The Korean alphabet is known as Hangul internationally, Hangeul in South Korea, and Choson'gŭl in North Korea. There are a number of uncertainties about the origin of Hangul, especially how the shapes of its letters were conceived. Some scholars have argued that the ʼPhags-pa script of the Mongol Empire served as a minor inspiration for the shapes of several consonant letters of Hangul.
Several Korean scholars hypothesized that the ʼPhags-pa script inspired aspects of Hangul in the centuries after Hangul's 1446 promulgation. In 1957, Canadian linguist E. R. Hope became the first to explore possible graphic correspondences between the letters of ʼPhags-pa script and Hangul. American Koreanist and linguist Gari Ledyard submitted a Ph.D. thesis in 1966 (revised in 1998, additional explanatory paper published in 1997) in which he evaluated and expanded upon Hope's analysis.
Hope tries to derive the shapes of 10 Hangul letters from ʼPhags-pa letters. Ledyard argues some of these derivations are contrived; he instead tries to derive only 5 or 6 basic Hangul letters, some in a different manner to Hope. From there, he derives most of the other consonants by following a modified version of a stroke addition rule that allows for subtraction of strokes. That stroke addition rule was introduced in the text Hunminjeongeum Haerye, which introduced Hangul.
These hypotheses are less popular than the hypothesis that Hangul was largely an original invention. They have received a range of reactions from scholars. Some have expressed support for parts of or the entire hypotheses, some argue such hypotheses cannot be ruled out, and some argue they are implausible.
Background Origin of Hangul
Hangul was first revealed around late 1443 to early 1444 and officially published in 1446 via the text Hunminjeongeum and its companion commentary Hunminjeongeum Haerye.
The Haerye provides a number of explanations for the shapes of the letters. It classifies consonant sounds based on the Chinese linguistic system fanqie. The version of that system at the time prescribed 36 classes of sounds.
+The 36 Chinese initials and their Korean transcriptions colspan="2" Wholly clearPartly clearWholly muddyNeither clear nor muddyWholly clearWholly muddyMolar LingualsApical RaisedLabialsHeavy Light IncisorsApical () () () () ()Upright () () () () ()Laryngeals Semilinguals Semiincisors Notes:
The Haerye argues that the shapes of five basic consonants (, , , , and ) are based on those of the outlines of speech organs, as well as concepts in Chinese philosophy. Those five basic shapes are then used to derive most other consonants based on a principle of adding strokes. Related sounds that are considered "harsher" than the sounds of those 5 consonants receive additional strokes. In general, strokes are added to progress within a single sound class to a harsher articulation. For example, () (); this is a move within the molar class from the articulations wholly clear to partly clear.
There are a number of consonants that do not neatly fit this pattern, however. belongs to the molar class, yet has a stroke added from of the laryngeal class. The characters and are derived from consonants ( and respectively) of different subclasses.
ʼPhags-pa and Korea
ʼPhags-pa is a script designed in 1269 by a Tibetan Buddhist monk for use in the administration of the Mongol Empire. It was based mainly on the Tibetan script, with minor influence from the Umê script (also called "Tibetan headless"), and used to encode languages across that empire. It saw use until the end of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), whereupon its use sharply declined. It was known to Korea; it was invented around the time that the Korean state Goryeo was under Mongol rule (1270–1356). Goryeo received its first ʼPhags-pa communication in 1273 and quickly learned it from then. Goryeo received and accumulated edicts, seals, and documents in the script, which were likely transferred over to Joseon. Joseon still taught the script, although by 1423 its instruction was in decline. In 1469, a ʼPhags-pa textbook was listed as part of a government Mongolian curriculum.
Early hypotheses Since the invention of Hangul, Joseon scholars had long hypothesized a link between Hangul and ʼPhags-pa. One early hypothesis that Ledyard could identify was one by Yi Ik (1681–1763), although Yi did not provide much evidence for this conjecture and seemed to confuse ʼPhags-pa with the Mongolian script. Over the following centuries, more Korean scholars made similar conjectures, although Ledyard evaluated almost all their arguments as similarly weak and surface-level. Ledyard evaluated one exception favorably: in 1918, historian argued Sin Sukchu could speak Mongolian and that the phonetics of Hangul seemed to be derived from a Sino-Mongol rhyme dictionary. Ledyard argues that Westerners did not explore the link until the mid-20th century because ʼPhags-pa had not been well known to the West until then.
1957 Hope paper In a 1957 paper, Canadian linguist E. R. Hope, following a suggestion from linguist Keith Whinnom, analyzes the hypothesized Hangul and ʼPhags-pa link. Hope primarily compares the morphology and phonology of letters between the scripts. According to Ledyard, Hope was the first to establish hypothesized graphic correspondence between the graphs of Hangul and ʼPhags-pa and the first to develop a serious competitor to the seal script hypotheses. In the paper, Hope limits his analysis to only the fundamental Hangul consonant jamo. Ledyard argues Hope likely knew that the other consonants are extensions of the fundamental ones, for example being an extension of . Hope also brings in two other scripts to extend his analysis: standard Tibetan and Tibetan headless. The latter script is a heavily altered variant that was used in northern China. Hope argues headless was a plausible connection, as both it and standard Tibetan were sources for the creation of ʼPhags-pa.
