SDLC 110 - Cultural Post #4

[Vivian Lee]

The modern Korean writing system, hangeul, was devised in 1443 during the reign of King Sejong. Before hangeul, other Korean scripts used a complex system of Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Korean. But because of the differences between Chinese and Korean, Chinese characters could not adequately denote Korean speech. Only the elite could afford the time necessary to study Chinese, so King Sejong commissioned the invention of a phonetic script both more efficient and more accessible to the common people.The Korean alphabet, Hangeul, consists of 24 letters (14 consonants and 10 vowels). Its three main vowels (ㆍ, ㅡ, ㅣ) represent the sky, the earth and man. The shapes of the consonants are based on the shape the mouth made when the corresponding sound is made (ㄱ is the shape of the tongue as it forms a ‘g’ sound (add a line, like so ㅋ, for an aspirated ‘g’, and double the letter , ㄲ, for one with a glottal stop). Now, most modern Korean literature and informal writing is written entirely in hangeul, however academic papers and official documents tend to be written in a mixture of hangeul and hanja.