National Archives of Korea Releases Video Footages of the Past Hangul Day

This year marks the 565th anniversary of the proclamation of the Korean alphabet, or Hangul, back in the 15th century, and many events are being held nationwide to commemorate this historic event.
The National Archives of Korea has released the country's video footage of the 1950s and 60s,showing how Koreans of the time celebrated this special occasion.
This is a Korean alphabet typewriter.
It has become obsolete now but during the 1950s and 60s, a typing contest with the typewriter had been held on every Hangul day.
And until the mid 1960s, night schools in the countryside were packed with illiterate people yearning to learn to read Hangul.
By releasing the footage, the National Archives of Korea hopes to remind Koreans of the importance of the country's 28-letter alphabet.
Hangul was invented by King Sejong the Great to relieve commoners' difficulty of learning complicated Chinese characters, and its scientific and easy-to-learn features are well-known.
And it has now even been adopted by some people outside of Korea as their official way of writing their language.
Last year, the Cia Cia tribe of Indonesia adopted Hangul as its official letter.
This was the first time for Hangul to be officially adopted by people of a foreign nation.
In addition to the Korean alphabet, the Korean language has now been widely taught in other countries, thanks to the popularity of Korean pop culture or the Korean Wave.
In the US, the number of public schools that have Korean language courses as a second language is on the rise.
Last year alone, 10 more public high schools set up Korean language courses, totaling about 60 schools.
In Japan, the number of people applying for the Test of Proficiency in Korean has increased by almost ten-fold in a decade.
The Korean government also plans to encourage the education of the Korean language abroad by setting up more Sejonghakdang, official Korean language institutes recognized by the government.
There are currently 60 Sejonghakdang institutes located in 31 countries.
30 more institutes will be established by next year, and the government plans to double the number in just two years.
Park Ji-won, Arirang News.

OCT 09, 2011
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