The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure (review)

As every student of Korean knows, the Korean alphabet is a writing system on which many superlatives have been heaped and of which Koreans are rightly proud. With its formal simplicity and systematic beauty, it cannot fail to impress the student of writing, too. The present reviewer belongs to the latter category rather than to the former. It is, therefore, only from this point of view that this review can offer some comments on this collection of articles.

Thus my first question: Can this book be read with benefit by those not well-versed in Korean? The answer is an unqualified yes. This is not to say that Koreanists will find it less interesting. After all, not everyone is an expert in the history, development, systematic makeup, and linguistics of the Korean writing system. The various papers in this volume offer a wealth of information about these matters and at the same time reflect the up-to-date state of the discussion of controversial issues. Four appendixes containing illustrative reference materials are particularly helpful to those with only limited knowledge of Korean.

The second question to be asked about a collection of essays that has grown out of a symposium is whether it makes a book. In this regard, The Korean Alphabet deserves exceptionally high marks. There is remarkably little overlap between the papers, although they are thematically closely related. This testifies to the symposium organizer cum editor's considerable skills, both in securing the cooperation of distinguished authors and in crafting their contributions into a coherent whole. The result is a book that covers the most important aspects of the Korean writing system, ranging from the story of its invention to the systematic analysis of sound letter-correspondence, problems of orthography and standardization, and to principles of calligraphy and typography. While one or two of the authors, notably S. Robert Ramsey, who deals with phonological change, are more interested in the Korean language than in its remarkable script, their papers still contribute important insights about the alphabet by discussing some of the details of how exactly it relates to the language.

The third and most important question I want to consider is what I have learned from reading the book. A great deal is the general answer, but there are far more things than I can mention here. I shall therefore limit my comments to a few points that particularly interest me. As a sociolinguist, I have always been intrigued by the notion that an enlightened monarch invented a demotic script for the benefit of his subjects but never quite knew what to make of the attribution of han'gŭl's creation to King Sejong. Ki-Moon Lee presents strong evidence that puts to rest any doubts about the king's decisive role. In his review of the (Mongolian) 'Phags-pa alphabet origin hypothesis, Gari Ledyard lends further support to the view that Sejong himself was the genius behind the script's design, although he also stresses the role of Sin Sukchu, a gifted young scholar who is said to have spoken Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian, and Jurchen. Sin was a capable phonetician. At the time, this meant that he had a good command of Chinese rime books and knew how to apply his skills to the phonological analysis of Korean, on which the alphabet is so clearly based. In other papers, the invention of the script is touched upon in passing. The common view that transpires from these accounts is that without the great king's scholarship and wisdom, the Korean alphabet would never have seen the light of day, Sin Sukchu's input notwithstanding and no matter whether or to what extent the 'Phags-pa alphabet served as a model.

Another question of some theoretical interest is whether han'gŭl is aptly characterized as an alphabet, a syllabic script, or a featural script. Chin W. Kim points out that han...