Pathway to the Korean Alphabet

This chapter overviews the invention of the Korean alphabet in the fifteenth century. It begins with the geopolitical and sociocultural contexts of Korea and moves on to how Chinese characters were not suitable as a writing system for Koreans to such a degree that they could not encode the Korean language properly. The birth of the Korean alphabet was possible due to King Sejong’s sympathy for ordinary people’s challenges with their illiteracy (as he specifically noted in the Handbook of the Korean Alphabet) as well as his passion and determination to create a new writing system that could be easy to learn to read. His linguistic knowledge also made the invention possible. Given debates over the role of King Sejong in the creation of the alphabet, the originality and the true inventor of the writing system are critically examined based on historical evidence. The linguistic underpinnings of the alphabet, linguistic principles behind the invention mechanism, and the overall characteristics of the Korean alphabet are discussed. The implications of the Korean alphabet for the science of writing and the science of reading are reviewed as well.