Christianity in Korea
Hangul, a phonemic Korean alphabet invented around 1446 by scholars in the court of Sejong the Great, was little used for several centuries because of the perceived cultural superiority of Classical Chinese (a position similar to that of Latin in Europe). However, the Catholic Church became the first Korean religious organization to officially adopt Hangul as its primary script. Bishop Siméon-François Berneux mandated that all Catholic children be taught to read it. Christian literature printed for use in Korea, including that used by the network of schools established by Christian missionaries, mostly used the Korean language and the easily learned Hangul script. This combination of factors resulted in a rise in the overall literacy rate, and enabled Christian teachings to spread beyond the elite, who mostly used Chinese. As early as the 1780s, portions of the Gospels were published in Hangul; doctrinal books such as the "Jugyo Yoji" (주교요지) appeared in the 1790s and a Catholic hymnal was printed around 1800.
Origin of Hangul
The five adopted letters were graphically simplified, retaining the outline of the ’Phags-pa letters but with a reduced number of strokes that recalled the shapes of the speech organs involved, as explained in the "Haerye." For example, the box inside ’Phags-pa ꡂ "g" is not found in the Korean ㄱ "g" ; only the outer stroke remains. In addition to being iconic for the shape of the "root" of the tongue, this more easily allowed for consonant clusters and left room for an added stroke to derive the aspirated consonant ㅋ "k" . But in contrast to the "Haerye" account, the non-stops "ng" , ㄴ "n" , ㅁ "m" , and ㅅ "s" were derived by "removing" the top stroke or strokes of the basic letters. (No letter was derived from ㄹ "l" .) This clears up a few points that had been problematic in the "Haerye." For example, while it is straightforward to derive ㅁ "m" from ㅂ "b" by removing the top of ㅂ "b" in Ledyard's account, it is not clear how one would derive ㅂ "b" by adding something to ㅁ "m", since ㅂ "b" is not analogous to the other stops: If ㅂ "b" were derived as in the "Haerye" account, it would be expected to have a horizontal top stroke similar to those of ㄱ "g" , ㄷ "d" , and ㅈ "j" .