User:Yvetteyoon/sandbox

Before Hangul, the Korean alphabet, was created, Koreans used Chinese letters to record their words. Since Chinese language and Korean language share few similarities, borrowing Chinese characters proved to be inefficient to reflect the spoken language. In addition, the Ming Dynasty had just come to power in China at the time when King Sejong was inventing Hangul, which changed the pronunciation of Chinese characters making it harder for Koreans to learn the new standard pronunciation to record their words. The literacy level also stayed high since reading and learning Chinese characters were restricted to the ordinary people and were generally used in official documents by the ruling class. The ruling class took advantage of this and learning the Chinese characters became a symbol of power and privilege. In order to make written language more accessible for common people, King Sejong started creating Hangul secretly, since the ruling class would be appalled by the news. While it is widely known that King Sejong borrowed the hands of the scholars of Jiphyunjeon(집현전) to invent Hangul, Sejong Sillok or Preface of Jung In Jee credit King Sejong for the invention.

Hangul was personally created by Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, and revealed by him in 1443.[2][3][4][5]

This is stated in Book 113 of The Annals of King Sejong (Sejongsillok) on the 9th month and the 28th year of reign of King Sejong and at the end of An Illustrated Explanation of Hunminjeongeum (Hunminjeongeum Haeryebon).

Afterward, King Sejong wrote the preface to the Hunminjeongeum, explaining the origin and purpose of Hangul and providing brief examples and explanations, and then tasked the Hall of Worthies to write detailed examples and explanations.[4] The head of the Hall of Worthies, Jeong In-ji, was responsible for compiling the Hunminjeongeum.[5] The Hunminjeongeum was published and promulgated to the public in 1446.[4]

The writing system is referred to as “Hangul” today but was originally named as Hunminjeongeum by King Sejong. “Hunmin” and “Jeongeum” are respective words that each indicate “to teach the people” and “proper sounds.”

Together Hunminjeongeum means “correct sounds for the instruction of the people”