The unique characters of the Korean language were
established in 1443, twenty five years after the inauguration of King Sejong, and
published in 1446.
Hangul is the modern name for “Hunminjeonghum.”
“Hunminjeonghum” refers to characters used to educate
citizens and it has diverse names such as Eonmun,
Eonsuh, Banjeol, Amkeul, Ahaetgul, Gagyagul, Guksuh,
Gukmun and Chosungul. Eonmun means demeaning
characters using low-class words, so it was widely used as
a nickname for Hangul, originally considered lower class
compared with Chinese characters. However, in the
modernization process, those diverse names were
integrated into Hangul with heightened awareness by the
general public.
Hangul has been evaluated as the most scientific
character system in its uniqueness and efficiency of
symbol combinations. lt is easy to distinguish vowels from
consonants.
Specifically, vowels represent the location of the lips and
tongue.
Hangul, the most outstanding of the many cultural and
practical achievements of Korea’s 15th century “Confucian
humanist“ monarch, King Sejong the Great, was invented
by a committee of scholars under direct royal supervision.
The phonetic alphabet, a system still in use today, has
given Korea one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
Before Sejong’s time, Korea, like many Asian countries
within the sphere of China’s cultural influence had usad
complex Asian ideographs. Sejong’s experts devised a
simple phoneticsystem of 26 letters that accurately
represented all the vowels and consonants of Korean.
Though the system was not widely adopted until the 20th
century, today it is universally used, with foreign
ideographs used only for proper names and abstract
concepts. King Sejong’s 500-year-old inventuon continues
to benefit Koreans today. lt is the legcy of a truly
enlightened ruler.
Artist : hyelim,jang
Title- King Sejong's Greastest Legacy
Material-Oil on Canvas
Size- Width 53cm,Length 41cm
Period- 1443s