『훈민정음』과 강남한음

Abstract

"Hunminjeongeum" was also known as "Hanguel", which is the Korean letter or Character system being used today. According to previous narratives, this language system was invented particularly for written language by King Sejong of Korea in 1444, when he found people suffering from the inconsistency of oral and written languages. However, after combing through the official and unofficial records before and after the birth of "Hunminjeongeum", we made the following discovery: this spelling characters of "Hunminjeongeum" had to be invented to cope with the new policy for language of the Ming Dynasty in China, under the circumstance that Korean students were declined by the Ming emperors to study the new standard Chinese Pronunciation in China. This system was used to record the Chinese pronunciations, so that Korean officials could learn Chinese pronunciation for dealing with duties related to the Ming court. This is one of the most important motivations that "Hunminjeongeum" was created. Xie Xun a Uighur descendant from Liyang near by Nanjing of China played a role that linked the Phagspa and "Hunminjeongeum" as well as Monggo Unseo and Eonhae Unseo in the process when "Hunminjeongeum" was invented. The form was not a new one but a copy of the Mongol Phagspa and should be the second Chinese spelling symbol after the Phagspa. It was not used daily by Korean people until the system became the official characters of Korea in 1894. During the colonization of Japan, Korean nationalists, in the pursuit of independence, called the system "Hanguel", meaning "standard characters" or "great characters" rather than "vulgar characters" and this has been used ever since in Korea. The "han" is not the sound for "Korea", but is a native word in Korean meaning "unified", "great" and "standard".