“Hunminjongum”, a unique ancient alphabet of the Korean nation, was invented by famous scholars in 1444 under the direct involvement of Sejong, the 4th King of the Joson Feudal Dynasty.
The letters used before the invention of “Hunminjongum” had a lot of shortcomings in linguistic life. People demanded letters with which they could write the sounds of words freely and which were easy to learn.
So the feudal government got to researches into national letters.
Doctor and Associate Professor An Kyong Sang, Section Chief of the Linguistics Institute under the Academy of Social Sciences, says:
“All the linguists of the whole world unanimously recognize the excellence of the ancient Korean alphabet ‘Hunminjongum’. ‘Hunminjongum’ has its unique principle of inventing letters which is fundamentally different from the principles of inventing letters of other countries. It is said to be on the highest level of the development of letters, because it can express any difficult pronunciation properly.”
“Hunminjongum” can express almost all sounds of words of any country. Its inventors said it “can write all sounds of the world”.
“Hunminjongum” means “correct pronunciation for teaching the people”. When it was invented, it had 28 main characters including 17 consonants and 11 vowels.
“Hunminjongum” based on a scientific principle was modelled on the shapes of vocal organs. Main characters were modelled on the shapes of vocal organs such as tongue, lips and throat, which are changed according to the sounds they make, and on this basis, derivative characters were all made systematically.
Hunminjongum has many other advantages. It is easy to learn and convenient to write.
Many linguists and information experts of the world recognize the Korean letters as the most ideal world common letters or common computer letters.
A European university estimated that “the Korean alphabet took the first place when the ranking of all alphabets of the world was decided with rationality, scientific accuracy and originality as standards”.
“Hunminjongum” can write all sounds of words of any country and vividly express the human feelings and is favourable for recording the language information data. It is a precious treasure of the Korean people.
