Learning Journal #6

[Xiaoting Sun]

Korean language is attested from the early centuries of Chinese script, and the hangul script is started in the Middle Korean period, in the 15^th century. The periodization of the historical stages of Korean is proto-Korean, old Korean, middle Korean and modern Korean. Before 1446, Koreans had no writing system of their own, so the educated elite wrote in hanja(classical Chinese characters). However, Chinese character was poorly suited to the languages with complex grammars like Korean. In fact, most people did not have finance and resource to study, which cause the gap of knowledge between the rich and the poor. After inventing Hangul, it is easy for everyone to study, so their own culture can develop.