ʼPhags-pa inspiration for Hangul hypothesis

Hangul was first revealed around late 1443 to early 1444 and officially published in 1446 via the text Hunminjeongeum and its companion commentary Hunminjeongeum Haerye.^[1]

The Haerye provides a number of explanations for the shapes of the letters. It classifies consonant sounds based on the Chinese linguistic system fanqie. The version of that system at the time prescribed 36 classes of sounds.^[2]

The Haerye argues that the shapes of five basic consonants (ㄱ, ㄴ, ㅁ, ㅅ, and ㅇ) are based on those of the outlines of speech organs, as well as concepts in Chinese philosophy. Those five basic shapes are then used to derive most other consonants based on a principle of adding strokes. Related sounds that are considered "harsher" than the sounds of those 5 consonants receive additional strokes. In general, strokes are added to progress within a single sound class to a harsher articulation. For example, ㄱ ([k]) → ㅋ ([kʰ]); this is a move within the molar class from the articulations wholly clear to partly clear.^[5]

There are a number of consonants that do not neatly fit this pattern, however. ㆁ belongs to the molar class, yet has a stroke added from ㅇ of the laryngeal class. The characters ㄹ and ㅿ are derived from consonants (ㄴ and ㅅ respectively) of different subclasses.^[6]

ʼPhags-pa is a script designed in 1269 by a Tibetan Buddhist monk for use in the administration of the Mongol Empire.^[7] It was based mainly on the Tibetan script, with minor influence from the Umê script (also called "Tibetan headless"),^[8] and used to encode languages across that empire. It saw use until the end of the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), whereupon its use sharply declined. It was known to Korea; it was invented around the time that the Korean state Goryeo was under Mongol rule (1270–1356).^[9] Goryeo received its first ʼPhags-pa communication in 1273 and quickly learned it from then.^[10] Goryeo received and accumulated edicts, seals, and documents in the script, which were likely transferred over to Joseon. Joseon still taught the script, although by 1423 its instruction was in decline. In 1469, a ʼPhags-pa textbook was listed as part of a government Mongolian curriculum.^[11]

In Ledyard's 1966 Ph.D. thesis (revised in 1998) and in a 1997 paper, he expands upon Hope's analysis.^[b] Ledyard writes in his thesis that his main argument is that Hangul is a combination of original work and multiple sources of inspiration, including Chinese phonological theory, the outlines of speech organs, and ʼPhags-pa. He insists that his hypothesis should not be interpreted as implying that Hangul was merely a derivative work of ʼPhags-pa alone.^[20]

Nothing would disturb me more, after this study is published, than to discover in a work on the history of writing a statement like the following: "According to recent investigations, the Korean alphabet was derived from the Mongol's ʼPhags-pa script."^[21]

Linguist Chong Che-mun, in a 2015 survey of research on ʼPhags-pa and its relation to Hangul, affirmed a claim that virtually no academics have argued that Hangul is significantly derivative of ʼPhags-pa.^[22]

While Hope had attempted to derive ten jamo from ʼPhags-pa, Ledyard derives fewer (ㄱㄷㄹㅅㅂ and possibly ㅈ^[c]). He argues that there is no need to rely on further derivations because they seem tenuous^[d] and also one only needs to derive a single fundamental jamo in each sound class. From there, one adds or removes lines to derive the other consonants.^[27] Additionally, when matching ʼPhags-pa to jamo, he argues that both should come from the same sound classes (and ideally, subclasses as well).^[28]

The jamo derived above are all classified as wholly clear in fanqie.^[40] In addition to the above jamo, Ledyard believes that Sejong, without inspiration from any ʼPhags-pa graphs, chose to use a circle (ㅇ) as the basic shape for the laryngeal class. Unlike the other fundamental shapes supposed to derive from ʼPhags-pa, ㅇ is classified as "neither clear nor muddy". From there, the circle is modified to reflect other sounds, including the molar ㆁ, which is in a different sound class.^[41]

Ledyard's practice has some differences from that of the Haerye; that text begins with a slightly different set of jamo (ㅁ instead of Ledyard's ㅂ) and only calls for the addition, not removal, of lines. Ledyard defends these departures. He argues the line addition rule is poorly applied by the Haerye in the first place. There are several exceptions to the rule already given in that text, and lines are not added but in fact extended for the molars ㅁ → ㅂ → ㅍ.^[42] He argues that the line rule and even the stated derivations of the shapes as being inspired by outlines of speech organs and ancient Chinese symbolism seem post hoc, and that the correspondences he identifies go beyond coincidence.^[43]

Ledyard also thoroughly examines the historiography and historical context behind Hangul's creation and ʼPhags-pa's connection to Korea.^[44] He rules out many alternate hypothesized origins and provides evidence of knowledge of ʼPhags-pa in Sejong's court.^[45] On the "Old Seal" issue (see Origin of Hangul § Seal script hypotheses), Hope and Ledyard argue that the term may be a covert reference to ʼPhags-pa. That script had been used by the Mongols, who were regarded in China and Korea as barbarians; directly admitting inspiration from them could have prompted backlash.^[46] Ledyard describes this phrase as attempting to creatively place a Chinese "spin" on Hangul's origin.^[47] He also argues that there are attestations to "seal" being used to describe a style of Mongol script.^[48] In his 1997 paper, he argues there are attestations in Chinese literature of "古" being used to refer to Mongolia ("蒙古") and "篆" to ʼPhags-pa, although he concedes to not knowing of direct evidence that Sejong was directly aware of such literature.^[49] Ledyard also argues that ʼPhags-pa rhyme dictionaries and design either directly or indirectly influenced the design of Hangul. While there is no direct evidence of Sejong consulting such rhyme dictionaries,^[e] there is for Sin Sukchu. Sin relied on one such dictionary while producing the now-lost Sasŏng t'onggo. Also, Ledyard argues that Hangul organizes sounds and syllables in a way that more closely resembles ʼPhags-pa rhyme dictionary practice over Chinese.^[51]