Ledyard's hypothesis In Ledyard's 1966 Ph.D. thesis (revised in 1998) and in a 1997 paper, he expands upon Hope's analysis. Ledyard writes in his thesis that his main argument is that Hangul is a combination of original work and multiple sources of inspiration, including Chinese phonological theory, the outlines of speech organs, and ʼPhags-pa. He insists that his hypothesis should not be interpreted as implying that Hangul was merely a derivative work of ʼPhags-pa alone.
Linguist Chong Che-mun, in a 2015 survey of research on ʼPhags-pa and its relation to Hangul, affirmed a claim that virtually no academics have argued that Hangul is significantly derivative of ʼPhags-pa.
While Hope had attempted to derive ten jamo from ʼPhags-pa, Ledyard derives fewer ( and possibly ). He argues that there is no need to rely on further derivations because they seem tenuous and also one only needs to derive a single fundamental jamo in each sound class. From there, one adds or removes lines to derive the other consonants. Additionally, when matching ʼPhags-pa to jamo, he argues that both should come from the same sound classes (and ideally, subclasses as well).
+ Ledyard's derivations of fundamental Hangul jamo from ʼPhags-paConsonant classʼPhags-paʼPhags-pa HangulHangul ʼPhags-pa Hangul derivationMolargkRemove the lower box.Apical lingualsdtStraighten lines.SemilingualsllEither trim vertical lines to the side or rotate clockwise and simplify.Labials heavybpRotate clockwise then simplify.Apical incisorsxcRemove lines.Apical incisorsxsRemove lines. Notes: The jamo derived above are all classified as wholly clear in fanqie. In addition to the above jamo, Ledyard believes that Sejong, without inspiration from any ʼPhags-pa graphs, chose to use a circle () as the basic shape for the laryngeal class. Unlike the other fundamental shapes supposed to derive from ʼPhags-pa, is classified as "neither clear nor muddy". From there, the circle is modified to reflect other sounds, including the molar , which is in a different sound class.
Ledyard's practice has some differences from that of the Haerye; that text begins with a slightly different set of jamo ( instead of Ledyard's ) and only calls for the addition, not removal, of lines. Ledyard defends these departures. He argues the line addition rule is poorly applied by the Haerye in the first place. There are several exceptions to the rule already given in that text, and lines are not added but in fact extended for the molars . He argues that the line rule and even the stated derivations of the shapes as being inspired by outlines of speech organs and ancient Chinese symbolism seem post hoc, and that the correspondences he identifies go beyond coincidence.
Ledyard also thoroughly examines the historiography and historical context behind Hangul's creation and ʼPhags-pa's connection to Korea. He rules out many alternate hypothesized origins and provides evidence of knowledge of ʼPhags-pa in Sejong's court. On the "Old Seal" issue , Hope and Ledyard argue that the term may be a covert reference to ʼPhags-pa. That script had been used by the Mongols, who were regarded in China and Korea as barbarians; directly admitting inspiration from them could have prompted backlash. Ledyard describes this phrase as attempting to creatively place a Chinese "spin" on Hangul's origin. He also argues that there are attestations to "seal" being used to describe a style of Mongol script. In his 1997 paper, he argues there are attestations in Chinese literature of "" being used to refer to Mongolia ("") and "" to ʼPhags-pa, although he concedes to not knowing of direct evidence that Sejong was directly aware of such literature. Ledyard also argues that ʼPhags-pa rhyme dictionaries and design either directly or indirectly influenced the design of Hangul. While there is no direct evidence of Sejong consulting such rhyme dictionaries, there is for Sin Sukchu. Sin relied on one such dictionary while producing the now-lost Sasŏng t'onggo. Also, Ledyard argues that Hangul organizes sounds and syllables in a way that more closely resembles ʼPhags-pa rhyme dictionary practice over Chinese.
In 1966, linguist Yu Chang-gyun also published a ʼPhags-pa hypothesis that Chong evaluates as having similar derivations to Ledyard's. Chong reasons that Yu's paper was published after Ledyard's thesis, and that the two had worked independently on the topic. Also, Chong claims that Yu did not consider only deriving basic characters then relying on the addition and removal of lines.
Linguist Sven Osterkamp evaluates Ledyard's hypothesis favorably and expands upon Ledyard's reasoning. He argues that the letter derivation principles in Hangul resemble similar such principles used for the creation of new letters in Tibetan and ʼPhags-pa. Osterkamp uses the example of (pure dentals are , , , , , palatal-supradentals are , , , , ), where the palatal-supradentals are derived by mirroring the pure dentals. He argues that similar mirroring was also employed in ʼPhags-pa, and that Ledyard was seemingly unaware of this.
Evaluations Linguist Nicolas Tranter claims that ʼPhags-pa hypotheses have more traction outside of South Korea than inside. In a 2006 entry in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Chin-Woo Kim evaluates Ledyard's ʼPhags-pa hypothesis as a "gaining theory", behind original invention hypotheses.
Linguist Peter T. Daniels wrote in support of Ledyard's hypothesis. He wrote that Ledyard's choice of "five [Hangul jamo] are almost certainly based on the corresponding ʼPhags-pa letters". Chin-Woo Kim argues the similarities between the two scripts are "a little too striking to relegate them to a simple accident".