『훈민정음』(1446)에서 한글 자모 설명을 위한 한자 선정 방식

Abstract

This study aims to examine the Chinese characters used in 'Hunminjeongeum(the name of a book, which was published in 1446 to document its invention principle, academic backgrounds, etc.) ' in order to explain Hangul. Since Hangul expresses one phoneme as a single letter, the correspondence between phonemes and letters is very important. To explain this correspondence, certain principles and methods should be used. In ‘Hunminjeongeum’, 42 phonemes are explained using 23 Chinese characters. One character denotes at least two or three phonemes. ‘Hunminjeongeum’ was created on the principle that a single letter expresses a phoneme, however because of its special usage one Chinese character expresses multiple phonemes. Analysis of the explanatory Chinese characters used in ‘Hunminjeongeum’ revealed the following: 1) the explanatory Chinese characters are intended to connect individual phonemes with letters. 2) a total of 23 Chinese characters were composed to describe all 23 initial consonants, 11 medial vowels, and 6 longitudinal consonants. 3) to describe the synthesis process step-by-step, the 23 Chinese characters were arranged systematically. The Chinese characters used in ‘Hunminjeongeum’ explain the relationship between phonemes and letters. However, it is difficult to explain every syllable in the Korean language. A study is needed to supplement this problem and easily teach Hangul.