Talk:Hunminjeongeum

UNESCO bit
"UNESCO confirmed Hunminjeongeum as the world's only alphabet whose creator and purpose of creation are known in 1997 and designated it in the Memory of the World Programme."

Isn't this obviously false? There's plenty of writing systems where we know the creator, like the Cherokee syllabary for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.32.197.234 (talk) 01:37, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I suppose the Cherokee syllabary doesn't count because it's a syllabary and not an alphabet. But we know Cyrillic's creator, and that's an alphabet. Does it not count because it wasn't created entirely from scratch? I think this claim by UNESCO is dubious, to say the least. I vote to remove the claim. RealChefSalad (talk) 05:36, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Prologue
Which copy (and which language version -- Korean-based or Chinese-based?) is in Kansong Art Museum? --Menchi 07:03, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Personally made by Sejong?
I've never heard it insisted that Sejong himself invented Hangul by any Korean professor. I've only heard this from relatively uneducated nationalist types. I could be wrong, though. Anyway, I added a "citation needed" tag. Eunsung (talk) 13:03, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

mp3 reading
Reading of first paragraph of the document Hunmin Jeongeum available as mp3 at http://de-han.org/korea/hmju/index.htm Oniows 15:38, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, That is not the correct pronounciation in respect to the time the document is written. --Puzzlet Chung 06:01, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've been doing a lot of research on the Internet (and I'm aware that it's not really the best way to get accurate info). From what I learned from the Wikipedia articles already, I'm guessing the old pronunciations are lost forever? LCS 23:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * They can get pretty close, actually. I don't know where you could find an accurate recording, though. Eunsung (talk) 07:44, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Choe Mal-li's submission against Hunmin Jeongeum
In this article of Wi-vun Chiung he reported Choe Mal-li's argument against Hunmin Jeongeum as cited by Lee Sang-Baek. I will try to provide a translation soon, I hope.
 * 集賢殿副提學崔萬里等 上疏曰 臣等伏觀 諺文制作 至為神妙 創物運智 瓊出千古 然而以臣等區區管見 尚有可疑者敢布危懇 謹疏于後 伏惟 聖裁
 * 我朝自祖宗以來 至誠事大 一遵華制 今當同文同軌之時 創作諺文 有該觀聽 儻曰諺文 皆本古字非新字也 則字形雖倣古之篆文 用音合字盡反於古 實無所據 若流中國 或有非議者 豈不有愧於事大慕華
 * 自古九州之內 風土雖異未有因方言而別為文字者 雖蒙古西夏女真日本西蕃之類 各有其字 是皆夷狄事耳無足道者 傳曰用憂變夷 未聞變於夷者也 歷代中國皆以我國箕子遺風文物禮欒 比擬中華 今別作諺文 捨中國自同於夷狄 是所謂棄蘇合之香而取螗螂之丸也 豈非文明之大累哉
 * 新羅薛聰吏讀 雖謂鄙俚然皆借中國通用之字 施於語助 與文字元不相離 故雖至胥吏僕隸之徒 必欲習之 先讀教書 粗知文字 然後乃用吏讀 用吏讀者 須憑文字 乃能達意故因吏讀而知文字者頗多 亦與學之助也……不知聖賢之文字 則不學墻面 昧於事理之是非 徒工於諺文 將何用哉 我國家積累右文之化 恐漸至掃地矣……
 * 若曰如刑殺獄辭以吏讀文字書之 則不知文理之愚民 一字之差 容或致冤 今以諺文直書其言 讀使聽之 則雖至愚之人 悉皆易曉 而無抱屈者 然自古中國言與文同獄訟之間 冤枉甚多 借以我國言之 獄囚之解吏讀者 親讀招辭知其誣而不勝棰楚 多有枉服者 是非不知招辭之文意 而被冤也明矣 若然則雖用諺文何異於此 是知刑獄平不平 在於獄吏之如何 而不在言與文之同不同也 欲以諺文平獄辭 臣等未見其可也
 * 凡立事功 不貴近速國家比來措置 皆務速成 恐非為治之體 儻曰諺文不得已而為之 此變易風俗之大者 當謀及宰相 下至百僚 國人皆曰可 猶先甲先庚 更加三思質諸帝王而不悖 考諸中而無愧 百世以俟聖人而惑 然後乃可行也 今不博採群議 驟令吏輩十餘人訓習 又輕改古人己成之韻書 附會無稽之諺文聚工匠數十人刻之 刻欲廣布 其於天下後世 公議何如……
 * 先儒云 凡百玩好 皆奪志 至於書札 於儒者事最近 然一向好著 亦自喪志 今東宮雖德性成就 猶當潛心聖學 益求其未至諺 諺文縱曰有益 特文士六藝之一耳 況萬萬無一利於治道 而乃研精費思 竟日移時實有損於時敏之學也

