Peculiarities of the Korean Alphabet, Han'geul
| Song, Ki Joong | |
| |
| Name in Latin Alphabet: | Song, Ki Joong |
|---|---|
| Nationality: | Republic of Korea |
| Affiliation: | Seoul National University |
강연 소개
Perhaps Korea is the only country in the world where a national holiday is set to commemorate the creation of a writing system. October 9 is a working holiday, Han'gŭl-nal or Han'gŭl Day. On this day commemoration ceremonies are held by the government and various private organizations and schools. October 9 is supposed to be the day when the Korean alphabet was promulgated in 1446 and the theoretical book, Hunmin chŏng'ŭm, was completed. In North Korea the commemoration day is January 15, the day when the Korean alphabet was supposed to have been completed in 1443.
Koreans in Korea are educated at schools that the Korean alphabet, Han'gŭl, is a precious national heritage as well as a national pride. The Koreans educated in Korea and the foreigners who have learned some Korean history and/or language would have heard that Han'gŭl is a unique writing system which was scientifically devised and created. As a matter of fact, not a few Koreans still believe the assumption that Han'gŭl is the most efficient writing by which the sounds of any language could be properly written. As such, Han'gŭl is more than a writing system for the Koreans.
What the Koreans are proud of Han'gŭl is mainly its grammatological ('of the study of writing system') aspect. More specifically, the systematic creation of graphic signs representing the phonemic sounds of Korean. Modern linguists wonder how the creators of Han'gŭl were able to accurately observe the structural contrasts of sounds (phonemes) in Korean in the 15th century. For example, such an equality as k : g : kk : ng = t : d : tt : n = p : b : pp : m. In western linguistics, the concept of 'phoneme' and the structural contrasts were known in the early 20th century.
In addition to the grammatological and linguistic features, social aspect may be mentioned as a peculiarity of the Korean script. That is, the particular aspect on the part of the learners and users of the script. Since the former characteristics has been more or less well known, although often ambiguously, the latter is introduced first in this presentation.
강연 영상
Peculiarities of the Korean Alphabet, Han'geul
