10/9 is the day that Hangeul was created. Hangeul is the letters of korea which is made by 세종대왕 The great king Sejong who was the fourth king of 조선 Joseon. His family name is 이 lee and his name is 도 do. Originally king Sejong was not the crown prince for king because he was not the first of his brothers. However because his older brothers were disposed from crown prince because of their behavior 이도 (lee do) got an chance to become crown prince. King Sejong’s hobby was learning, reading, and writing. Because of this hobby king Sejong was very intelligent even more than the most brilliant officials in the palace.
A fun fact about Sejong, Sejong loved meat so much that meat was almost part of all of his meals!
Going back to the subject the reason why Sejong created Hangeul is that before he created Hangeul there was no original Korean alphabet for our language so they could talk but couldn’t write the words down. We had to borrow Chinese letters, and not only were they too hard for commoners to learn (it was very complicated, and you needed time and money to learn how to write and read in 한문) . So only the wealthy people could read and write.The most serious problem of the absence of the ability to read and write was that commoners couldn’t read the official announcements made by the government written in Chinese. This caused lots of problems. Some corrupt government officials took advantage of this fact and caused commoners lots of grief.
King Sejong felt sympathy for them and he made up his mind to create unique alphabet of Joseon. However a lot of people disagreed on making an alphabet system that was different from the Chinese. Though he faced harsh opposition king Sejong created 훈민정음(=Hangeul) which means “the right sound to teach the people’. There were three main reason for disagreeing on making 훈민정음. The first reason was because Joseon was toadying Ming dynasty and making a letter other from Ming dynasty’s letters (Hanja, Chinese script) is a barbaric act. To that reason king Sejong refuted that he was not denying the Ming dynasty, he was following the Ming dynasty but also preserving our own. The second reason was creating the new easier Alphabet would disturb devoting on academic success and is nothing but a loss. To this reason king Sejong answered the focus of creating 훈민정음 is not only to devoted to academic success in fact the real focus is making the letter more easy so the people can use it.
King Sejong is featured in Korea’s 10000 won bill, and he’s easily the most famous and loved King in our entire history. You can find last year’s hangeul day post by Admin sun here, if you’re curious about the specifics of the early hangeul King Sejong made, and more stuff about the philosophies behind our amazina alphabet, 훈민정음. Thank you for reading!!
-King Sejong’s statue in 광화문 광장
