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
Similarly, the coronal consonants (舌音 "tongue sounds") are said to show the (front of the) tongue bent up to touch the palate, the bilabial consonants (脣音 "lip sounds") represent the lips touching or parting, the sibilants (齒音 "incisor sounds") represent the teeth (in sibilants the airstream is directed against the teeth), and the guttural consonants (喉音 "throat sounds"), including the null initial used when a syllable begins with a vowel, represent an open mouth and throat. The labiodental consonants (輕脣音 "light lip sounds") are derived from the bilabial series. In all cases but the labials, the plain (清 "clear") stops have a vertical top stroke, the non-stops lack that stroke, and the aspirate stops have an additional stroke. There were a few additional irregular consonants, such as the coronal lateral/flap ㄹ , which the "Haerye" only explains as an altered outline of the tongue, and the velar nasal ㆁ . The irregularity of the labials has no explanation in the "Haerye," but may be a remnant of the graphic origin of the basic letter shapes in the imperial ’Phags-pa alphabet of Yuan Dynasty China.