The written voice of Korea

Abstract

The theme of language and nationalism may be approached via various routes. Among these, I choose Hangul, the invented alphabet of Korea, which, I believe, Koreans can by no means separate from the language. To the Korean people, Hangul is the very Korean language and vice versa. They tend to identify the Korean language and its alphabet as a unity, like the body and the soul. It is not rare for Korean-language teachers abroad to be misaddressed as Hangul teachers. I presume that the unity in the Korean mind has been concretely formed through the turmoil of late modern history, although Hangul has been influencing Korean society since the 1440s. To look at ‘language and nationalism’ in Korea, this article begins with the birth of Hangul.