Korean mixed script () is a form of writing the Korean language that uses a mixture of the Korean alphabet or hangul () and hanja (, ), the Korean name for Chinese characters. The distribution on how to write words usually follows that all native Korean words, including suffixes, particles, and honorific markers are generally written in hangul and never in hanja. Sino-Korean vocabulary or hanja-eo (), either words borrowed from Chinese or created from Sino-Korean roots, were generally always written in hanja, although very rare or complex characters were often substituted with hangul. Although the Korean alphabet was introduced and taught to people beginning in 1446, most literature until the early twentieth century was written in literary Chinese known as hanmun ().
Although examples of mixed-script writing are as old as hangul itself, the mixing of hangul and hanja together in sentences became the official writing system of the Korean language at the end of the nineteenth century, when reforms ended the primacy of literary Chinese in literature, science, and government. This style of writing, in competition with hangul-only writing, continued as the formal written version of Korean for most of the twentieth century. The script slowly gave way to hangul-only usage in North Korea by 1949, while it continued in South Korea to a limited extent. However, with the decrease in hanja education, the number of hanja in use has slowly dwindled, and in the twenty-first century, very few hanja are used at all. In Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, local newspaper Northeast Korean People's Daily published the "workers and peasants version" which used all-hangul in text, in addition to the existing "cadre version" that had mixed script, for the convenience of . Starting on April 20, 1952, the newspaper abolished the "cadre version" and published in hangul only. Soon, the entire publishing industry adopted the hangul-only style.
The development of required two major developments in orthographic traditions of the Korean Peninsula. The first was the adoption of , around the beginning of the Three Kingdom period of Korea. The second was the introduction of in 1446.
Despite the advent of vernacular writing in Korean using , these publications remained the dominion of the literate class, comprising royalty and nobility, Buddhist monks, Confucian scholars, civil servants and members of the upper classes as the ability to read these texts required proficient ability to understand the meaning of the Chinese characters, with both their adopted Sino-Korean pronunciation and their native gloss. To rectify this, King Sejong the Great () summoned a team of scholars to devise a new script for the Korean language, leading to the 1446 promulgation of the (, 'correct pronunciation for teaching the people') which is later critiqued in . The problems surrounding literacy in Literary Chinese to the common populace was summarized in the Sejong's preface, written in Literary Chinese:
<blockquote>
<br/> [Because] the spoken language of this country is different from that of China, it does not flow well with [Chinese] characters. Therefore, even if the ignorant want to communicate, many of them in the end cannot state their concerns. Saddened by this, I have [had] 28 letters newly made. It is my wish that all the people may easily learn these letters and that [they] be convenient for daily use. </blockquote>
The new script rapidly spread to all parts of society, including the segments of the population formerly denied access to education such as farmers, fishermen, women of the lower classes, rural merchants and young children. It was known as vernacular script, (, and ), or national script (), by the state. Several attempts to ban or over-turn the use of were initiated but failed to halt its spread, the most notable being during the 10th year of the tyrannical reign of prince Yeonsan, where he banned the use, learning, and teaching of Hangul on 19 July 1504 after the public mocked and insulted him in posters; the total ban ended five months later in December of the same year, when he ordered the translation of calendar-books () into Hangul. These attempts were initiated by several rulers, who discovered disparaging remarks about their reigns, and the upper classes, whose grip on power and influence was predicated upon their ability to read, write and interpret classical Chinese texts and commentaries thereof. Some scholarly elite mocked the sole use of pseudo-deferentially as (), 'real script'. Other insults such as 'women's script', 'children's script' and 'farmer's hand' are known anecdotally but are not found in the literature.
Despite the fears from the upper classes and scholarly elite, the introduction of the early actually increased proficiency in literary Chinese. New-style dictionaries appeared, arranging words according to their alphabetic order when spelled out in , and showing compound words containing the as well as its Sino-Korean and its native, sometimes archaic, pronunciation â a system still in use for many contemporary Korean-language dictionaries. The syllable blocks could be written easily between meaningful units of Chinese characters, as annotations, but also began to replace the complex notation of the early and , including , although and were not officially abolished until the end of the 19th century in part because literary Chinese was still the official written language of the royal court, nobility, governance and diplomacy until its usage was finally abolished in the early twentieth century and its local production mostly ceased by mid-century.
