Suggestions for Establishing Descriptions of Educational Contents Related to the ‘Principles of Creating Hangul Letters’

Abstract

This study presents the following guideline to systematically describe the principles on which Hangul was invented. The guideline is divided largely into the principle of creating letters and the way of increasing the number of letters. The principle of letter creation is categorized as ‘basic’ and ‘expanded’. The basic principle is based on ‘pictography’, which is the premise of every letter creation. The expanded principle is based on ‘stroke addition’, where a feature is reflected in derivation from the basic principle. Meanwhile, the way of increasing the number of letters is through the composition and development of the existing letters into new ones instead of the creation of brand-new ones. This method is collectively referred to as hapja(ligature), which includes hapseong(synthesis), habyong, byeongseo(horizontal combination of letters) and yeonseo(vertical combination of letters).