Why did a Korean king invent a brand-new alphabet?

King Sejong the Great invented Hangul in the 1440s because Chinese characters, which Koreans had used for writing since antiquity, fit the Korean language poorly and were so hard to learn that most ordinary people could not read or write. He wanted a script for everyone. Announced around 1443 and published in 1446, it came with a preface in which the king wrote that he was distressed that common people could not put their thoughts into writing, and had designed 28 letters that anyone could learn at ease and use every day.

The design is remarkably clever. The shapes of five basic consonants are little diagrams of the mouth making the sound: ㄱ, a k sound, shows the root of the tongue blocking the palate. Related, 'harsher' sounds add a stroke, so ㄱ becomes ㅋ, a breathier k. Letters are then stacked into syllable blocks: a consonant, a vowel and sometimes a final consonant.

Not everyone applauded. Court scholars attacked the script as a betrayal of Chinese civilization, and reading Chinese characters was a mark of status the elite were in no hurry to share. Hangul spread slowly, carried notably by women and Buddhists, and only won broad acceptance in the late 19th century. Today South Korea celebrates it every 9 October.