The real spread of to all elements of Korean society was the late eighteenth century beginning of two literary trends. The ancient (), 'seasonal tune', poetry. Although , heavily influenced by Chinese Tang dynasty poetry, was long written in Chinese, authors began writing poems in Korean written solely with hangul, previously only possible with and . At the same time, (), 'song lyric', poetry was similarly spread. Korean women of the upper classes created by translating or finding inspiration in the old poems, written in literary Chinese, and translating them into Korean, but as the name suggests, were popularly sung. Although Catholic and Protestant missionaries initially attempted to evangelise the Korean Peninsula starting with the nobility using Chinese translations and works, in the early nineteenth century, Bishop Siméon-François Berneux, or () mandated that all publications be written only in and all students in the missionary schools were required to use it. Protestant and other Catholic missionaries followed suit, facilitating the spread of Christianity in Korea, but also created a large corpus of Korean-language material written in only.
The script is now the primary and most commonplace method to write the Korean language, and is known as () in South Korea, from (), as in 'Korea', and (), 'script'. In North Korea, the script is known as (). The promulgation of the indigenous script is celebrated as a national holiday on 9 October in the south and 15 January in the north, respectively.
The practice of mixing into began as early as the introduction of . Even King Sejong's promulgation proclamation was written in literary Chinese and passages to explain the alphabet and mixed passages that help 'ease' the reader into the use of the alphabet. The first novel written in , (, Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven) is actually mostly written in what would now be considered mixed-script writing. Another major literary work touted as a masterpiece of -based literature, the 1590 translation of The Analects of Confucius () by Yi Yulgok () is also written entirely in .
Many Koreans today attribute to the Japanese occupation of Korea. This is in part due to the visual similarity of Chinese characters interspersed with alphabetic text of Japanese-language texts to Korean-language texts in mixed script, and the numerous assimilation and suppression schemes of the occupational government carried out against the Korean people, language and culture. In fact, was commonplace amongst the royalty, () and classes for personal records and informal letters shortly after the introduction of the alphabet, and replaced the routine use of by the . The heyday of arrived with the Gap-o reforms () passed in 1894âÂÂ1896 after the Donghak Peasant Rebellion (). The reforms ended the client status of Korea to the Qing dynasty emperors, elevating King Gojong to Emperor Gwangmu (), ended the supremacy of literary Chinese and script, ended the imperial examinations. In place of literary Chinese, the Korean language written in the 'national letters' ()âÂÂnow understood as an alternate name for but at the time referred to âÂÂwas now the language of governance.
Due to over a thousand years of literary Chinese supremacy, the early texts were written in a stiff, prosaic style, with a preponderance of Sino-Korean terms barely removed from , but the written language was quickly adapted into the current format with a more natural style, using only where a Sino-Korean loan word was read in Sino-Korean pronunciation and for native words and grammatical particles. One of the most important publications at the end of the Joseon period was the weekly newspaper, (), one of the first written in the more natural style several years before the reforms. The popular newspaper was originally started as a -only publication that lasted only a few weeks before they switched formats. During the reforms, Yu Giljun () published his travel diaries, () or Observations on Travels to the West was a best-seller at this time. The success of and urged the literati to switch to vernacular Korean in .
Mixed script was a commonly used means of writing, although exclusive writing has been used concurrently, in Korea after the decline of literary Chinese, known as (). Mixed script could be commonly found in non-fiction writing, newspapers, etc. until the enacting of President Park Chung-hee's 5-Year Plan for Hangul Exclusivity () in 1968 banned the use and teaching of in public schools, as well as forbade its use in the military, with the goal of eliminating in writing by 1972 through legislative and executive means. However, due to public backlash in 1972, Park's government allowed for the teaching of Hanja in special classes but maintained a ban on use in textbooks and other learning materials outside of the classes. This reverse step however, was optional so the availability of education was dependent on the school one went to.
