and this was of course in Chinese.
Under the reign of the Yongle Emporer circa 1402-1424 the compilation of the “Yongle Dadian” was commissioned in an attempt to standardize pronunciation of Chinese and the usage of Chinese characters. With the expansive territory that China encompassed it had numerous regional dialects and standardization was an attempt to not only unify these diverse dialects and facilitate better communication within the empire, it also was enacted to further consolidate the Ming dynasty’s cultural and political power.
Korea relied heavily on the Hanja (Chinese characters) for its writing system and the changes in pronunciation introduced complexities which poorly represented the spoken Korean language. This change extended the chasm between ordinary common Koreans and made it even more difficult to learn to use the script effectively, hindering literacy and efficiency of governing within Korea itself.
Japan and Vietnam were also heavily impacted by the efforts to consolidate and standardize the Hanja, but they already had scripts in place that had evolved more naturally over many centuries. Kanji in Japan and Chữ Nôm in Vietnam softened the changes being implemented for the Hanji and thus the impact was not as great in these areas.
In 1418 King Sejong ascended to the throne, and as a would be validated in later years, this visionary understood the value of literacy of his people and valued education highly. Under his rein, numerous cultural and scientific advancements were made. Having instituted the Hall of Worthies (Jiphyeonjeion) in 1420, he gathered scholars from many fields and worked to advance various fields of study.
Some of the greatest contributions to come out of the Hall of Worthies includes the water-clock, a star chart mapping constellations visible from the region, as well as the compilation of literary and legal texts. These various results from the Hall of Worthies expanded numerous fields of study and amongst the fields of engineering and astronomy, was agriculture and many others.
One of these fields was linguistics, which had become cumbersome with the changes in the Chinese writing and pronunciations. In 1443 King Sejong and the Hall of Worthies started work on a project to change the literacy in Korea, its goal to create a script that was not only easy to use and read, but properly represented the sounds inflections and grammar that was ubiquitous during that period. This new script and alphabet was designed specifically for its ease of use and learning which enabled and empowered the common people to become literate.
Though there was resistance from the aristocratic class (including King Sejong’s own sons), who preferred Classical Chinese and the prestige and elitism it perpetrated, the ease of use and learning allowed Hangeul to continue to spread throughout the common people of Korea. The scope of this change would only be truly understood centuries later as the script and its use was repressed by ruling classes more than one over the centuries.
Hangeul was a definitive statement bolstering Korea’s own cultural interdependence from the Chinese and moved Korea to a more unique identity of Korea as an independent nation. From the point of it’s creation Hangeul facilitated education of the masses, inexorably changing the Korean society as a whole, as it made knowledge accessible to all.
Having been stationed in Korea in the late 1980’s I was fascinated by the language and though I would not realize it until decades later, the scripting of Hangeul made an impact on me that has never left. Though I always wanted to learn how to speak Korean, it was not something I actively pursued.
Almost three and a half decades later, I embarked on another project in registering a coat of arms, and this little jaunt led me to create a piece of writing that encompassed the magnitude of my feelings about my coat of arms and the meanings behind it.
As I delved into writing my book, which prompted the creation of a conlang for a society that fleshed out parts of my novel, I inadvertently settled on script that was syllabic in structure and encapsulated many of the nuances that embodies the magnificent script of Hangeul, though mine was a much simpler implementation, as it was just me and not an academy full of scholars.
Once I realized the similarities between my conlang and Hangeul, it re-sparked my interest in the Korean language, and with the advancements in technology, made learning easier and more accessible than it had been 3 decades ago. This of course lead to research about the language where I learned about King Sejon the Great and the Hunminyeongeum.
I have mad respect for this man and the various things that he empowered to be created. This writing is not an essay or dissertation, it is simply an acknowledgement of something great sparked and driven by a man intent on empowering his people.
Power to the people (Korean people)! 😀
