SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

A 550 years old misunderstanding: The real relationship between Hunmin jeongeum (script) and the old Chinese characters

In Korean with English powerpoint.

Speaker Biography

Professor Albrecht Huwe has been teaching Korean to German translation and interpretation at the University of Bonn, Germany since 1989, and he also serves as head of department.  Over the years he has held posts at Berlin and Munich Universities in Germany and at Songgyungwan University in Seoul, South Korea.  Professor Huwe’s current research interests include research on Korean culture, society and linguistics. In 2003, Professor Huwe received the Korean President’s Culture medal for his services to Korean linguistics.

Abstract

象形而字倣故篆 (Hunmin Jeongeum Seomun 31b.6-7): This short sentence in the introduction, which Jeong Inji wrote on the occasion of the invention and public announcement of Korean script Hunmin Jeongeum, has caused many discussions and has not been explained definitely.

The first person who did not understand this passage was Choe Malli, known as the first prominent critic of the new script. He wrote in his petition: It is said that Hangul letters are made in imitation of seal characters. But this is hardly believable and obviously false because it is plain for anyone to see that the pronunciations and digraphs in Hangul are quite different from those of seal characters *(1). The historian Lee Sang-Beck agreed with him in 1957: Indeed Choe Mal-li was quite right in this *(2).

After him many scholars in the East and West tried to solve this very contradictory sentence.
Some scholars, especially in the West, still hold that with this sentence in the center the whole book Hunmin Jeongeum Haerye was written only to satisfy and calm the Confucian scholars at the yard as well as to deliver a legitimation for post factum.

Some other scholars can not agree upon this view and try to interpret this sentence in many different ways, trying to understand

Jeong Inji and King Sejong. But they also can not really solve the inherent contradiction. (In my presentation some of their explanations and interpretations will be typified.)

The resolution for this scentence could be found in two ways:

1. The Hunmin jeongeum haerye itself explains the principles of the new script. And in correlation with them the sentence in question could be explained easily and totally.
2. The result could be confirmed in another way: viz. the  grammatical functions of the parts of this sentence.

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*(1). Cited from Sang-Beck Lee, The Origin of the Korean Alphabet Hangul according to new historical evidence, Seoul 1957, 4-5.
*(2). Sang-Beck Lee, 5.