Hangul, the best writing in the world

우성민

In the modern society, about 150 writing systems are being used throughout the whole world. Among these letters, ‘Hangul’, Korean alphabet, is the only one with its origin discovered. Although origins of other writings like alphabet and Cyrillic have not been found, ‘Hangul’ was proved to have been made in 1443 by the great king Sejong. Moreover, ‘Hangul’ is known as the most remarkable writings in the whole world and have been praised by a number of linguists. But many people living in Korea cannot find some special factors that distinguish it from other writings. So, I want to suggest some reasons why ‘Hangul’ is the best in the world. It is because ‘Hangul’ is very scientific, easy to learn, and appropriate for informatization.

To begin with, ‘Hangul’ is very scientific and systematic. When king Sejong made this awesome writing, he tried to create it based on human’s vocal organs like mouth and vocal cords. Therefore, it is very easy for us to predict the sound of certain letter and pronounce it. For instance, when we see the letter ‘ㅇ’, we could predict that we should make a circle with our mouth to create the sound. Also, ‘Hangul’ utilize ‘gather writing’. Although it is phonemic writing like alphabet, we actually use it as a syllable. Since syllable is the basic element of pronunciation, it is very easy to realize the way letters are pronounced and what they mean. Based on these scientific characteristics, ‘Hangul’ can express more than 10,000 sounds even though it only consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Like this, ‘Hangul’ is the most scientific and extraordinary writing in the world.

Next, ‘Hangul’ is the easiest writing among others. As I mentioned above, ‘Hangul’ is completely systematic based on its scientific characteristics. This means there is certain consistency among letter. The consistency, which makes ‘Hangul’ very easy to learn, is called ‘principle of adding stroke’. In ‘Hangul’, there are some letters that are similar to each other like ‘ㄴ’, ‘ㄷ,’ ‘ㅌ’. Surprisingly, these letters have similar traits, which allow everybody to learn ‘Hangul’ at a fast rate. To illustrate, sound of similar letters such as ‘ㄱ’, ‘ㅋ’ are made in the same place. The sound just becomes a little bit stronger as we add a stroke at them. In this case, we should pronunciation of ‘ㅋ’ is stronger than ‘ㄱ’ since it has one more stroke. Although this seems very simple, the principle is one clear characteristic that distinguishes ‘Hangul’ from other writings with lots of irregular factors. Based on this fact, ‘Hangul’ is the easiest writing in the world and this is one of the reasons why ‘Hangul’ is the most outstanding, competent writing.

Finally, ‘Hangul’ is very suitable for informatization. Nowadays, information is the most important element in international community since the world is changing rapidly. In this situation, it is very important to process data faster than other nations. For this, ‘Hangul’ is the most competent one. Since keyboard for ‘Hangul’ is divided into two parts : one for consonances and one for vowel, we can enter information into a computer very fast. In addition, informatization of ‘Hangul’ can be conducted in mobile appliances like smart phone more effectively. Based on ‘principle of adding stroke’, we can enter contents what we want very fast using keyboard of these tools. To illustrate, ‘Hangul’ just need one key ‘ㅁ’ enter ‘ㅁ’, ‘ㅂ’, ‘ㅍ’ since ‘ㅂ’ and ‘ㅍ’ is made by adding stroke to ‘ㅁ’. Like this, ‘Hangul’ is very suitable for informatization, which will be the most important factor in the future society.

In conclusion, I think ‘Hangul’ is the best writing system in the world since it is very scientific, easy to learn, and good to achieve informatization in the future. Although ‘Hangul’ is such an awesome writing, only few people living in Korea notice this and most people don’t hesitate to destruct these rules in normal lives. To promote bright aspects of ‘Hangul’, we should know more about its characteristics and try to use it wisely.

#우성민