「諺文字母」와 『訓民正音』 字母의 차이에 대하여

Abstract

In this article, I tried to reveal the difference between Eonmun letters and Hunminjeongeum letters. In our academia, we generally see Eonmun and Hunminjeongeum as the same. Eonmun is considered the name attached importance to the Korean writing function or commonly used name, while Hunminjeongeum is considered the name emphasizing the function to write the Chinese phonetic value or formally used name. However, Eonmun, which means letters, and Hunminjeongeum, which means sound, can be seen as distinctive. There is also a discussion that Hunminjeongeum was first created and that the Eonmun was made by selecting only the words needed to spell Korean. But Eonmun was made in 1443, Hunminjeongeum was made in 1446. Various sources point to the fact that Eonmun was first created and that Hunminjeongeum, which complemented the Chinese phonetic alphabet, was created when the appeal against it was posted. Shin Sook-ju, Sung Sam-mun and others went to meet and question the phonetic value of Chinese characters to Hwang Chan in Liaodong Province after 1445 for the completion of Hunminjeongeum and the compiling of Donggukjeongun(東國正韻). The Eonmun Office had already been installed since December 1443 and before February 1444, and which is also the logical basis that Eonmun was created before Hunminjeongeum. Also, the fact that the name of the Eonmun consonants is pronounced completely differently in the Hunminjeongeum system also provides ground for the fact that Eonmun was made before Hunminjeongeum. Meanwhile, the Korean translation of Lăoqĭdà(老乞大), Samun Seong-hwi(三韻聲彙), Gyujangjeon-un(奎章全韻), and others used Eonmun and Hunminjeongeum together. The decisive difference between Eonmun and Hunminjeongeum lies in the precision of phonetic transcription. Even if the Korean language can be perfectly written with Eonmun, it cannot accurately represent the sound of a foreign language such as Chinese or Mongolian. It's no different from the situation where we can't properly represent the pitch of English in Korean. Only by accurately recognizing the difference between Eonmun and Hunminjeongeum, it will be possible to correctly mark the current foreign language pronunciation.