The world’s best alphabet

I began learning the Korean language almost 50 years ago. Perhaps the most basic error I made, and the error of my language teacher, was to spell out Korean words in the familiar alphabet of many European languages: Latin or Roman. Only later did I begin to understand the simple beauty of Hangeul and its straightforward representation of Korean language phonetics. Most people can learn to read Hangeul with only a few hours of work. Writing takes a bit more practice, and although I have been reading and writing Hangeul for most of my life, my handwriting is poor (but then, my English handwriting is no better ― I am impatient). With the advent of computers, typing in English or Hangeul is much faster and more accurate for my lazy hands.

King Sejong tried to revolutionize education in his kingdom 580 years ago. His first handbook, promulgating Hangeul in the modern era, was a revolutionary writing system intended to make literacy egalitarian. But the system was too progressive, too far ahead of its time. Government officials, functionaries and the upper class of Korea ― those who ran things in the Joseon Kingdom ― outright rejected the writing system. They could see they would lose their grip on power if most people could learn to read and write. They glorified their noble status, which allowed them to spend a lifetime studying without working. Work was beneath them, they believed, best left to servants, enslaved people, and the lower classes (about 99 percent of the population).

The king died just a few years later, undoubtedly disappointed that his remarkable innovation in linguistics had been relegated to the dusty shelves of the royal library. Over time, women began using the script. Writers of popular fiction used the script, fueling a comparatively widespread publishing industry in the 17th century (1600s). Korean poets and lyricists adopted the script also.

By the modern era, late in the Joseon Kingdom and Korean Empire, the government and public widely used Hangeul. The first Hangeul/English bilingual newspaper, Tongnip Shingmun (The Independent), began publication in 1896. The widespread Protestant missionary work in Korea, conducted by English-speaking Western European men and women, many from the United States, Canada, England, and Australia, promoted education through Hangeul.

Important scholar-missionaries quickly learned the language, adopted Hangeul as the primary writing system for their work in education and church, and began translating the Bible. The names of the Bible translation committee are well-known to most Koreans: James Scarth Gale, Henry G. Appenzeller, Horace G. Underwood, William B. Scranton, and William D. Reynolds. Underwood and Gale, especially, became skilled linguists, though Underwood’s legacy was cut short by his early death in 1916.

Gale’s work on the Bible translation has influenced all following Korean Bible translations into the modern era. Gale and Underwood published one of the first dictionaries of the Korean language in 1890. Gale produced several editions of his Korean-English dictionary, starting with the first edition in 1897. A second edition was published in 1914. Gale’s dictionaries continued through several more editions over the first half of the 20th century. His standard for the Korean language was replaced by a “new” dictionary in 1968, using updated language usage and linguistic scholarship that had been developing since Gale died in 1937. The 1968 dictionary, built on Gale’s impeccable scholarly foundation, quickly became the standard for all subsequent lexicography. The dictionary was published by the pre-eminent Minjungseogwan (later Minjungseorim) publishing house. As a young learner in the 1970s, this dictionary was my essential daily companion.

James Scarth Gale was a prolific writer and translator. The first work of Western literature, "The Pilgrim’s Progress," was issued in 1893. Gale wrote textbooks for middle and high schools and translated dozens of other books, including his independent translation of the Bible in 1925. He published the first English-language translation of the Cloud Dream of the Nine in 1922. He wrote for newspapers and magazines both in Korea and worldwide. The sheer volume of his original and translation writing fills dozens of pages of bibliography. Yet, his unpublished works exceed his published works by thousands of pages. Most are housed in Canada at the University of Toronto.

Had both Horace G. Underwood and James Scarth Gale survived until after the defeat of the Japanese Empire in 1945, they both surely would have been given high honor by the new Republic of Korea government of Syngman Rhee, who was their good friend (both men having been Rhee’s teachers and spiritual mentors). As fate would have it, among those first-generation missionary-scholar pioneers, only Homer B. Hulbert lived until the formation of the Korean Republic, but only barely. On a visit to Seoul in 1949, at age 86, Hulbert succumbed to pneumonia and was buried in Seoul alongside many of his former colleagues.

King Sejong’s goal has become a reality beyond even his wildest imagination. Not only have the Korean people embraced the script, but it has been hailed by linguists everywhere and untold thousands worldwide have also taken to learning the Korean language.

Rev. Steven L. Shields (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s. He is the president of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea. He served as copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect The Korea Times’ editorial stance.