Postscript · Jeong In-ji
HANGUL, The Cosmic Philosophy · p.248 / 428
Need for a native script
In East Asia, many countries outside of China do not have
letters that accurately correspond to their native sounds. As
a result, they have been forced to borrow Hanja, which are
not suited to their linguistic needs.
This is akin to fitting a square peg into a round hole,
making accurate communication difficult. Each nation
should have its own writing system that matches the unique
characteristics of its language sounds. It is unreasonable to
force all cultures to use the same set of letters, as doing so
disregards the natural diversity of human language.
Our nation is no less cultured or refined than China in terms
of etiquette and cultural standards. However, our language
is fundamentally different from Chinese. Despite this, we
lack a writing system that properly matches our spoken
language. This forces us to use Hanja, which makes it
difficult to learn and understand the meaning of texts.
For government officials, this poses a serious challenge, as
they struggle to fully understand local situations and
effectively govern.
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