Hangul supremacy

Hangul supremacy is an ideology or a belief held by the Korean people and certain linguists from around the world that Hangul is superior to all (or most) other writing systems.Fact|date=September 2008 While there are many distinguishing features of Hangul that forms the basis of this belief, sometimes it is heavily based on Korean nationalism.

Features of Hangul

Perfect Alphabet

Hangul distinguishes all of the distinct sounds in Korean and makes no subphonemic distinctions. There are no ambiguities from the point of view of the reader. From the point of view of the writer, there are a few ambiguities in that in certain environments syllable-final nasals may be written either as nasals or as the plain stops of the same point of articulation. This, however, is not an error but reflects a decision to write at a higher level of abstraction than a classical phonemic representation, to make things easier for the reader, who is given more direct access to lexical representations.

Design

Hangul exhibits a significant degree of featural decomposition. That is, components of the letters correspond to phonological features. For example, the aspirated series of stops and affricates are written by adding a horizontal stroke to the letters for the plain series. Thus we have: 가 /ga/ vs. 카 /ka/, 다 /da/ vs. 타 /ta/, 바 /ba/ vs. 파 /pa/, and 자 /ja/ vs. 차 /cha/. The shapes of the letters are based on the configuration of the articulators in making the corresponding sounds. This was truer in the original version of Hangul than it is now. The fairly modest changes over the past few centuries have in some cases slightly obscured this relationship. Hangul is well designed for the reader, in that the letters are easily distinguished, and for the writer, in that the letters are simple.

Uniqueness

The perfection of Hangul's design and the care and insight with which it was designed are considered unique and to have had no precedent. (To state that Hangul sprang from nothing, however, is an exaggeration because the scientists who developed Hangul were familiar with Chinese phonological theory and to some degree at least with the writing systems of the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Japanese, and the Jürchen. Also they were acquainted with alphabetic writing in the form of the Devanagari alphabet in which the Sanskrit of the Buddhist scriptures was written and in the form of the Phags-Pa alphabet.)

Myths

Literacy in Korea

One of the most often cited evidence for Hangul supremacy is the assertion that there is (almost) no illiteracy in Korea. However, illiteracy rate most heavily depends on the spreads of elementary education rather than on the writing systems. For example, illiteracy rate among the countries which use almost identical Latin alphabets varies greatly according to the education level of the country, although this argument may not necessarily be applicable due to the unique nature of the incredibly simple Korean alphabet.

Furthermore, illiteracy rate in Korea is nonzero, different from what many Koreans believe. According to United Nations, 2.1% of South Koreans and 2.0% of North Koreans are illiterate, which rank them to be about 30th among the most literate countries. [See Human Development Report by United Nations Development Programme about [http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/countries.cfm?c=KOR South Korea] , [http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/countries.cfm?c=PRK North Korea] , and [http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/indicators.cfm?x=3&y=1&z=1 Literacy ranking] .]

Memory of the World Register

According to some mass media in South Korea, the fact that Hangul is a UNESCO Memory of the World Register is an evidence that its greatness as a writing system has been authorized by the world. [ [http://www.chosun.com/editorials/news/200610/200610080336.html 한글날에 생각하는 아름다운 말과 글] - a Chosun Ilbo editorial] [ [http://www.hani.co.kr/section-003000000/2002/10/003000000200210091046316.html 제556돌 한글날 기념식] - a Hankyoreh article] [ [http://kid.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2000/10/09/2000100900014.html 한글날의 의미를 되새기자] - a Children's Chosun (소년조선) editorial]

Footnotes