The Korean Alphabet Of 1446

The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, is truly one of the great achievements of human invention. Developed (1443) and promulgated (1446) by the Korean monarch Sejong (1397-1450) himself, this alphabet demonstrates principles of design so far ahead of its time that only now, more than 550 years after its invention, are its remarkable qualities beginning to be appreciated. This superb scholarly edition by Korean language scholar Sek Yen Kim-Cho contains the original texts of "Hwunmin Cengum" and "Hwunmin Cengum Haylyey" (with photocopies of the originals in the appendices) and a complete, fully annotated translation in modern English. Beyond her analysis of historical texts, Dr. Kim-Cho critically expounds Sejong's design principle and also demonstrates that the Korean Orthophonic Alphabet is so versatile that it is ideally suited to promote and accelerate information processing and globalisation as a universal script. Its great adaptability makes it a perfect multilingual transcribing system for voice-recognition and voice dictation.