Another reason for the decline is found in the Hangul typewriter and keyboard. The push for better Hangul typewriters mainly began in 1949, but as it was way before the ban, government institutions did not prefer typewriters altogether as they could not write in nor mixed script. Kong Byung Wo's notable type first appeared in March 1949, jointly winning second place in the 's () Hangul type contest, and Kim Dong Hoon's typewriter winning joint 3rd. During the 1950s and 1960s, alongside the Korean government's support for typewriting, new Hangul typewriters were developed, distributed, and adopted. Hangul type with both horizontal writing and (; the style of Hangul where Hangul consonants and vowels mix in together to form a full letter, which is the default style being used today) first appeared in the same period as government policy. With further adoption, during the 1970s, even when and mixed script were still used widely in society both as a writing system and as a style option, Koreans mostly gave up on mixed script at least in government documents and memoranda; The use of Hanja in type hindered the speed of writing and printing compared to only-Hangul usage, especially after the advent of the layout ()
Park's Hanja ban was not formally lifted until 1992 under the government of Kim Young-sam. In 1999, the government of Kim Dae-jung actively promoted Hanja by placing it on signs on the road, at bus stops, and in subways. In 1999, Hanja was reintroduced as a school elective and in 2001 the Hanja Proficiency Test () was introduced. In 2005, an older law, the Law Concerning Hangul Exclusivity () was repealed as well. In 2013, all elementary schools in Seoul started teaching Hanja. However, the result was that Koreans who were educated in this period, having never been formally educated in Hanja, were unable to use them and thus the use of Hanja plummeted in orthography until the modern day. Hanja is now very rarely used and is almost only used for abbreviations in newspaper headlines (e.g. for China, for Korea, for the United States, for Japan, etc.), for clarification in text where a word might be confused for another due to homophones (e.g. vs. ), or for stylistic use such as the () used on Shin Ramyà Ân packaging.
In a typical hanja-honyong texts, traditionally all words that were of Sino-Korean origin, either composed from Chinese character compounds natively or loan words directly from Chinese, were written in hanja although particularly rare or complicated hanja were often disambiguated with the hangul pronunciation and perhaps a gloss of the meaning. Native words, including Korean grammatical postpositions, were written in hangul. Due to the reforms at the close of the Joseon dynasty, native words were not supposed to be written in hanja, as they were in the idu and hyangchal systems which were abolished at this time.
In Korean mixed-script writing, especially in formal and academic contexts, the majority of semantic or 'content' words are generally written in hanja whereas most syntax or 'function' is conveyed with grammatical endings, particles and honorifics written in hangul. Japanese, which continues to use a heavily Chinese character-laden orthography, is read in the same way. The Chinese characters, have different angled strokes and oftentimes more strokes than a typical syllable block of hangul letters, and definitely more so than Japanese kana, enabling readers of both respective languages to process content information very quickly.
Korean readers, however, have a few more handicaps than Japanese readers. For instance, although academic, legal, scientific, history and literature have a higher proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary, Korean has more indigenous vocabulary used for semantic information, so older Korean readers often scan the hanja first and then piece together by reading the hangul content words to piece the meaning. Japanese avoids this problem by writing most content words with their Sino-Japanese equivalent of kanji, whereas reading Sino-Korean vocabulary according to their native Korean pronunciation or translation was banned in previous reforms, so only a Sino-Korean word can be written in hanja. The handicaps are avoided by the adoption of spaces inserted between phrases in modern Korean, limiting phrases, generally, to a content word and grammatical particle(s), allowing readers to spot the native Korean content words faster.
In reading texts, Koreans are faster at reading out passages written in hangul than in mixed script. However, although 'reading' is faster, understanding the texts is facilitated with the use of hanja in higher order language to the large number of homophones in the language, such as the continued role of hanja disambiguation' even in hangul-only texts. For instance, daehan (ëÂÂÃÂÂ), usually understood in the context of the 'Great Han' (大éÂÂ, ëÂÂÃÂÂ) or 'Great Korean people,' can also indicate (大å¯Â,ëÂÂÃÂÂ) 'big winter,' the coldest part at the end of January and beginning of February, (大æ±, ëÂÂÃÂÂ) 'severe drought,' (大漢, ëÂÂÃÂÂ) 'Great Chinese people,' (大æ¨, ëÂÂÃÂÂ) 'deep resentment,' (å°ÂéÂÂ, ëÂÂÃÂÂ) 'anti-Korean,' (å°Âæ¼¢, ëÂÂÃÂÂ), 'anti-Chinese,' or (å°ÂÃÂÂ) 'about or 'toward.' Readers of technical and academic texts often have to clarify terms for the listener to avoid ambiguity, and most hanja are only used when necessary to clear confusion. As can be seen in the example below, the hanja in an otherwise mostly native vocabulary song stand out from the hangul text, thus appearing almost like bolded and enlarged text. This was further amplified in older texts, when hangul blocks were sometimes written smaller than the surrounding hanja.
