Statue of King Sejong (Gwanghwamun)
The statue of King Sejong was dedicated on 9 October 2009, in a ceremony attended by attended by President Lee Myung-bak and other Korean government official, on a Hangul Day in celebration of the 563rd anniversary of the invention of the Korean alphabet by King Sejong, two months after the Gwanghwamun Plaza opening. The golden statue is 6.2 meters high (another source gives the statue height as 9.5 meters and yet another, 6.7 meters) and weights 20 tons. The king has one hand raised and another placed on a book. Sides of the statue display all of the hangul alphabet characters. In front of the statue there are small models of a celestial globe, a rain gauge, and a sundial, the invention of which is also traditionally attributed to King Sejong in Korea. While King Sejong is best remembered for his invention of hangul, he is also considered to have been involved in promotion of agriculture, literature, science and technology, as well as Confucian philosophy, in Korea.
Origin of Hangul
In order to maintain the Chinese convention of initial and final, Sejong and his ministers needed a null symbol to refer to the lack of a consonant with an initial vowel. He chose the circle, ㅇ, with the subsequent derivation of the glottal stop ㆆ "’" , by adding a vertical top stroke by analogy with the other stops, and the aspirate ㅎ "h" , parallel the account in the "Haerye." (Perhaps the reason he created a new letter rather than adopting one from ’Phags-pa was that it was awkward to write these Chinese initials in ’Phags-pa, where ㅇ and ㆆ were both written as digraphs beginning with "y," ꡭꡝ and ꡗꡖ.) However, Ledyard's explanation of the letter ㆁ "ng" differs from the "Haerye" account; he sees it as a fusion of velar ㄱ "g" and null ㅇ, reflecting its variable pronunciation. The Korean alphabet was designed not just to write Korean, but to accurately represent Chinese. Many Chinese words historically began with , but by Sejong's day this had been lost in many regions of China, and was silent when these words were borrowed into Korean, so that only remained at the middle and end of Korean words. The expected shape of a velar nasal, the short vertical stroke (⃓) that would be left by removing the top stroke of ㄱ "g", had the additional problem that it would have looked almost identical to the vowel ㅣ "i" . Sejong's solution solved both problems: The vertical stroke left from ㄱ "g" was added to the null symbol ㅇ to create ㆁ "ng", iconically capturing both regional pronunciations as well as being easily legible. Eventually the graphic distinction between the two silent initials ㅇ and ㆁ was lost, as they never contrasted in Korean words.