In 1966, linguist Yu Chang-gyun also published a ʼPhags-pa hypothesis that Chong evaluates as having similar derivations to Ledyard's. Chong reasons that Yu's paper was published after Ledyard's thesis, and that the two had worked independently on the topic. Also, Chong claims that Yu did not consider only deriving basic characters then relying on the addition and removal of lines.^[52]

Linguist Sven Osterkamp evaluates Ledyard's hypothesis favorably and expands upon Ledyard's reasoning. He argues that the letter derivation principles in Hangul resemble similar such principles used for the creation of new letters in Tibetan and ʼPhags-pa. Osterkamp uses the example of pure dental and palatal-supradental sibilants [ko] (pure dentals are ᄼ, ᄽ, ᅎ, ᅏ, ᅔ, palatal-supradentals are ᄾ, ᄿ, ᅐ, ᅑ, ᅕ), where the palatal-supradentals are derived by mirroring the pure dentals. He argues that similar mirroring was also employed in ʼPhags-pa, and that Ledyard was seemingly unaware of this.^[53]

Linguist Nicolas Tranter claims that ʼPhags-pa hypotheses have more traction outside of South Korea than inside.^[54] In a 2006 entry in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Chin-Woo Kim evaluates Ledyard's ʼPhags-pa hypothesis as a "gaining theory", behind original invention hypotheses.^[55]

Linguist Peter T. Daniels wrote in support of Ledyard's hypothesis. He wrote that Ledyard's choice of "five [Hangul jamo] are almost certainly based on the corresponding ʼPhags-pa letters".^[56] Chin-Woo Kim argues the similarities between the two scripts are "a little too striking to relegate them to a simple accident".^[55]

Linguist Jae Jung Song evaluated a ʼPhags-pa influence on Hangul as "within the realm of possibilities".^[57] Tranter argues that ʼPhags-pa possibly had some influence on Hangul, but that Hangul is "in many ways a more original—and perhaps 'scientific'—script than ʼPhags-pa ever was".^[54] Linguist Richard Sproat argues that, while ʼPhags-pa influence cannot necessarily be ruled out, there is no direct evidence for it. He argues it may have offered some inspiration to Hangul, for example by illustrating that syllables could be broken down to further divisions than the two known to Chinese linguistics.^[58] Linguist Roger Finch finds the original invention hypothesis unconvincing and argues some ʼPhags-pa influence on Hangul is plausible, but feels that Hangul is sufficiently distinct from and superior to ʼPhags-pa.^[59]

Linguists Insup Taylor and M. Martin Taylor evaluate Ledyard's shape derivations as contrived and unlikely. They argue that a similar number number of English letters, which are almost certainly unrelated to Hangul, resemble Hangul as well, and that "a more likely explanation is that with any two sets of simple shapes a few members of the sets will almost inevitably resemble each other". They do not rule out other possible influence from ʼPhags-pa: "[it is conceivable that Hangul's inventors] saw in [ʼPhags-pa] that it was feasible for simple and squarish geometric shapes to represent consonants."^[60] Linguist Sang-Oak Lee argued that the correspondences in ʼPhags-pa hypotheses are too few to seem systematic.^[61] Linguist Geoffrey Sampson expresses skepticism of significant ʼPhags-pa influence; he also describes the "Chinese spin" aspect of the hypothesis as "contrived".^[62] In a 1987 paper, Ross King claimed that, based on personal communication, neither of the Koreanists Edward Willett Wagner nor Samuel E. Martin supported the hypothesis.^[63] Linguist Young-Key Kim-Renaud argues Ledyard's derivations lack systemicity, and that Hangul letters are so simple they can be linked to many other clearly unrelated scripts.^[64]

• Hope, E. R. (1957). "Letter Shapes in Korean Önmun and Mongol hPhagspa Alphabets". Oriens. 10 (1): 150–159. doi:10.2307/1578766. ISSN 0078-6527. JSTOR 1578766 – via JSTOR.
• Kim-Renaud, Young-Key, ed. (1997). The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure. University of Hawai'i Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1989-7.
  • Kim-Renaud, Young-Key (1997a). Preface. In Kim-Renaud (1997).
  • Ledyard, Gari. "The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People". In Kim-Renaud (1997).
  • Lee, Sang-Oak (1997b). "Graphical Ingenuity in the Korean Writing System: With New Reference to Calligraphy". In Kim-Renaud (1997).
  • Martin, Samuel E. "Commentary". In Kim-Renaud (1997).
• Ledyard, Gari Keith (1998) [1966]. The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet. 신구문화사.
  • 이익섭. "간행사". In Ledyard (1998).
• Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780511974045.
• Sampson, Geoffrey (1985). Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1756-7 – via Internet Archive.
• Song, Jae Jung (2006). The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-33590-9.
• Taylor, Insup; Taylor, M. Martin (2014) [1995]. Verhoeven, Ludo; van den Broek, Paul W. (eds.). Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Studies in Written Language and Literacy. Vol. 14 (Revised ed.). John Benjamins Publishing Company. doi:10.1075/swll.14. ISBN 9789027269447.

• Chong, Che-mun (March 2015). 파스파 문자와 훈민정음 [The ḥPʽags-pa Script and Hunminjeongeum]. 한글 (in Korean) (307): 5–43. doi:10.22557/HG.2015.03.307.5. ISSN 1225-0449 – via DBpia.