Korean writing and scripts was said to be one of the remarkably unique writing system and language in the world apart from the Chinese and Japanese scripts. The sources of the origin of the script were lost at an early date in Korea and thus resulting to the variety of conflicting theories which had risen among the Korean and Western scholars.
It was established during Joseon Dynasty by The Great King Sejong and was completed in December 1443 and published in a document titled, ‘Hunmin Jungeum’ which means ‘The Proper Sounds for the Education of the people’. Korean handwriting system is called Hangul in Korean which is derived from the Korean 한 han which means ‘great’ in archaic Korean and 글 geul means ‘script’ in a native Korean language (Jae Jung Song, 2005). Before, the script was merely called ‘Enmun’ which means ‘Vulgar Writing’ until it was then changed to Hangul in 1912. It is the official script for both South and North Korea.
Because of the conflict that had arisen among the scholars and researchers who had claimed that they could not find source that had equipped with proof that the theory of Hangul was created. Hence, under those circumstances it could not be helped but confused scholars were at its height in the 19th century when the synthesizers sat down to write the history of writing. There are some quotes that are paraphrases for instance like Von Siebol (1832) where he quoted, “Aside from the Chinese script … there is… a native in use which is based on an exceptionally simple alphabet. This script, the invention of which is assigned to a king of Sin-ra Silla around 374 A.D, is named On-mun (Ghinboun according to Klaproth, Chinese Yen-wen), … consists of individual signs which have been divided into principal signs (consonants) and side signs (Nebenzeichen) (vowels).”
Before Hangul was introduced, the dominant writing system was in Chinese and it was called ‘hanja’ as it had been from the
References: * Ahn Cheol Sang, 1994. On Peripherality on A Molecular Approach. * Evi, 2013. Choe Manri. Acessed on 10th April 2013 from http://www.evi.com/q/facts_about__choe_manri * Jae Jung Song, 2005. The Korean Language: Structure, use and context. New York: Routledge. * Ledyard, G. K., (1966). The Korean Language Reform of 1446. USA: University of California, Berkeley. * Lee Iskop, & Ramsey, R., 2000. The Korean Language. New York: State University of New York Press, Albany. * Voice of America. Extracted on 10th April 2013 from http://www.voanews.com/content/a-13-2009-03-16-voa49-68727402/409810.html