Very few hanja are used in modern Korean writing, but are occasionally seen in academic and technical texts and formal publications, such as newspapers, where the rare hanja is used as a shorthand in newspaper headlines, especially if the native Korean equivalent is a longer word, or more importantly, to disambiguate the meaning of a word. Sino-Korean words make up over 70% of the Korean language, although only a third of them are in common usage, but that proportion increases in formal and highbrow publications. A native Korean syllable may have up to 1,300 possible combinations compared to the Sino-Korean inventory of 400. Although Middle Korean developed tones that may have facilitated differentiation of words, this development was lost in the transition to modern Korean, making many words homophones of each other. Cantonese, whose pronunciation of the characters is similar to the Sino-Korean pronunciation due to its conservative phonology and the ancient age in which these words entered Korean, has several words pronounced : 'new', 'body', 'deity', 'difficult' or 'spicy', 'large clam', 'kidney' and 'to lament.' Although even in Cantonese , and are true homophones with the pronunciation of with the high tone, each of the other examples is pronounced with a unique tone that distiniguish them from the first three and each other: , and . In Korean, the hanja-eo reading of all these characters is and in hangul spelling all share and no tone to distinguish them.
By the mid-1990s, when even the most conservative newspapers stopped publishing in hanja-honyong, with most ceasing in the 1980s, and switched to a generally all-hangul format, the use of characters to clarify the meaning of a word, hanja disambiguation', is still common, in part due to complaints from older subscribers that were educated in the mixed script and were used to using hanja glosses. From this 2018 article from the conservative newspaper The Chosun Ilbo, two phrases are disambiguated with hanja:
Although in many instances, context can help discern the meaning, and many of the possible variants are obscure or rare characters that would be encountered only in either classical literature or literary Chinese thus limiting choices. In more relaxed publications, where hanja disambiguation is less common, Sino-Korean terms are avoided as much as possible, although this may appear as "dumbed down" material to some readers. Context can often facilitate the meaning of many terms. Many Sino-Korean terms that are rare and only encountered in ancient texts in literary Chinese are almost unknown and would not even be part of the hanja taught in education, limiting the number of likely choices.
The text below is the preamble to the constitution of the Republic of Korea. The first text is written in Hangul; the second is its mixed script version; and the third is its unofficial English translation.
