WOOOOOOOOOOOWWW…
It is not “one dude sat down one day and made up the Korean alphabet”.
King Sejong who created Korean language “Hangul”, did not simply sat down on his throne and thought, “Hey! I am so fucking bored that I’m going to make a new language!” Back then, we borrowed our language from Chinese characters. And Chinese is really hard to learn. Only those who were rich enough to afford education was able to learn the characters. Peasants didn’t have time to learn the language and so it was very difficult for them to understand what was going on in their own country. They couldn’t even write their own names.
King Sejong saw the pain. And so it took him more than just a fucking day to come up with Hangul. It took him several years just to gather all the information to create the new language to benefit his people and let alone design the entire alphabet system that was easy enough for everybody to learn.
Finally, on October 9, 1446, he announced his newly created language and called it “Hoon Min Jung Eum” which means a “sound that enlightens everyone.”
King Sejong wrote: ”Because the speech of this country is different from that of China, it [the spoken language] does not match the [Chinese] letters. Therefore, even if the ignorant want to communicate, many of them in the end cannot state their concerns. Saddened by this, I have [had] 28 letters newly made. It is my wish that all the people may easily learn these letters and that [they] be convenient for daily use”
Korean language looks hard, but it is very easy to learn compared to any other languages in the world. And that is because King Sejong did not “sat down one day and came up with it”. It was because he truly loved his people and wanted everyone to prosper in harmony and live peacefully without any worries.
(Source: ryanestradadotcom, via dinos-grawr)
