B2
World Cultures
The Epoch Times
October 8, 2008
Created for the Common Man
Korean called ‘most logical’ alphabet system
By LILIAN SUNDIN
Phonetic Breakdown
Epoch Times Staff
Of the 6,000 languages in existence today, only a hundred have
their own alphabets. Of these 100,
Hangul is the only alphabet made
by an individual, for which the
theory and motives behind its creation have been fully set out and
explained.
The Korean alphabet Hangul,
which today has become a visual
ambassador for Korean culture,
was created in 1443 by King Sejong the Great (1397-1450). In 1446,
it was set out in published form
together with a manual explaining it in detail. Sejong named the
alphabet and its accompanying
volume Hunmin Chongum (“The
Proper Sounds for Instructing the
People”). The Korean alphabet is
nowadays commonly referred to as
Hangul, which means the “Script
of Han (Korea).”
Hangul is neither based on ancient written languages nor an imitation of another set of characters,
but an alphabet unique to Korea.
On the other hand, Roman characters have their origins in the hieroglyphics of Egypt and the syllabic Phoenician alphabets, and
underwent gradual evolution to become what they are today. Chinese
characters began as inscriptions on
bones and tortoise shells, and took
thousands of years to reach their
current form. Hangul is a highly
scientific writing system, based on
profound linguistic knowledge and
philosophical principles.
In his book “Writing Systems:
A Linguistic Introduction,” British
linguist Geoffrey Sampson devoted
a special chapter to Hangul. “The
history and theories of global writing systems have been raised to a new
level with the advent of Hangul,”
Sampson wrote. “Whether or not
it is ultimately the best of all conceivable scripts for Korean, Hangul
must unquestionably rank as one of
the great intellectual achievements
of humankind.”
The praise of renowned scholars for this relatively young alphabet is seemingly endless. Professor
Jared Diamond of UCLA, who
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for
his book Guns, Germs, and Steel,
wrote an article entitled “Writing
Right” for the June 1994 edition of
Discover magazine. In the article,
he described Hangul as “an ultrarational system” and “a precise reflection of a people’s speech.” Some
other scholars even attribute Korea’s rapid economic development
and growth in information technology during recent decades to
Hangul, which has helped to keep
illiteracy rates in Korea among the
lowest in the world.
Created out of Compassion
For most of Korea’s history, Koreans wrote using ancient Chinese
Basic consonant symbols are schematic drawings of the human
speech organs in the process of articulating certain sounds, while
the other consonants were formed by adding strokes to these five
basic shapes, according to the Explanations and Examples of the
Hunmin Chongum (1446).
- The velar ㄱ (k) depicts the root of the tongue blocking the
throat.
- The alveolar ㄴ (n) depicts the outline of the tongue touching
the upper palate.
- The labial ㅁ (m) depicts the outline of the mouth.
- The dental ㅅ (s) depicts the outline of the incisor.
- The laryngeal ㅇ (zero initial) depicts the outline of the throat.
- The pronunciation of the aspirated velar ㅋ (k’) is more forceful
than that of ㄱ (k), and therefore a stroke is added.
The vowel symbols were formed according to the three fundamental
symbols of Eastern philosophy. The round ㅇ represents Heaven.
The flat ㅡ represents Earth. The uprightㅣrepresents Man.
These three basic shapes are combined to derive other vowels: ㅏ,
ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅗ. ㅛ. ㅜ, ㅠ. The consonants and vowels each represent
a phoneme, or unit of speech, and together the letters make a
syllable. For example, “Moon” in Korean is “달”, which consists of:
ㄷ (consonant)+ㅏ(vowel)+ㄹ(consonant). In other words, Korean is
both a phonemic and a syllabic language.
SIMPLE SCRIPT: Korean characters light up Mission Blvd. in Hayward, California. Linguists call Korean writing
the most logical writing system in the world. photo courtesy OF patrick boury
characters (“Hanja” in Korean). wrote. “Therefore amongst uneduSince the tongues of the two na- cated people there have been many
tions belonged to different linguis- who, having something that they
tic families, however, Korean was wish to put into words, have been
not easily expressed in Chinese unable to express their thoughts in
characters. In Chinese, for example, writing. I am greatly distressed besentences are qualified with parti- cause of this, and so I have made 28
cles, whereas in Korean suffixes are new letters. Let everyone practice
used to add or modthem at their ease,
ify meaning. Despite ‘I have made 28
and adapt them to
this inconvenience,
their daily use.”
the conservative Ko- new letters. Let
This
passage,
rean upper classes everyone practice though short, demwere firm in their
onstrates Sejong’s besupport for its con- them at their
nevolent attitude—
tinued use. A sudden ease, and adapt
his hope was that all
change occurred in
people should learn
the mid-15th cen- them to their daily to read and write.
tury, initiated by a use.’
Unfortunately, the
King Sejong.
circumstances were
Through years of — King Sejong,
not favorable for his
painstaking effort, 15th Century
new invention.
Sejong was able to
A call for univeranalyze the basic
sal literacy was in
units of medieval
his day something
Korean speech using
of an anachronism.
his own knowledge
It would have been
of linguistics, and finally succeeded considered by many unnecessary
in making it into an alphabet, called and undesirable for the general
the Hunmin Chongum. While de- population to be able to read. Some
voting himself to the creation of the of those in power would even have
Korean alphabet, Sejong almost thought it dangerous to put a tool as
lost his eyesight.
politically important as writing in
The King explained his reason for the hands of the common people.
creating the alphabet in his preface
Nevertheless, King Sejong was
to Hunmin Chongum. “The spo- very concerned about the education
ken language of our country is dif- of his people. Not only did he often
ferent from that of China and does write about the importance of litnot suit the Chinese characters,” he eracy, but he also urged those who
had been educated to do their best
to educate others, and encouraged
women to learn how to read. With
an illiteracy rate of almost zero in
Korea today, the Korean people
are still benefiting from the king’s
determination and self-sacrifice.
