Hangul supremacy
Hangul supremacy is the belief, most widespread in Korea, that the Hangul alphabet developed by King Sejong the Great's Hall of Worthies in 1443 is the simplest, most logical, most beautiful and most scientific of the world's writing systems. In its extreme form, the belief holds that Hangul is in fact best suited for the expression of sounds in all languages.
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" .