– Kaihsu 13:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I am translating this at Hangul. – Kaihsu 19:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Original version
Hi, isn't the Hunmin Jeongeum in Hanmun? It's the Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye and Hunmin Jeongeum Eonhae that are Korean, right? --KJ 14:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes. Hunmin Jeongeum is written in Hanmun. Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye and Eonhae is written in Hangeul. So in this article, picture is incorrect. ―Emelmujiro 08:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Not according to Hunmin Jeongeum. The picture would appear to be from that second version.  If you have a reliable source which indicates that is incorrect, please update the article accordingly.  Cheers, -- Visviva 08:51, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Corrected modernised rendition
First of all, I would like to point out that the modernised rendition of the original Hunminjeong-eum is done following a one-to-one correspondence. It is not a translation into modern Korean. It only changes ancient letters wich are not used anymore into modern ones. That is, this is like picking up a passage from 'Beowulf' and writing:

"Thatto suth ne north be sam tweonum ofer eormen-grund other nanig"

instead of the original:

"þætto suð ne norð be sæm tweonum ofer eormen-grund oþer nænig"

Which normally is not done. I mean, in South Korea ancient texts are either written using the ancient ortography or fully translated into Modern Korean. There are many reasons but perhaps the most important one is that a one-to-one conversion can be misledaing. It is true that we can often stablish a direct correspondence between old and new letters, for example, acient jieut (pronounced /z/) becomes always modern jieut (pronounced /dʒ/). However, in some other cases certain letter did not evolve directly into a single modern one. Historic change was determined by more complex phonetic rules.

For example, we cannot systematically change the. 'arae a' with moder ㅏ because in certain enviroments (specially before /l/) it did not changed into A but into EU.

So modern 흙 (heulk) comes from a word written as ㅎ.ㄺ with arae a. And particles are another example, ancient .ㄴ, .ㄹ became modern EUN, EUL. I will correct the modernised version accordingly.

Following up, I assume that the romanised verison is attempting to follow the Revised Romanisation released by South Korean authorities in 2000. It might be objectable using a romanisation dessigned for Modern Korean with the rendition of an ancient text (like assigning IPA values to the Beowulf sentence but according to modern pronunciation). But I understand that reconstructing accurately the ancient pronunciation is too much! Nevertheless, if we still only take into account modern romanisation-pronunciation rules, there are mistakes: 'dala' should be 'dara' (intervocalic ㄹ should be rendered as R); 'nalro' should be 'nallo' (ㄹㄹ sequences are to be represented according to pronunciation: LL). I will correct accordingly too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.24.7.35 (talk) 12:31, 13 October 2006

translation of hunminjoeonhum
This sentence may be conflicted because it is not know when China has been called as 中國 (國之語音，異乎中國). Someone say that the sentence should be translated as follows Because the national language is different from central nation (central nation means the capital city) --Hairwizard91 07:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)


 * But... "諺解本" seems to say that "中國" is the land where "皇帝" is. Mulukhiyya (talk) 03:35, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

is '愚民' equal to 'entire people'?
there is a word, '愚民' in the Hunmin Jeongeum. '愚民' means 'idiot people' or the word that governor uses to call for 'inferior people (to the governor)'. the translation into 'entire people' is wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carl Daniels (talk • contribs) 15:54, 3 November 2006

Nicolaes Witsen
Is it true that in the end of the 17th century a Dutchman Mattheus Eibokken wrote a list of Dutch-Korean words together with Nicolaas Witsen with the use of hangul? Can anyone who knows more about the subject, add a reference in the text? Taksen (talk) 10:02, 20 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Eibokken was one of Hendrick Hamel's companions on board of the Sperwer, the ship that shipwrecked on Jeju Island. Hamel later wrote a book about their stay in Korea. Eibokken composed the Dutch-Korean dictionary together with Nicolaas Witsen. You can read more about this all on [|this website].

Kbarends (talk) 06:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

deleted infobox image
According to the image page, Image:Hunmin jeong-eum.jpg is a page from the hunmin jeong'eum haerye, not the hunmin jeong'eum, so I removed it. kwami (talk) 19:30, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Topic of this article
Is this article about a) the proclamation of the new script, b) the document that proclaims this new script, or c) the new script itself? Currently the article seems to cover bits of all three, but seems to be primarily about the document, so I'll tweak the focus to be on that. Jpatokal (talk) 03:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

I came looking for (b) because I am visiting Korea, and was wondering where the original document is kept. But the article doesn't say. Maybe this information could be added? (museum/archive name..?) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.209.100.130 (talk) 15:35, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

National Memory Heritage Service external link
The external link “National Memory Heritage Service provides the pictures of the book” seems to be down. I can access archived versions of the site (e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20171102015318/http://www.memorykorea.go.kr:80/), but I don't speak Korean and I'm not having enough success with machine translation to find the relevant page(s).

There's a sad irony when a document-preservation site goes down. — Octavo (talk) 21:33, 11 February 2022 (UTC)