Hangul, Our Proud Alphabet    [16-10-2009] We use Hangul every day in Korea. But how much do you know about it? Hangul is our unique alphabet system. It is known as the most scientific alphabet in the world. Today, many foreigners come to Korea to learn Hangul. Don’t you feel proud? This week, let’s learn about wonderful Hangul! Korea is a small country, but it has its own unique alphabet, Hangul. Not many countries have their own letters. So we should be proud of our language. So, who invented Hangul and when was it invented? In the past, we didn’t have our own alphabet. So we had to use Chinese characters. But it was very inconvenient to use them. Many people couldn’t write or read Chinese characters because they were difficult to learn. So, King Sejong the Great세종대왕 decided to create Korea’s own alphabet during the Joseon Dynasty조선왕조 (1392-1910). King Sejong loved his people very much. He wanted to help them read and write easily. In 1443, he created the Hangul alphabet system. In 1446, he introduced Hangul to his people. Back then, it was called “Hun-min-jung-eum”훈민정음 and it had a total of 28 letters. Today, we use only 24 letters. Thanks to the creation of our own alphabet, people could write and read easily. We celebrate Hangul Day한글날 every year on October 9 to remember the importance of the Korean alphabet. Today, many language experts praise the excellence and beauty of Hangul. They say it is one of the most scientific alphabets in the world. Let’s say thank you to King Sejong for creating Hangul! And let’s keep our language beautiful by using Hangul correctly.     출처: 어린이 영자신문 키즈타임즈 (www.kidstimes.net)