Comments on: Happy Hangul Day!

By: Can you write it down? | Idiomas RalFer

Can you write it down? | Idiomas RalFer — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 14:40:11 +0000

[…] or soldiers. Individual inventors of a writing system are rare exceptions, such as King Sejong, who invented the Korean script. King Sejong took inspiration from the Chinese […]

By: MeganLouise

MeganLouise — Fri, 10 Nov 2017 06:30:00 +0000

Oh this is so cool! Korean (and honestly all asian languages) have always seemed so beautiful and interesting to me as a native speaker of English, because I essentially have zero understanding of what any of the symbols mean. To invent a language so so so many years ago that is still used by a nation today is incredible and the fact that they have a day dedicated to celebrating it is even better!

By: lokendra khadka

lokendra khadka — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 13:14:00 +0000

a completely new story about the celebration of Hangul, carries greater social significance that is celebrated as the national holiday of South and North Korea. it is regarded as the great achievement for Korean culture to avoid linguistic barriers as it was formed on the basis of Korean tongue. It does not only highlights how Hangul made easy pronounce scripts for Korean people but also emphasizes how language is directly and indirectly helpful to enhance the economic prosperity, social justice, national and international development and other social factors.

By: Pejman Golshahi Soumeh Saraei

Pejman Golshahi Soumeh Saraei — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 11:46:00 +0000

The legendary King Sejong revolutionized Korea as a independent nation possessing its own language. As a matter of fact when you are using other countries alphabet and language, you lose the productivity in all aspect of life. what he did as a well-educated leader was consulting with the scholars to improve Korean’s living condition. He intellectually realized the fundamental weakness of his country lies in illiteracy of majority of Koreans. So he invented a new writing script to help the people communicate easily. One of his first achievements was establishing an institute on the palace grounds to conduct studies and research. Then he moved to the next phase of his plan which was the most important one: A unique alphabet of Koreans. although there were lots of objection by a group of scholars and those who were still in favor of Chinese system of writing, he remained with his dream and realized as universal Korean literacy.

By: MonyCRole

MonyCRole — Tue, 31 Oct 2017 14:15:00 +0000

When I watch Korean TV shows, King Sejong is always mentioned in admiring voices for his invention of Hangul scripts. In addition, while I was learning Korean in the previous university, my teacher explained that in King Sejong’s creation of Hangul, he produced the simplest strokes that allows complex combinations between them in order for less literate peasants to learn and added both original ancient Korean pronunciation and sounds from nature into Hangul pronunciation, indicating harmony between human and nature.

Anyway, creation of Hangul scripts and pronunciation helps with transmission and preservation of the unique culture through time and historical changes. Besides, the culture can be sustained via Hangul, mixing with new innovations in that language. Thus, greatness of King Sejong is undeniable.

By: HYUNCHAN KIM

HYUNCHAN KIM — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 08:08:00 +0000

In reply to Language on the Move. Thank you for sharing. I did not expect that it was dealt on a previous post. I will refer to it

By: Language on the Move

Language on the Move — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 07:51:00 +0000

Thanks for your comment! So interesting that the Cia-Cia experiment has completely disappeared from the media spotlight. We did blog about it in 2010 at http://languageonthemove.com/more-on-korean-linguistic-exports/

By: nawaraj bhandari

nawaraj bhandari — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 05:17:00 +0000

I am quite impressed to read this article as I had not known about Sejog and Hangul Language. King Sejong invented Hangul language so that every Korean could read and write language very easily. He wisely made the script so easy that it could be learned in a single morning and women who were regarded less intelligent to men even could learn it easily. As a ruler and a king ‘Sejog’ tried his best to make Korea free from Chinese concept through the linguistic phenomena. Through the language he made country sovereign and autonomous bringing the social and economic progress.

By: S_A_

S_A_ — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 04:26:00 +0000

Thank you for this post, it is quite interesting! Unfortunately in Europe it’s not really common to study history of other places other than Europe, so I was very intrigued by this new historical information, since I had never heard of King Sejong or Hangul. It is a shame, though, that the script slipped into oblivion, as I believe King Sejong made it for all the right reasons. But I’m glad it revived again and it has helped to bring the illiteracy rate in Korea down.

By: Min Wu KIM

Min Wu KIM — Sat, 28 Oct 2017 04:26:00 +0000

As a Korean, it is a real glad to see this article on Language on the move. Yes, we have celebrated ‘Hanguel’ for a long time, but it was set as a national holiday just several years ago. I think people in Korea started to realize how valuable Hanguel is, nowadays. King Sejong is regarded as one of the best ancients in the whole Korean history due to the fact that he cared about his nations, unlike other kings, and tried to manage the country independently. Actually, the attempt of developing Hanguel script, which was the climax of his achievements, did not come out casually, but it was a life-and-death decision. The plain reasons for creating Hanguel was educating the ordinary and developing independence of the country, but in deep, Hanguel was a game changer and a crucial tool for a social revolution to defeat powerful corrupt officials supported by China. Always being threaten by those powerful families as a young king, he used the Hanguel as an instrument for a social revolution. I think he knew the power that the language can carry at that time and that’s why he made a full, secret effort to invent Hanguel even under assassination conspiracy.

