As we usually don't recognize the importance of air, even though language and characters are used every time of our life, we also don't recognize their importance enough in many cases. Especially we are not accustomed to imagining that people who have no proper characters to express their own language have painful difficulties. But, before Han-geul was created, our nation had to suffer those difficulties.

Before Han-geul, our ancestors had to use Chinese letters for enjoying literal life. As like Latin language played a role of the Ligua Franca in Europe of the Middle age, Chinese characters and Chinese language acted as the Ligua Franca not only in Korea but also all around East Asia including Japan and Vietnam. Considering this, it was rather natural that our ancestors used Chinese characters and literary Chinese for their literature life.

But, it was very hard to dictate our language with Chinese characters because they were made based on Chinese language that was totally different from our language.

Therefore, this led to the separation of spoken language and written language. Usually, it is common that written language reflects spoken language. In some cases, if characters have been used for a long time, they might have independent function, or furthermore the written and spoken languages might have totally different features from each other at last.

But usually the distance between spoken and written languages is not too far. However, the gap between Chinese characters and our language was too much wide. For this reason, our ancestors had to make so much effort to learn Chinese letters and literary Chinese.

There was an attempt to write our language with Chinese characters, so-called writng method with borrowed characters. When our own proper nouns had to be expressed in texts written in literary Chinese, Chinese characters were borrowed, and that was the first sign of generalization of writng method with borrowed characters.

but because the middle class people(中人) like petty officials had not enough skill to use literary Chinese as much as ruling class, and to clarify the meaning of texts using postpositions or verbal endings of our own language was needed, modified Chinese language, with word orders changed according to Korean rules and grammatical elements supplemented, was used in official documents of the low-class officials. This is called “Yidu(吏讀)”.

In this way, the writing method with borrowed characters was developed and used, but Chinese characters were incomplete and inefficient characters to express our own language. 

First, there were many words in our language not being expressed easily with brrowing "om(音, sound)" or "Hun(訓, meaning)" of Chinese characters (eg. an onomatope and mimesis) and because there are multiple "Hun" for one Chinese character in general, there were not clear cases which "Hun" should be used to read the Chinese character used in the   writing method with borrowed characters. Because of these limitations of the writing method with borrowed characters, as the ruling class had accustomed to Chinese language, its use had been reduced, and patterns of expression had become simplified and routinized.

In such a circumstance where languages and writngs were doing different job from each other, somehow it contributed to maintaining power of the ruling class of those days even though they also felt uneasy on this circumstance. Only persons

assumptions do not have any factual grounds. The records of those days such as Sejong Sillok or Preface of Jung In Jee altogether emphasize that Sejong created Han-geul by himself.

Some people can say, because a work done by ministers could be passed to the achievement of King according to customs in those days, such records were left. But it is a prejudice without evidence as well. Throughout the authentic record of Sejong (Sejong Sillok), the expression "By himself(親制)" was used in only Hunmin-Chong’?m among many works accomplished in the period of Sejong.

If the work was done by ministers under the order of Sejong, then it was clearly addressed that it was the work of ministers without exceptions. As the facts that Sejong invented Hunmin-Chong’um by himself were addressed clearly several times in authentic records and other records, there should be proper evidences.

If we want to find people who assisted Sejong, they were not ministers but the Crown Prince(世子, later Munjong) and Suyang-Daegun(首陽大君, later Sejo). The records in preface of ≪洪武正韻譯訓≫ written by Sin Suk-Ju, ≪直解童子習≫ in ≪成謹甫先生集≫ witten by Song Sam-Mun say that Munjong assisted Sejong to produce Han-geul.

And afrer invention of Han-gul, Sejong mobilized lower class officials of Jiphyonjon related to Han-gul for translation of ≪韻會

≫, which was the first work in public, then he made the Crown Prince, Suyang-Daegun and Anpyong-Daegun supervise the work. Because the princes knew Han-g?l well, the work could be assigned to them.

However, as soon as lower class officials of Jiphyonjon were mobilized, Choi Man-Ri the head (Bujehak, 副提學) of Jiphyonjon and other ministers presented a petition(Sangsomun, 上疏文) to the king on 20th day of February, and tried to stop the project related to Han-geul.

If the invention of Han-gul had been publicly processed with mobilization of the scholars of Jiphyonjon prior to December 1443, Choi Man-Ri and the fellows didn't need to wait to present a petition until February 1444. Therefore the scholars of Jiphyonjon involved in Han-gul project in February 1444 after Han-gul had been invented already.

Choi Man-Ri says in his petition, "It is not right that the King is taking care of Han-gul project that is not so urgent, even when you needed medical treatment for recuperation." Against this, Sejong showed significant scholastic self-confidence through saying "Do you know Unso(韻書)? and Do you know Four tones(Sasong,四聲)", Seven sounds(Chilum,七音) and how many Jamo(字母) are there? If I don't correct the Unso(韻書), who will correct it?".

According to these records, we can see that Sejong was an outstanding scholar as he had deep scholarship of Chinese

phonology, based on this, had ability to analyze our language precisely and to invent scientific characters suitable to write our language. And also he had a strong love to Han-gul, as he kept studied even being in journey for medical treatment.

Sejong can be considered as the first one if we were looking for someone who had scholastic ability to make Han-gul in those days. Also we can consider what the reason was for him to have strong love for Han-gul business. Was it probably because he invented it by himself?

Hunminjeongeum (Hangul), created by King Sejong the Great in 1443, means 'the right sound to teach the people'