Developing a Terminology for Pre-hangeul Korean Transcription

This paper argues that the term “character-borrowing transcription” 借字表記 is insufficient to describe the entirety of writing and transcription systems used in Korea prior to the promulgation of the Hunmin jeongeum (“Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People”) in 1446. First, in recent years, elucidatory gugyeol 口訣 texts have been discovered which utilize a variety of dots and lines (“. , : , .. , / ,∖ , | , - ”) that bear no resemblance to and are not derived from Sinitic characters, in order to transcribe Korean grammatical forms (to 吐 ). Second, characters heretofore considered to be exclusively “gugyeol characters” (‘  [mye],’ ‘  [a],’ and ‘  [ma]’) have been identified frequently on mokgan (wooden tablet writing), as well as in idu and hyangchal texts. Third, the terms gugyeolja, iduja, and hyangchalja are inadequate because they are not based on the orthographic nature of these characters, but on textual differences in usage. This paper proposes the adoption of a new generic term, “Korean characters” han(guk)ja 韓 ( 國 ) 字 , to describe the entirety of pre-hangeul Korean transcription. This broad category is divided into four sub-categories: “Sinitic Korean characters” han han(guk)ja 漢韓 ( 國 ) 字 , “Korean half characters” han(guk)banja 韓 ( 國 ) 半字 , “Korean-made characters” han(guk)jeja 韓 ( 國 ) 製字 , and “Korean point-symbol characters” han(guk)jeomja 韓 ( 國 ) 點字 .