고등학교 영어 독해와 작문 (NE능률 양현권) 연계 글

For many centuries, educated Koreans wrote in Chinese characters, a writing system developed for a language whose sounds and grammar are very different from those of Korean. Because each character stood for a separate idea, reading demanded extensive memorization, and the complicated strokes made the characters hard to write. By the fifteenth century, Koreans had also developed idu, a method that borrowed Chinese characters to record Korean words; however, it could not represent many sounds and endings unique to Korean. As a result, farmers spoke the same language as the scholars at court, yet most had no practical way to put their thoughts into writing.

King Sejong, Joseon's fourth ruler, found this situation unacceptable. After studying the sounds of Korean and the writing systems of neighboring countries, he completed a set of twenty-eight letters in 1443. In 1446, he presented the letters to the nation in a book titled Hunminjeongeum, which means "the proper sounds for instructing the people." In its preface, the king explained that common people could not set down their thoughts in characters designed for another language, so he had made letters that everyone could learn easily and use every day.

The book, however, was far more than a list of letters. Besides the king's short text, it contained detailed explanations and examples prepared by scholars of the Hall of Worthies, a royal institute of learning. In a closing essay, one of these scholars declared that a reader who studied the explanations could master the new letters without a teacher. Moreover, the seventeen consonants and eleven vowels were made of simple strokes, unlike the characters borrowed from Chinese. A copy of the book, long unknown, was found in Andong in 1940, and in 1997 UNESCO added it to its register of the world's documentary heritage.

Even when citizens share a written language with their government, official writing can still shut them out. When notices, forms, and instructions are filled with long sentences and specialized terms, many readers struggle to understand what they are expected to do. In 2010, American lawmakers passed the Plain Writing Act, which requires federal agencies to use plain writing in documents needed to obtain a government benefit or service or to file taxes. The act defines plain writing as writing that is clear, concise, and well organized and that suits its subject and its intended readers. Each agency was also required to train its employees in plain writing and to publish reports on its progress. However, the act does not apply to regulations, and it gives citizens no right to sue an agency that ignores it.

Korea pursues the same goal as the American law through its Framework Act on the Korean Language, first enacted in 2005. Article 14 of this law states that public institutions must write official documents in Hangeul according to the national language rules and in words and sentences that ordinary citizens can understand easily. Under an amendment passed in 2021, the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism must also evaluate such documents every year and make the results public.

Laws like these rest on the same belief as the letters created by King Sejong. Writing serves its readers only when they can understand it without special training. In other words, a document should be judged by how easily the people it addresses can use it, not by how learned it sounds.