<blockquote style="max-width:38em" lang="ko-Hang"> ì 구àìÂÂì“ ì Âõì ë¹ÂëÂÂë ì°리 ëÂÂàêµÂ민ì 3⸱1 ì´ëÂÂì¼론건립ë ëÂÂÃÂÂ민굠ìÂÂì ì Âë¶Âì ë²Âõ과 ë¶ÂìÂÂì ÃÂÂ거à4⸱19 민주 ì´ë Âì ê³Âì¹ÃÂÂê³ , ì¡°êµÂì 민주 ê°ÂÃÂÂê³¼ ÃÂÂÃÂÂ젠õì¼ì ì¬몠ì ì ê°ÂÃÂÂì¬ ì ÂìÂÂ⸱ì¸ëÂÂì ëÂÂÓ ë¡Âì¨ 민족ì ë¨결ì 공고àÃÂÂê³ , 모ë ì¬ÃÂÂì  ÃÂÂìµ과 ë¶ÂìÂÂ를 ÃÂÂÃÂÂÃÂÂë©°, ìÂÂì¨과 ì¡°ÃÂÂ를 ë°ÂÃÂÂì¼론ìÂÂì 민주젠기본 ì§ÂìÂÂ를 ëÂÂì± ÃÂÂ고àÃÂÂì¬ ì Âì¹Â⸱경ì Â⸱ì¬ÃÂÂ⸱문ÃÂÂì 모ë ìÂÂìÂÂì ìÂÂì´ì ê°Âì¸ì 기ÃÂÂ를 ê· ë±Ã ÃÂÂê³ , ë¥력ì ìµÂê³ ëÂÂë¡ ë°ÂÃÂÂÃÂÂê² ÃÂÂë©°, ìÂÂì ì ê¶Â리ì ë°르ë 챠ìÂÂê³¼ ìÂÂ무를 ìÂÂìÂÂÃÂÂê² ÃÂÂì¬, ìÂÂì¼ë¡Âë êµÂ민 ìÂÂÃÂÂì 균ë±Ã ÃÂ¥ìÂÂì 기ÃÂÂê³ ë°Âì¼ë¡Âë ÃÂÂ구ì Âì¸ ì¸고ÃÂÂÃÂÂì ì¸률공ìÂÂì ì´ë°Âì§Âèì¼ë¡Âì¨ ì°리ë¤과 ì°리ë¤ì ìÂÂìÂÂì ìÂÂì Âê³¼ ìÂÂì ì ÃÂÂë³µì ìÂÂìÂÂàÃÂÂ보àê²Âì ë¤ì§ÂÃÂÂë©´ì 1948ë  7ì 12ì¼ì ì Âì ÂëÂÂê³ 8ì°¨ì 걸쳠ê°Âì Âë ÃÂÂë²Âì ì´젠êµÂÃÂÂì ìÂÂê²°ì 거쳠êµÂ민 ìÃÂÂì ìÂÂÃÂÂì¬ ê°Âì ÂÃÂÂë¤.<br/>
1987ë  10ì 29ì¼ </blockquote>
<blockquote style="max-width:38em" lang="ko-Hang"> æ 习àæ·å²ì å³統ì ë¹ÂëÂÂë ì°리 大éÂÂÃ¥ÂÂæ°Âì 3⸱1 éÂÂÃ¥ÂÂì¼론建ç«Âë 大éÂÂæ°ÂÃ¥ÂÂè¨æÂÂæ¿åºÂì æ³Â統과 ä¸Â義ì æÂÂæÂÂà4⸱19 æ°Â主çÂÂ念ì 繼æ¿ÃÂÂê³ , ç¥ÂÃ¥ÂÂì æ°Â主æ¹é©과 å¹³åÂÂçÂÂçµ±ä¸Âì 使å½ì ç«ÂèÂÂÃÂÂì¬ æ£義⸱人éÂÂì åÂÂèÂÂæÂÂë¡Âì¨ æ°ÂæÂÂì åÂÂçµÂì éÂÂåºÃ ÃÂÂê³ , 모ë 社æÂÂçÂÂå¼Âç¿Âê³¼ ä¸Â義를 æÂÂç ´ÃÂÂë©°, èªå¾Âê³¼ 調åÂÂ를 ë°ÂÃÂÂì¼론èªç±æ°Â主çÂÂåºæ¬秩åºÂ를 ëÂÂì± 確åºÃ ÃÂÂì¬ æ¿治⸱ç¶Âæ¿Â⸱社æÂÂ⸱æÂÂÃ¥ÂÂì 모ë é ÂÃ¥ÂÂì ìÂÂì´ì åÂÂ人ì æ©ÂæÂÂ를 Ã¥ÂÂçÂÂàÃÂÂê³ , è½åÂÂì æÂÂé«Â度론ç¼æ®ÃÂÂê² ÃÂÂë©°, èªç±ì æ¬Âå©ì ë°르ë 責任과 義åÂÂ를 å®ÂéÂÂÃÂÂê² ÃÂÂì¬, ìÂÂì¼ë¡Âë åÂÂæ°ÂçÂÂæ´»ì åÂÂçÂÂàåÂÂä¸Âì åºÃÂÂê³ ë°Âì¼ë¡Âë æÂÂä¹ çÂÂì¸ ä¸ÂçÂÂå¹³åÂÂì 人é¡Â報榮ì ì´ë°Âì§Âèì¼ë¡Âì¨ ì°리ë¤과 ì°리ë¤ì åÂÂå«ì å®Â堨과 èªç±ì 幸ç¦Âì 永é Ã 確ä¿Âàê²Âì ë¤ì§ÂÃÂÂë©´ì 1948å¹´ 7æ 12æÂ¥ì å¶å®ÂëÂÂê³ 8次ì 걸쳠æ¹æ£ë æ²æ³Âì ì´젠åÂÂæÂÂì è°決ì 거쳠åÂÂæ°ÂæÂÂ票ì ä¾ÂÃÂÂì¬ æ¹æ£ÃÂÂë¤.<br/>
1987å¹´ 10æ 29æÂÂ¥ </blockquote>
<blockquote style="max-width:38em"> We, the people of Korea, proud of a resplendent history and traditions dating from time immemorial, upholding the cause of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea born of the March First Independence Movement of 1919 and the democratic ideals of the April Revolution of 1960, having assumed the mission of democratic reform and peaceful unification of our homeland and having determined to consolidate national unity with justice, humanitarianism and brotherly love, and to destroy all social vices and injustice, and to afford equal opportunities to every person and provide for the fullest development of individual capabilities in all fields, including political, economic, social and cultural life by further strengthening the free and democratic basic order conducive to private initiative and public harmony, and to help each person discharge those duties and responsibilities concomitant to freedoms and rights, and to elevate the quality of life for all citizens and contribute to lasting world peace and the common prosperity of mankind and thereby to ensure security, liberty and happiness for ourselves and our posterity forever, do hereby amend, through national referendum following a resolution by the National Assembly, the Constitution, ordained and established on July 12, 1948, and amended eight times subsequently.
October 29, 1987 </blockquote>