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
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