Chapter One
ORIGIN OF HANGUL
Every language has its own history on how it was formed, who invented the writing system, who all contributed to the growth of that language, etc.
Likewise, the Korean language has also its own history. Let's see how the Korean language was born.
The great King Sejong was the 4th ruler during the Joseon era. Many Korean people say that he was the greatest ruler in the history of Korea. One of the major reasons is that he invented, 'hangul', the Korean writing system, in the year of 1443 AD. Before Hangul was invented, Koreans used the Chinese characters, called 'hanja' for writing.
However, 'hanja' did not fit the structure and special characteristics of the Korean language, making the use of it a bit uncomfortable. For this reason, King Sejong, who had much knowledge in languages, created Hangul, which matches the distinguishing characteristics and features of the Korean words.
Hangul consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels, which thereby makes it easy to learn. It also helped Korea in attaining a high literacy rate. UNESCO named an award for people and organizations who help to lower the illiteracy rate, 'king Sejong award'.
In the next chapter, we will study vowels and consonants in detail.
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