Let’s Celebrate Hangeul Day – 9th October 

Today is Hangeul Day (한글날) in Korea. 9th October is a national holiday in South Korea that celebrates the Korean script Hangeul or Hangul (한글).

From 1991 to 2012, this day was celebrated as Hangul Proclamation day, but it was not a national holiday but since 2013 its status was again changed to a national holiday in order to boost the national brand of South Korea.

In North Korea, Hangeul is called Joseongeul (조선글) and its commemoration day is celebrated on 15th January.

Korean script Hangeul was Korean people are very proud of the Korean alphabet and rightly so. Hangeul gets most of the credit for Korea’s almost 100% literacy rate.

Before the creation of Hangeul in 1446 by a scholars team commissioned by King Sejong the Great, Korean people mainly used Chinese characters, called Hanja (한자) for writing.

Chinese characters were difficult to learn, so education was limited to only elites and aristocrats.

Hangeul made it easy for even common people to read and write and now it’s rare to find someone in Korea who can’t read and write Hangeul.

Hangeul is so easy to learn that you can Learn Hangeul in One Hour.

Let’s celebrate this beautiful script today.