President
"It is a source of great pride and encouragement to us that our nation has a spoken and written language of its own."
It has been 579 years since Hunminjongum, the traditional character of our nation, was created in January 1444.
The creation of Hunminjongum added brilliance to the fine qualities of our nation and made a great contribution to the development of the history.
It is a great pride of our nation to have the characters created in a unique way based on the most scientific principle of character creation in the first half of 15th century.
The principle of character creation is fairly peculiar.
Every single character has its own scientific ground as the characters were created on a scientific basis.
And this is one of the most superior qualities of Hunminjongum which can never be found in any other languages.
It is worth paying attention to the fact the letters, which is essentially symbols to mark sounds, were created in the shape of articulators when they are pronounced.
The language was originally made to have 28 characters with 17 consonants and 11 vowels which can combine with each other to make hundreds of syllabic letters.
The 17 consonant letters contained five basic letters 《ㄱ,ㄴ,ㅁ,ㅅ,ㅇ》which were made by copying the shapes of the five articulators including molars, tongue, lips, teeth and throat.
And 12 other letters 《ㅋ, ㄷ, ㅌ, ㄹ, ㅂ, ㅍ, ᇫ, ㅈ, ㅊ, ㅎ, ᅌ, ᅙ》 were made by adding strokes or modifying the basic letters.
And the other letters 《ㄲ, ㄸ, ㅃ, ㅆ, ㅉ》were made by doubling some of the alphabets when needed.
But as the days went by, the letters 《ᇫ, ᅌ, ᅙ》 were seldom used and now the number of remaining alphabets are 19.
The 11 vowel letters were made by combining three basic letters 《ᆞ, ㅡ, ㅣ》, symbolizing the sky, the land and a man. And they were, in essence, in the shape of a tongue when they're pronounced.
These basic letters were put together in many different ways to form vowels 《ㅏ, ㅑ, ㅓ, ㅕ, ㅗ, ㅛ, ㅜ, ㅠ》 and the other vowels 《ᅢ, ᅦ, ᅤ, ᅨ, ᆡ, ㅢ, ᅬ, ᅱ, ᅪ, ᅯ, ᅫ, ᅰ》were made by joining them when necessary.
But in the course of time, some vowels including 《ᆞ, ᆡ》 were not used and now we have 21 vowels in total.
Now, altogether 40 characters are used including 19 consonants and 21 vowels which are all based on a unique principle of character creation and thus have the possibility to mark any sound of all Eastern and Western languages.
Turning into the era of information industry, the practical usage of Hunminjongum is further highlighted.
In the past, the Korean alphabets, in which syllabic characters are formed with consonants and vowels, was considered less rational than those of other countries where consonants and vowels continue to be written, because it was inefficient and complex for printing.
But in the 21st century, such problems do not arise as computers can readily process any natural language.
Rather, it is more advantageous to use syllabic characters from the aspect of reading speed.
The Korean people take a great pride in having Hunminjongum, which is based on a unique principle of character creation, as the letters of our nation.
