Hangeul was invented in the middle of the 15th
century for the sake of writing the Korean language,
and is still being used today. The history of
Hangeul so far could be summarized in one simple
phrase, that is, the process of fortifying its
place as the national alphabet of Koreans.
Every time we look back upon the history of the
writing system of our nation, we cannot avoid
having some unpleasant feelings. It is because
the period of using Chinese characters was, unfortunately,
too long. However, it is the basic nature of these
characters, rather than the long time (two thousand
years)for which they were used that poses a bigger
problem. That problem is mainly due to the fact
that Chinese characters, originally used for writing
the Chinese language, were difficult to use for
the Korean language, and are completely different
from it in their structure. It follows that Korean
people using Chinese characters came to create
a subtle discrepancy between the written and the
spoken language, called unmunichi (言文二致: This Chinese
phrase means a linguistic situation in which the
spoken language is expressed one way and the written
language is expressed another way.) 1)This
phrase 言文二致 appeared in the final report submitted
to the chief officer of The Ministry of Learning
by Institute for National Language (國文硏究所) on December
28th, in the year 1909. Please refer to the edition
owned by Lee Ki-Moon: “言文이 二致고” on page 6, “言文이
二致됨으로” on page 310. Here appeared an example of
another usage of 言文二致 that old written language
was not identical to today's spoken language (pp.
312, 325).
Today we cannot imagine the difficulties our ancestors
failed in dealing with the written language unless,perhaps,we
could think of what it would be like to have to
use only English for our written communications.
It is needless to say that the original motivation
which led Great King Sejong to invent Hangeul
was to overcome this unmunichi. The introductory
remarks, “as our national language is different
from that of China, so we cannot communicate with
the Chinese characters (國之語音 異乎中國 與文字 不相流通)” in
uejesoe (御制序: the preface by the King himself)
indicated this very stateu of affairs. In this
context, if our distant forefathers had imported
Chinese characters and modified them for use in
writing our language, and furthermore if their
modified writing system had been being used without
any great discomfort, King Sejong might not have
thought of inventing Hangeul. It reminds us again
of the maxim that big misfortune and discomfort
is the mother of great invention.
The invention of Hangeul by King Sejong can only
be thought of as a miracle, as are all great creative
achievements. It might be that by considering
many letters of alphabetic series such as Sanskrit,
Uigur, Tibetan, and hP'ags-pa scripts, etc., known
in our country at that time, a similar system
could be found suitable for writing Korean. But
what attracts our line of vision is the fact that
King Sejong did not select one of the above mentioned
foreign writing systems, modifying it more or
less, and at last adapting it to writing Korean.
It is the more outstanding for the fact that the
modifying method is the easiest way and a general
tendency in the world's history of writing systems.
King Sejong, in the long run, came to the idea
of creating a brand new system for writing Korean.
How did he reach this kind of conclusion? The
documents remaining today are too short to provide
a clear explanation. The most important document
existing today is Hunmin-Jeongeum, Haerye (Explanations
and Illustrations of Korean Alphabets), especially
Chejahae (Explanations of Inventing Letters).
Here appears only some vague phrases on the basic
idea of inventing Hangeul.2)
The Korean translation from Chinese borrows that
of Kang Shin- Hang (1987).
今正音之作 初非智營而力索 但因其聲音而極其理而已 理旣不二
則何得不與天地鬼神同其用也. Now the making of Jeongeum (It literally
means ‘right sound’.) did not result from the
preparation of wisdom and the finding out of efforts
in advance, but only from the accomplishment of
right reason based on sound, i.e. according to
the principles of sound. As the right reason already
exists in only one form, not two, how would we
not make use of the same line of right reason
altogether with sky and earth, ghost and god?
旴 正音作而天地萬物之理咸備 其神矣哉 是殆天啓聖心而假手焉者乎. Oh, what
a marvel it is that sky and earth and all things
in nature have been prepared at the same time
of making of Jeongeum! It certainly is that heaven
almost has opened a saint's mind (King Sejong)
and lent him its capabilities.
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