In memory of King Sejong’s noble spirit, Koreans commemorate
the Hangul Day every year on Oct.
9th. United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has also established the “King Sejong Literacy
Prize,” annually awarded to individuals or groups that have contributed greatly to the battle against
global illiteracy.
The World’s Most Advanced
Alphabet
G. K. Ledyard of Columbia University was deeply impressed by the
scientific principles of the Korean
alphabet. In his dissertation, The
Korean Language Reform of 1446,
he wrote as follows:
“One of the most unique and interesting features of the Korean alphabet is the strict correspondence
it shows between graphic shape and
graphic function. Not only are the
shapes of the consonants of a pattern different from those of the
vowels, but even within these two
main groups the shapes decided
upon by Sejong clarify other important relationships…No other
alphabet in the world is so beauti-
fully, and sensibly, rational…It is
really impossible to withhold admiration for this conception of a
shape-function relationship and for
the way it was carried out. There is
nothing like it in all the long and
varied history of writing. It would
be quite enough merely to have the
systematic shapes within classes.
But for those shapes themselves to
be rationalized on the basis of the
speech organs associated with their
sounds—that is unparalleled grammatological luxury!”
Founded on philosophical as
well as scientific principles, Hangul
embodies certain elements of the
Confucian outlook. In traditional
Eastern thought, yin stands for
the concepts of feminine, passive,
dark, dry and cold, while the yang
encompasses the masculine, active, bright, humid and hot. From
the interaction between these two
principles arise the five elements
of Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and
Water, which represent dynamic
processes rather than physical entities. Corresponding to these principles, each vowel and consonant in
Hangul is assigned the properties
of either yin or yang, and the five
basic consonants represent the five
elements, according to their place
of articulation.
Most of the writing systems in
the world today began as hieroglyphics (pictographs), eventually
developing into ideographs, then
syllabic characters, and finally phonemic alphabets.
The ancient Egyptian and Chinese characters were pictographs.
Modern Chinese script, which
evolved from pictographs, is the
best-known ideograph, while the
Japanese writing system is categorized as a syllabic alphabet. The
most widely used alphabets in current times, the Roman (Latin) and
Cyrillic characters, are phonemic,
as is Greek, the mother alphabet of
Roman and Cyrillic.
Hangul is commonly classed as
a phonemic alphabet like the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets, but
this is not strictly correct. Hangul
is a unique alphabet in the sense
that it has passed beyond the stage
of phonemic characters. As explained above, “ㄱ” is a character in
the shape of the root of the tongue
blocking the throat. In other words,
the Korean consonant has not
only its own phoneme, but also its
own “phoneme feature”. Geoffrey
Sampson, pointing out these characteristics of the Korean alphabet,
has elevated Hangul to the status
of a “featural alphabet.” He concluded in his book that Hangul is
the most developed alphabet in the
entire history of written language.
Ignace Gelb, an American linguist,
remarked in his book A Study of
Writing that it took 1400 years for
hieroglyphics to become syllabic
characters and another 800 years
for the syllabic characters to become alphabetic. The Korean alphabet bypassed 2,200 years of development to reach the stage of the
“featural” alphabet, one step beyond the phonemic alphabet. Thus
it is no exaggeration to say that
Hangul was a truly groundbreaking development in the history of
written language.
The Korean Spirit and Culture
Promotion Project is credited with
the contents of this article.
Chinese Painting of the Week
‘Travelers Amid Streams and Mountains’ by Fan Kuan
PERSPECTIVE: The minuteness of people and animals in Fan Quan’s expansive landscapes is reflective of the Daoist ideal of becoming
one with nature.
By TONY DAI
Special to The Epoch Times
Fan Kuan (范寬 990-1030)
is known to be one of the
leading artists of the Northern Song landscape painting. He began by studying
the work of another Song
painter, Li Cheng. Later, he
concluded that nature was
the only true teacher.
Fan Kuan spent the rest
of his life as a recluse in the
Shanxi mountains. After
working in nature for years,
Fan Kuan took another step
to find his muse in a deeper
layer of existence. He created imaginary landscapes
that were different, which
stressed the importance of
imagination and the detachment from reality.
The most famous painting
by Fan Kuan is titled “Travelers Amid Streams and
Mountains.” It is one of the
greatest example of the traditional Chinese landscape
paintings and a model for all
Chinese artists. This monumental painting is based on
the Taoist principle of “becoming one with the nature”（天人合一）.
The painting focuses on
the big picture of nature and
the world as a whole instead
of the individual. Boulders,
trees, a mule caravan on the
road, walking merchant, waterfall splashing down, and
a temple in the forest on the
cliff are all vividly depicted in
the foreground of the painting. There is a break between
the foreground and the central peak behind, looks like
it was a backdrop suspended
and fitted into a slot behind
the foreground. There are
human figures in this scene,
but Fan Kuan reduced the
size of them in order to reflect the immense power of
nature, and it is easy to imagine them overpowered by
the magnitude and mystery
of their surroundings.