1443
King Sejong creates 28 letters
The Annals of King Sejong record that the king personally created 28 new letters in the winter of his 25th regnal year and named them Hunminjeongeum.
The beginning of Hangul · 12 min
Follow the historical record to learn why King Sejong created Hunminjeongeum and how its letters were designed.
훈민정음
訓民正音 · 28 letters · 1443
The beginning of Hangul
The preface says that Korean speech differed from Chinese and many people could not fully express their meaning with Chinese characters. The new letters were intended to be learned easily and used conveniently every day.
1443
The Annals of King Sejong record that the king personally created 28 new letters in the winter of his 25th regnal year and named them Hunminjeongeum.
1446
In the ninth lunar month of Sejong’s 28th year, the Haerye edition was published with letter sounds, usage, explanations, and examples.
The Joseon king who created the new letters
He created 28 new letters so people could express their meaning more easily in writing.
A royal institute of scholarship
Scholars including Jeong In-ji helped compile the Haerye explanations and postface describing the letters and their use.
The name of both the script and its guide
The name means “Correct Sounds for Instructing the People.” The writing system is now called Hangul.
ㄱ ㄴ ㅁ ㅅ ㅇ
The Haerye explains that five basic consonants model parts of the mouth and throat as each sound is produced.
ㆍ ㅡ ㅣ
Three basic vowel signs represented heaven, earth, and humanity, and were combined to form other vowels.
ㅋ ㄷ ㅌ ㅂ ㅍ
Related letters were formed systematically by adding strokes to basic forms or combining the basic vowel signs.
Name
Hunminjeongeum was both the name of the new script and the title of the book explaining it. The script is now called Hangul.
Letters
The original system had 17 consonants and 11 vowels. Modern Korean has 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels; ㆍ, ㆁ, ㆆ, and ㅿ are not part of the modern basic alphabet.
The book
The edition contains King Sejong’s preface and Yeui, explanations written by Hall of Worthies scholars, and Jeong In-ji’s postface, preserving the purpose and operation of the letters.
The Haerye edition preserves the purpose, sound values, usage rules, explanations, and examples. UNESCO inscribed the manuscript on the Memory of the World Register in 1997.
Quick check
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