THIS MONTH IN KOREAN HISTORY - OCT 2024
Located on the northside of Manisan Mountain peak, Chamseongdan Altar is where Dangun (founder of Korea) is said to have offered sacrifices to the heavens. Photo Credit: KOREA HERITAGE SERVICE
By Eun Byoul Oh
korea’s national foundation day
October 3rd is Korea's National Foundation Day, also known as 개천절. 개천절 (開天節) which literally means the day when the Sky opened. The year 2333 BCE is the founding year of 고조선 (Gojoseon), the first National Kingdom on the Korean Peninsula.
The Myth of Dangun tells the story of how the first kingdom was founded. In July, KCCNYC Monthly covered the story of 단군 신화 by Joshua Kim. Check out the full story of 단군 and the story of 웅녀 (Ungnyeo), the bear woman on our newsletter page.
The Myth of Dangun is an oral story often told to Korean children, and the legend explains why the Tiger and Bear are the mascots for the Seoul 1988 and Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. In the myth, Hwan-Woong, the son of Sky God Hwan-In, comes down to the peninsula with the Minister of Wind (풍백), Minister of Rain (우사) and the Minister of Cloud (운사). He meets a tiger and a bear who want to become a human like Hwan-Woong. Hwan-Woong offers to transform them into humans only if the tiger and bear go into a cave for 21 days, eating only garlic and mugwort. The bear succeeds in this challenge and transforms into a woman named Ungnyeo (웅녀), and marries Hwan-Woong. Ungnyeo bears a child who becomes the leader of Gojoseon. The historical interpretation of the 단군 신화 (Myth of Dangun) is that the Tiger and the Bear represent the totemism of animals on the Korean Peninsula. Further, the three weather ministers represent how Gojoseon was an established agricultural society with emphasis on weather and nature.
hangul day
The Statue of King Sejong the Great is a golden statue located on Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul near Gyeongbokgung Palace and Gwanghwamun Gate.
October 9 is Hangul Day (한글날) in Korea. It celebrates the proclamation of Hangul (한글), the Korean native alphabet, engineered by King Sejong the Great. Hangul was first invented in 1443 by King Sejong, and officially proclaimed with a manuscript titled Hunminjeongeum in 1446.
Despite the Korean language existing for over a millennia on the Korean Peninsula, Korea lacked its own script until the invention of Hangul. Before the invention of Hangul, Koreans borrowed Chinese characters and rearranged the words to reflect the Korean language’s native structure and syntax. The basics of Korean language syntax is Subject Object Verb, but the Chinese language system has Subject Verb Object form just like that of English. Further, the Korean language has markers, which we also refer to as particles. Thus, it was impossible to exactly convey the meanings of the Korean language in the Chinese script.
Further, due to the fact that there were so many Chinese characters, only the noble class had the access and resources to learn the characters. Thus, the lower social class people such as commoners and the slave class did not have the means to read or write.
Hunminjeongeum, the manuscript of Hangul.
Hunminjeongeum, the manuscript of Hangul expressly states the reasons for why the Korean native alphabets were created. It states Hangul will enable the Korean people to speak and write in the same language. Further, the manuscript clearly states that the alphabet was created for commoners to learn how to read and write. Hangul is celebrated as the only writing system in the world that was artificially engineered with the purpose of educating the people.
Hunminjeongeum explains that the vowel system is based on the philosophy of 천지인 (the philosophy of Sky, Land, and person). The short strokes used to make the vowel were shaped as dots (·) when written with brush strokes. The short strokes therefore symbolizes the round "sky." The horizontal stroke "ㅡ" symbolizes the land, and the vertical stroke "l" symbolizes the upright standing man.
The consonants of Hangul were created based on the shape of the tongue and the mouth structure used when enunciating the sound. As we always emphasize in our Starter class, practicing the accurate sound is always the first step to the Korean language journey.
