national treasure no. 70

hunminjeongeom haeryebon

revealing the purpose of and principles in creation of hangeul

 

hunminjeongeom is divided into the two major parts: ‘yeeui’ and ‘haerye.’ yeeui is written by sejong to describe the reason for creating hangeul and the method of using it.haerye is written by the scholars of jiphyeonjeon, including sammoon sung and pengnyeon park, who helped sejong to create hangeul, in order to explain the principles and the writing methods of the consonants and vowels of hangeul. the easily found sentence that starts with “the language of [our] people is different from that of the nation of china…” is the korean version of the preface of yeeui, written in chinese. this is often called as hunminjeongeum eonhaebon.

yeeui, including its preface, is so simple that it was also included on sejong chronicles and wolinseokbo, but haerye, which reveals the principles in creation of hangeul, is not known as much. finally in 1940, the official version of hunminjeongeum with both yeeui and haerye is published: hunminjeongeum haeryebon. it is the moment of revelation of haerye. this hunminjeongeum haeryebon is not opened to the public and to the utive members of hangeul academic association until the national liberation.

even the hangeul scholars had to guess about the principles in creation of hangeul when there was no haeryebon. as a result, there were many different predicted theories that it is originated from the archaic characters, archaic chinese character, sanskrit, mongolian and even toilet bars. most of such theories came from japanese linguists in the period of japanese occupation. especially in 1937, japan have conquered manjoo and aroused the sino-japanese war. finally, after conquering the most of asia, on the 7th december in 1941, it attacked the pearl harbor to expand its battle field to beyond the pacific. japan did not only enhanced its war footing, but also took measures to suppress the resistances and national awareness of koreans. the food distribution system was strengthened and the exploitation of the japanese became much more severe. such historical instance is called the ‘policy to obliterate the korean nation.’

korea-japan unity, japanese loyal subject, change names to japanese names, theory of same ancestors of korea-japan and shrine worships are only a part of their measures, but the real problem was that all measures taken in inappropriate ways. in december of 1942, the ‘korean language society incidence’ occurred with 33 scholars, who were resisting against the japanese and studying hangeul in an academic association, being imprisoned. some of the imprisoned scholars including yoonjae lee and jing han even had to die in the prison.

language is what contains a national spirit. losing a language means the method of viewing the world is lost. japan truly wanted to radically get rid of our language. the realism scholars in 18th century in chosun escaped from the chinese historical perception and started researching our own culture and thoughts in earnest. their academic achievement was the discovery of hunminjeongeum eonhaebon. the hunminjeongeum eonhaebon is the korean version of the original hunminjeongeum haeryebon. at the time, japan insisted that it was a fake document that was produced in 18th century so they were desperately searching for haeryebon, so they can get rid of the document and the history of sejong’s creation of hangeul, making the root and origin of what contains our spirits a fabrication.

gansong hyeongpil jeong, is a well-known 대수장가 in the whole east north asia, in early 1940s. gansong heard about the existence of haeryebon from taejoon kim, the most influential communism scholar of korean literature. at that time, the nationalism and communism were thought to be the targets of removal. the discovery of hunminjeongeum haeryebon was the least desired occasion from the japanese perspective at the time. besides, the name gansong was the byword for the cultural nationalism and taejoon kim was one of the most threatening communists to japan. the meeting of these two was too risky. nevertheless, gansong took the risk of being caught to seek for hunminjeongeum haeryebon in earnest.

 

  after the pathetically sincere effort, the actual hunminjeongeum haeryebon finally came into the hands of gansong, who had secretly kept it until he called for the scholars of korean language society to start researches on hangeul. they finally came up with younginbon, revealing the discovery in the world. this book precisely describes that hangeul was actually created based on the shapes of our vocal organs. at the end, hangeul is recognized as the first written language that is intentionally created for the people and that is created based on the shapes of vocal organs. the background, method of usage and the principles in creation of hangeul were revealed at the same time and this discovery was recorded as the one and only incidence of the kind in the whole history of mankind. in december of 1962, haeryebon was designated as the national treasure number 70. then it was registered as the unesco’s memory of the world register in september of 1997.

 

relevant websites  :  http://navercast.naver.com/contents.nhn?rid=92& contents_id=47119