Final Examination
Short essay about Korean History and Culture
Major: Computer Science
Student Number: 202013836
Name: Nguyen Anh Duc
In Korean history, only the King Sejong (The Emperor 1418-1450) was considered by Koreans to be
worthy of the title of "Great Emperor". He is not only a virtuous, intelligent, wise and talented ruler, but
under his reign, the Korean peninsula has achieved many brilliant achievements. It can be seen that in
Korean history, apart from the reign of King Sejong, there has never been a dynasty that has had such
wonderful creative powers and created so many great achievements.
King Sejong was born in 1397, he became king at the age of 21 (1418). In order to revive the country
and build a strong dynasty, after taking control of the country, King Sejong established the Jiphyeonjeon
(Hall of Worthies) to attract domestic talents. The King's correct policy of "receiving sages" quickly
brought together many famous domestic scholars to research and study, concentrate wisdom with the
royalty to revive the country. Due to the deep concern and close cooperation between the King and
scholars in the Hall of Worthies, many cultural, scientific, and technical works under King Sejong were
born.
King Sejong's greatest achievement was the creation of Hangeul, the Korean alphabet. The birth of
Hangeul is not only the result of the development of the Korean people's cultural creativity, but also
marked a new turning point in the political, economic, social, and cultural life of residents across the
peninsula. It comes from the sense that one's people should have a writing system to express everyday
language and especially the king's thoughts that the whole nation should be able to learn and read this
type of writing easily. The idea prompted King Sejong to invent Hangul. The first is called
Hunminjeongeum. The original Hangul alphabet consisted of 28 characters (24 today, including 10
vowels and 14 consonants). As such, Hangeul was born in 1443, and it was officially established in 1446.
When Hangeul was officially announced, in the royal family at that time, a number of bureaucrats, who
were aristocrats, did not respond to King Sejong's idea of making Hangul, there were many oppositions to
him. At that time, the ruling class of Yangban argued that it was necessary to protect their monopoly on
education by continuing to use the Chinese character system. However, overcoming the above obstacles,
King Sejong was determined to push ahead with the development of the Hangul alphabet. King Sejong
invented the Hangul alphabet with the help of the scholars of the Hall of Worthies such as Seong Sam
Mun, Jeong In Ji and Shin Suk Ju. It can be seen that, this is not only a unique creation in science, but
also the proudest cultural achievement of the Korean people.
Structurally, Hangul is a system of symbols base on the symbols of heaven, earth, people, and
pronunciation organs such as tongue, lips, and throat... With this alphabet system, Koreans can "record all
the Korean sounds in the most complete and simple way ever”. In the explanation of Jeong in Ji, who was
a close aide to the King in writing creation, he explained that with this writing system, "a smart person
can memorize it in a morning, and it takes only 10 days for normal person”. The birth of the Hangul
alphabet marks an important turning point in the history of the Korean people. From here, Koreans can
record their native language with their own handwriting system.
The creation of the Hangul writing system was a great cultural achievement of the Korean people in
the first half of the XV century. However, due to various historical conditions, the following centuries,
Chinese characters still occupy a major position in social life on the Korean Peninsula. And as time went
by, by the 19th century; XX, Hangul became the official language of the entire peninsula. During the
Japanese rule (1910-1945), the use of Hangul was discontinued. After 1945, Hangul was used again. To
commemorate the day when King Sejong officially issued Hangul in 1446, today, Koreans have chosen
October 9 as the anniversary date. Hangul script is not only a great scientific creation, but also a means of
communication, dissemination, and preservation of traditional and modern cultural values of the Korean
people.
Like many other languages in the world, Korean today is one of 20 languages present in many
countries around the world. Statistics show that there are nearly 80 million Korean speakers including
about 25 million people in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, 48 million in South Korea, 1.9
million in China, and many people from many other countries such as Japan, Russia, USA, Canada, etc.
Hangul is not only an invaluable asset of the Korean people but also the pride of all generations of Korean
residents in history and present.
