Till now, the author has recalled the accidents
related to Hangeul occurring during the past one
hundred years, and estimated today's state of
Hangeul. Above all what is the best is the fact
that the academic circle of the world recognizes
Hangeul as the most developed writing system that
mankind has ever created. But it is a great pity
that this demonstration was made by foreign scholars.
It is certain that long and wide investigation
by Korean scholars formed a basic part of this
demonstration, yet the last but most important
effort to reach a conclusion was handed over to
foreign scholars.
Meanwhile, diversified efforts to establish and
improve the Hangeul system started from the latter
part of the 19th century. The efforts often caused
complications, but it is fortunate that the troubles
were solved without any bad result. When looking
into all the efforts to improve Hangeul, the general
trend is revealed that they considered the differences
between the Greek and Roman alphabets, and Hangeul
as the latter's defects, and they tried to modify
Hangeul to make it an alphabet. It was no more
than an effort to make Hangeul a secondary Greco-Roman
alphabet. The extreme of this trend was the insistence
on horizontal writing and disjointing syllables.
The idea that horizontal writing is better than
vertical writing, and disjointing syllables is
better than joining syllable, originates from
the very preconception that the Greek and Roman
alphabetical system is the ideal form of writing.
If we say that Hangeul is the greatest writing
on one side, and that Hangeul must be modified
closer to an alphabet on the other, it clearly
is a self-contradiction.
Our future task is to develop the merits of Hangeul
further and to resolve its defects . With Hangeul
we are able to write horizontally and vertically.
It is the biggest advantage of Hangeul that the
Greek and Roman alphabet cannot imitate. No one
will dispute the fact that this advantage will
be more outstanding, as the diversification of
our lives is reflected in written language.
To write and join syllables can never be accused
of faults. In reading a long English or German
word, we often hesitate about where to syllabify
it. Compared to this, Hangeul, being already written
in syllable units, is never difficult to read.
Even if it has some disadvantages, its advantages
easily compensate for them.
We have to make the best of the distinctions of
Hangeul and fill in its cracks. That is, we wisely
respect the traditional aspects of Hangeul and
try to improve them with all our enthusiasm. As
a raison d'etre of all writings is for the sake
of actual practice, it is desirable to revise
its partial aspects, if necessary, on the condition
that academic circles and the whole society agree
with it. All the members of society working in
various parts suggest their experiences from their
everyday lives of writing towards the improvement
of Hangeul. The author will briefly write only
two feelings from my personal life of writing.
Firstly, the graphic shapes should be elaborated
more effectively. Little did King Sejong dream
that the graphic size would be smaller to this
extent like that of today. The author also sometimes
cannot distinguish between ‘홍’ and ‘흥’ in reading
a dictionary or a newspaper. He well knows that
extraordinary efforts are being made to improve
Hangeul typefaces, yet more creative effort will
be expected.
Secondly, the most urgent difficulty that we have
in writing is how to write proper nouns. It is
of course said to be influenced by the Western
way of thinking, but it is frequently felt convenient
to prepare the way to distinguish between proper
and common nouns. It is not a desirable prescription
to introduce capital letters anew now. It is a
makeshift solution, rather than the best one.
However, it is too annoying to use side-line or
under-line. The author sincerely hopes for a good
suggestion.
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