Korean Was Deliberately Invented by a King

Before the 15th century, literacy in Korea was largely confined to the elite. This was because the Korean language was written using adapted Chinese characters, known as Hanja. Mastering this complex system required extensive education, leaving the majority of the population illiterate. King Sejong the Great (Review), the fourth monarch of the Joseon Dynasty, sought to remedy this. In 1443, he and a group of scholars introduced a new, remarkably simple phonetic alphabet, originally named Hunminjeongeum, meaning "The Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People."

The genius of this new script, now called Hangul, lies in its scientific and intuitive design. The shapes of the consonants are based on the shapes the mouth, tongue (Review), and teeth make when forming their sounds. Vowels were created using three simple strokes representing the philosophical concepts of heaven (a dot), earth (a horizontal line), and humanity (a vertical line). This revolutionary system was so easy to learn that it was said a wise person could learn it in a morning, and anyone could master it in ten days.

Despite its simplicity and accessibility, the new alphabet faced significant opposition from the scholarly elite, who saw it as a threat to their status and the long-standing prestige of Chinese characters. They referred to it dismissively as "eonmun," or "vulgar script." It took centuries for Hangul to be fully adopted and become the primary writing system of Korea. Its creation remains a remarkable achievement in linguistic history and a testament to a king's desire for a more equitable and literate society.