By: Ulfath Sadia

Ulfath Sadia — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 22:00:00 +0000

Thank you for this interesting and inspiration article. I love reading histories a lot but this is the first time I read something about Korean alphabetic system background. King Sejong is an inspiration as he was thinking about the literacy of his people. His development of the Korean script is amazing. My country Bangladesh, have a history of war for our language Bengali and on 21st February we celebrate Martyr day and International mother language day as in 1952 many people sacrificed their life on that day for our language.

By: Ka Ho Lawrence HO

Ka Ho Lawrence HO — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 09:50:00 +0000

Dear Professor Piller and fellow classmates,

I agree that King Sejong is a remarkable and wise king in Korea’s history. His contribution towards literacy is undeniable, because he created Hangul and increased the literacy rate in the kingdom of Joseon. However, two articles argue that Hangul has its drawbacks and limitations: Perfetti & Harris (2013) believe that Hangul is not at its “equilibrium point” and they mention that “regressive changes” needed to be done, as Hangul is a totally alphabetic system. Also, Pae (2011) states that Hangul is just a script of Korean language and it is imprecise to adopt Hangul and Korean reciprocally as the Korean language. Hangul is certainly a mode of conveying an oral language into a graphic and symbolic format.

Just some thoughts,

Lawrence

By: Hayu Austina

Hayu Austina — Wed, 25 Oct 2017 08:20:00 +0000

Thank you for posting this inspirational article. King Sejong is a role model of good leader. He is not only knowledgeable but he also used his knowledge to develop the people’s welfare by building a bridge for the dissemination of knowledge. It is indeed genius that he developed Hangul based on the pronunciation of the Korean sounds. I have never learned Hangul alphabet but at a glance it looks like a very easy alphabetic system. This reminds me to Braille system which is also easy to learn. I admire how alphabetic systems help people to gain knowledge and improve their life. It is just so beautiful.

By: rajni jaishi

rajni jaishi — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 08:31:00 +0000

Reading this piece was a complete joy. I had never read anything about Hangul before this. Not only the massive literacy rates of both Koreas today goes to the wise king but the fact that he realised how language was the key link to economic, social and cultural development of a nation. When small countries are landlocked or dependent on a bigger neighbouring nation, it is sure to have influence over such smaller nations in every aspect. What today’s leaders cannot do to exert their autonomy in so many areas, Sejong’s initiation of Hangul is an inspiration for the politicians today, especially of developing countries like Nepal which is virtually dependent on India for almost everything and it has say in every internal matter. I think a script of its own and adapting knowledge to Korean conditions helped in that turnover after 1945 and the result is for everyone to see now. Such vision of a man way back in 14th century is simply commendable.

By: Katherine Douglas

Katherine Douglas — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 07:21:00 +0000

It was so clever of King Sejong to design a script that showed the learner the actual pronunciations – this certainly contributed to many people being able to learn it relatively quickly. He was quite wise in not forcing everyone to learn Hangul in 1446 – had he done so, even less people would have learnt it, and it may not have survived after 1945.
How fortunate that Hangul was not completely lost – it completely transformed the Korean literacy rates, post-1945. From only 20% literate in 1945, to maybe 90-95% literate today! That’s an astonishing impact Hangul had in only 72 years.
In fact, there are some websites that advertise you learning Hangul in 90 days, if you like (https://www.90daykorean.com/hangul-day ) being one of many. No hint of it being called “women’s script” – rather it’s presented as an honour and an advantage to know and learn it.
It’s a pleasure to read about a monarch who was well-educated, bi-lingual, concerned about his people’s welfare, and created a script that would enhance each person’s literacy – and thus, amount of potential power in the world.

By: Kris Nguyen

Kris Nguyen — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 08:19:00 +0000

I am deeply thankful for this informative and inspiring article. As a language learner, specifically Korean, it is fascinating to know more about the history of Hangul. Since I personally have passion for Korean culture and the language itself, I have been wondering for years about the “strange” characteristic that Hangul possesses. By this I mean that, compares to Chinese and Japanese, Hangul has that kind of rules in which they form a word by adding vowels and consonants just like other languages that use the Latin alphabet. To me, this fact is absolutely amazing. Studying reading and writing Chinese or Japanese has no specific rules but to memorize everything, whereas, learning reading and writing Hangul is much simpler and more enjoyable.