"If the people prosper, how may the king prosper without them? And if the people do not prosper, how may the king prosper without them?"
~ King Sejong

King Sejong: The Creation of the Korean Language

In 1447, the people of Korea were using Chinese characters for their written language (which were very hard to learn, since they and the spoken language of Korea came from different linguistic families). This lead to a very low literacy rate in Korea were only the elite classes, essentially people with money could learn to read and write. In 1443, King Sejong the Great of Korea, began working on a new language called Hangeul that he believed was easy to learn to allow his citizens to read and write. He gave this idea to his personal scribes, and they began working on Hangeul. But, its creation was difficult. In that same year, government officials revolted against this new language. This was because would allow citizens to find loopholes in the law, and the officials would have to learn the new language. So, they murdered King Sejong’s youngest son and held many other important people in prison, like the King’s advisors. King Sejong continued with what he thought was right and finished creating Hangeul with his scribes. This changed history by allowing the citizens of Korea to read and write without very expensive education, advancing the frontier of literacy in Korea. In 2008, South Korea had an amazing literacy rate of 97.97% thanks to Sejong’s new language.

Junior Group Website                                                                                                                                                                          Participants: Daniel Lee and Ford Shackelford                                                                                                                                           Student made words: 1176                                                                                                                                                                    Process paper count: 500                                                                                                                                                                        Media Time: 0.20 minutes