This week, I decided to look into the history of how Korean language came to be. Because I am learning the language, I thought that it would be interesting to look into the history of Sejong the Great, the king who changed the language system of Korea.
Sejong the Great was one of the great kings in the Choseon dynasty in the 1400s. He not only was a king who instituted the Korean language system throughout the land, but wanted the public to generally learn the language. The aristocrats were against the public learning the language because they wanted to be the only ones educated so that they could have a upper hand of knowledge. Without the basic knowledge, the public were oblivious of their oppression from the rich. Sejong wanted to change this, so he created the Korean alphabet and passed books to the poor so that education was being spread throughout the land.
In addition to his great creation, he generally wanted the his people to prosper. He established shelter and food sources for the people without homes, created fair loan systems for the farmers, and cultivated the cultural/political heritage of Korea. It can be said that he was ruling for the people and wanted Koreans as a whole to succeed.
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