9 Opposition to the Korean Alphabet, 1444

We your lieges (vassals) humbly observe that the creation of the Vulgar Script (Hangul) is most divinely marvelous, and that as an example of bringing wisdom to bear on the creation of things, it stands out preeminently among the creations of a thousand eras. However, in the tiny and narrow view of your lieges, there is yet room for doubt, and we dare to publish this to temerarious supplication. We respectfully memorialize as follows, humbly bearing in mind, your sagely acumen:

I

Our Court, since the times of our Progenitor and Ancestors, has with utmost sincerity served the Great. We have honored Chinese institutions solely. But now, at this time of identical culture and identical cart tracks, we create the Vulgar Script. We observe and attend this with alarm.

Let us say that the graphs of the Vulgar Script are all based on ancient characters, and are not new characters. But even though the graphic forms imitate the old Seal Script, the combining of these graphs, according to sound is utterly opposed to antiquity; there is truly nothing to base it upon. If these graphs should flow into China, and if the people there should adversely criticize them, how could we be without shame, considering our service towards the Great and affection for China?

II

Although, from ancient times customs and local usages have differ within the Nine Isles [Chinese administrative units], there has never been a case of one of them separately, making a script based on the local speech. Only types like the Mongolians, Tanguts, Jurčen, Japanese, and Tibetans have their own graphs. But these are matters of the barbarians, and not worth talking about. It has been traditionally, said, ‘Change the barbarians using Chinese ways; we have never heard of changing towards barbarousness.’ Through the succession of ages, China has always regarded our country as having the bequeathed customs of Kija [legendary Chinese sage], but in matters of culture, literary and material, and in ritual and music, we have rather taken after China. To now separately make the Vulgar Script is to discard China and identify ourselves with the barbarians. This is what is called “throwing away the fragrance of storax and choosing the bullet of the praying mantis.” This is most certainly a matter of great implication for our civilization!

III

Although the Clerk Readings (idu) of Sǒl Ch’ong of Silla are mean and rustic, he is in all cases, borrowed characters that were generally current in China and applied them as language and auxiliaries. They are not in principle distinct from Chinese characters. Thus, people like copyists, clerks, menials and varlets naturally want to practice them. But first they read a few books and learn characters roughly; only after that, do they use the Clerk Readings. And those who do use the Clerk readings have to rely on the genuine Chinese characters to be able to get to the meaning. Those who learn Chinese characters by means of the Clerk Readings are quite numerous. The Clerk Readings are also an aid in stimulating learning.

If our country had from the beginning not known characters, such as in the times when we knotted chords, then to have temporarily availed ourselves of the Vulgar Script in order to satisfy the needs of a single generation would have been acceptable. Even so, those who held to the correct counsel would’ve said, rather than put the Vulgar Script into practice and let it rest at that, it would certainly be better to slowly and tardily learn the characters of general currency in China and make our long-range plans with those. And all the more since, in the several-thousand year practice of the Clerk Readings, there has never been any obstacle or obstruction to using them in registry books or for fixing appointments and other like matters. Why should we change from a long used, uncorrupted script, and separately create mean, vulgar, profitless, graphs?

If you put the Vulgar Script into practice, then it will be the Vulgar Script that clerks will exclusively study. They will have no record for learning. The clerks and the officials will diverge from one another and form two classes with respect to writing. If those who are to become clerks, can gain positions with the Vulgar Script, then those who advance afterwards will see that it’s like this and regard knowledge of the twenty-seven letter Vulgar Script as enough to establish themselves in the world. Why should they have to strain their minds and labor their thoughts going through the study of “Nature and Pattern” [Neo-Confucian metaphysics]! After several decades of this, there’s certainly won’t be very many people who know characters. They might be able to use the Vulgar Script in application to clerkly matters, but if they don’t know the writings of the sages and worthies, ‘they won’t study, their faces will be to the wall.’ They will be blind with respect to right and wrong in the Pattern of things. They will be futilely expert in the Vulgar Script. But what use can be made of that! The Culture of the Right [orthodox Confucian civilization], which our country has amassed and accumulated, will gradually come to being swept from the earth…

Suppose that we had the Vulgar Script from the time of earlier dynasties: with the order of present day, civilization, and our most proper desire to change from crudity, would we still be willing to follow along and keep it in use? there would certainly be those who would argue for a readjustment. This is reasoning that is clearly understandable. To be fed up with the old and delighted in the new is an affliction common both to ancient and modern times. This Vulgar Script is no more than a new oddity. There is harm in it for learning; it is of no benefit to our good order. Turning it backwards and upside down and taking tally of it, we still cannot see any good in it.