Anyone who has watched a costumed kdrama at least once in their life will have noticed that the characters use Chinese characters when writing. As we all know, however, in Korea hangul is used, a completely different and autonomous script.
What is the history of this alphabet? Let's find out.
The first form of writing that spread in the current geographical region of Korea was, in fact, the Chinese, imposed both through military conquests and through cultural influences. It is necessary to arrive at 1443 A.D. when a group of writers around King Sejong (traditionally considered the father of hangul) devised a new form of writing, which was officially promulgated in 1446. The hangul was therefore born, although for the first forty years or so it was used only for glossing Chinese texts. This new script, initially alphabetic and then transformed into syllabic, was written in vertical columns from right to left; the horizontal shape from left to right is a later evolution.
However, the hangul life was not destined to be simple and slowly fell into disuse in favor of a return to Chinese writing, more complex and, for this very reason, more elitist. From the 17th century the hangul was completely abandoned.
In 1910, however, Korea became a Japanese colony. This foreign domination gave a strong nationalistic impulse and the resistance movements revived the hangul as an element of pride and unification for the country. Starting in 1945, North Korea completely abolished the use of any Chinese sign; in South Korea, on the other hand, there is still a mixture of the two scriptures, even if the hangul is slowly gaining the upper hand.
As mentioned above, hangul is a syllabic script, so each sign represents a sound and not a concept. It also has a unique feature: in fact the letters do not follow one another but are grouped in syllabic blocks that make it visually quite similar to Chinese writing, especially for an inexperienced eye. Each block is made up of a vowel and a consonant, which can also be double. Some signs that were once widespread, such as the dots to indicate tone, have completely fallen into disuse. One aspect that easily distinguishes hangul from other nearby Asian scripts is the use of space to detach words from each other. A little big help for all those who want to try their hand at studying this language.
Sources:
M. Cimarosti, Non legitur. Around the world in thirty-three writings, ed. Stampa Alternative Printing & Graffiti, 2005
S. Curto, Writing in the history of man, ed. Cisalpino, 1989
G.R. Cardona, Universal history of writing, ed. Arnoldo Mondadori, 1986
traduzione in eng di jenifer_ierace
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