Happy Hangeul Day!

October 9th is Hangeul Day in Korea, and celebrates the establishment of the Korean writing system called Hangul, or Hangeul in the new Romanization system.

So, what’s the big deal behind Hangeul? It’s just an alphabet. To understand the accomplishment, let’s look at writing systems in Asia and the influence of Chinese culture.

For centuries, if not thousands of years, Chinese culture dominated East Asia, much in the same way that Greco-Roman culture dominated European culture. China was much larger than its neighbors (Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea, Japan), and more advanced, so the smaller countries actively emulated Chinese culture as a way of progressing their own country. This included the writing system.

Chinese language uses Chinese characters, which are designed for and optomized for Chinese language. Each character usually contains one pronunciation, and one meaning. In modern Chinese, it’s preferable to combine characters into compound words (even if redundant), but each character is still a self-contained ‘word’. The trouble is that other cultures are not Chinese, and their languages didn’t resemble Chinese at all. So, using Chinese characters was an awkward fit. They had no writing system of their own, so Chinese characters were very useful, but making them work in their own language took a lot of effort.

Japan, for example had a hybrid system originally called manyōgana, the Korean kingdoms used the Idu system (later Gugyeol), and Vietnam used Chữ Nôm. All three scripts had the same approach: take existing Chinese characters, and use them like “letters” (i.e. use their phonetic pronunciation) to approximate native words.

This was a pretty convoluted system, especially for Korean/Japanese, and required a lot of training to do this right. Peasants and women usually couldn’t read. So, in time these countries developed more native systems. Japanese women developed a “short-hand” way of writing Chinese characters, and this eventually become the Kana system used today. Kana is used alongside Chinese characters (Kanji) in Japanese, so the writing system is still somewhat complicated, but the Chinese character are necessary to provide cues, since Japanese has a lot of homophones.

Vietnamese language is relatively closer to Chinese language, so they continued to use Chinese characters until the French missionaries developed a simpler, romanized writing system (called quốc ngữ) based on the Roman alphabet. The early Communists took up this system and used it to communicate more easily with the masses and effectively oppose the French. The Romanized system is still used today.

But what about Korea? During the long-lasting Joseon Dynasty, which still has a deep impact on Korean culture today, there loved a ruler named Great King Sejong (sejong daewang, 세종대왕). Only two kings in Korean history earned the name “Great King”, and Sejong was one of them. He did a lot to strengthen and vitalize Korea, but one of his most memorable contributions was his promulgation of a new, native writing system called Hangeul (한글). In Great King Sejong’s words:

The sounds of our language differ from those of China and are not easily conveyed in Chinese writing. In consequence, though one among our ignorant subjects may wish to express his mind, in many cases he after all is unable to do so. Thinking of these, my people, with compassion, We have newly devised a script of twenty-eight letters, only that it become possible for anyone to readily learn it and use it to advantage in his everyday life.

(pg. 124, “Korea Old and New, A History”)

Hangeul was a native writing system, and required no use of Chinese characters. Plus the system was logical and could be used to construct new, foreign words easily. English loan-words and names are easily adapted into Korean, for example.

Hangeul uses vowels and consonants, organized into little “blocks” containing 2-4 bits. These blocks represent syllables, the letters within them combine to make a specific sound.

So, for Hangeul itself, it is spelled like so: 한글.

In order, the letters are ㅎ(h)ㅏ(a)ㄴ(n), which combine to make “han”, and ㄱ (g/k) ㅡ (“eu” as in English “put”), ㄹ (r/l) which spells “geul”. I found a website that is a wonderful intro to reading Hangeul, which you can learn within hours. You still have to practice to read smoothly (and listen to how native Koreans pronounce it), but it’s pretty quick and easy to adopt.

Hangeul’s use has begun to spread to other, unwritten languages in Asia, such as a tribe in Indonesia.

So, Koreans are understandably proud of their writing system, and October 9th is devoted to Hangeul and Great King Sejong who helped make it happen.