Debate on the use of Korean mixed script

There has been much debate over the use of Chinese characters in Korean orthography, otherwise known as Korean mixed script. The questions surrounding the use and relevance of mixed script over Hangul exclusivity are still hotly contested topics to this day in Korea and garner the attention of many, as the issue concerns education from its earliest years to university.
The debate itself is over whether Korean should be written with Hanja mixed into the text, or purely in Hangul. The debate also oftentimes centres around the education of Hanja in schools, the effects of which are also debated. It is a controversial debate which concerns the orthography, vocabulary, and other aspects of the written language.

History of mixed script

During the early years following its creation by Sejong the Great, Hangul only saw limited use by the Korean peasantry, or by scholars in mixed script, most notably in translations of Chinese text. Literary Chinese, known as hanmun, was used in most formal writing. In November 1894, King Gojong declared that all texts in the Korean code of law should be written primarily in Hangul with a hanmun translation as reference, and optionally through mixed script.
However, as literary Chinese declined in use, mixed script and exclusively Hangul writing started being used concurrently. Mixed script was commonly found in non-fiction writing and newspapers. In 1968, South Korean president Park Chung Hee announced the 5 Year Plan for Hangul Exclusivity, which banned the use and teaching of Hanja in public schools and forbade its use in the military. The plan aimed to eliminate hanja in writing by 1972 through legislative and executive means. However, in 1972, due to public backlash, Park's government allowed for the teaching of Hanja in special classes but maintained a ban on Hanja use in textbooks and other learning materials outside of the classes.
Park's Hanja ban was not formally lifted until 1992 under the government of Kim Young-Sam. In 1999, the Kim Dae-Jung administration actively promoted Hanja use by placing Hanja letters on signs on the road, at bus stops, and in subways. In 1999, hanmun was reintroduced as a school elective, and in 2001 the Hanja Proficiency Test was introduced. In 2005, an older law, the Law Concerning Hangul Exclusivity was repealed as well. In 2013, all elementary schools in Seoul started teaching hanja.
Nevertheless, due to a decline in Hanja use, most Koreans who were educated during this period were unable to read and write in hanmun script, and the use of Hanja plummeted. In modern-day Korea, Hanja is now almost exclusively used for abbreviations in newspaper headlines, for clarification of homophones, or for stylistic use, such as the 辛 used on Shin Ramyun packaging.

Literacy

Hangul exclusivity

Proponents of Hangul-exclusive policies commonly cite literacy rates and refer to them as a display of Hangul's success. Using only Hangul drastically simplifies the language down to the use of the 24 aforementioned letters of the alphabet and allows for everyone to read.
For example, before the introduction of Hangul, most Koreans outside of Korea's elite class were illiterate. Hangul allowed for these people to learn to read and write in their language. Hangul also saves students time because they don't have to learn complex Hanja to be able to read.

Mixed script

Proponents of mixed script argue that literacy rates of a modern nation are not dependent on its writing system, but rather its access to education. For the first 500 years of Hangul's existence, Korea's literacy rates were not higher than those of other pre-industrialized states or even those of its character-using neighbors.
Countries that also use alphabetic scripts but have more letters have higher literacy rates. Russia's Cyrillic alphabet has 66 letters and has a higher literacy rate than that of South Korea.
China, Japan, and Taiwan, which are all users of Chinese characters, have higher or near equal literacy rates.
Another argument commonly made by mixed script advocates is that of functional literacy. Functional illiteracy concerns with reading skills above the basic level necessary to manage daily life and employment. It is different from pure illiteracy, the measure discussed above, which is the inability to read at all. Some Korean education experts, including those in favor of Hangul-Hanja mixed script, have attributed the high rate of functional illiteracy to the lack of Hanja education in the Korean public education system. This claim is somewhat substantiated by the fact that 60-70% of the Korean vocabulary is derived from Hanja, many of which appear more often in technical fields.
*In a 2005 study, South Korean adults had the highest rate of functional illiteracy out of 22 OECD member states surveyed with a rate of 38%, much higher than the average of 22%. Almost three in four Korean adults had difficulty reading information necessary for their occupation or skill.
*Another Korean poll reports that 58% of college-aged Koreans, most of whom have never been taught Hanja, have felt inconvenienced by their lack of knowledge of Hanja at some point in their lives.
*A 2023 study by the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies indicated that 31% of Koreans are not able to read and understand text above a basic level, and only 32% are able to read at level 3 or above. For reference, Japan, which continues to mix Kanji in its everyday orthography, has only 11% of its population be unable to read above a basic level, and 66% of Japanese adults can read at level 3 or above. There is a notable disparity when broken down by age, particularly between younger generations and older generations, with older generations struggling more. However, the results are largely in line with the results from the 2011/2012 edition of the study, indicating that Korean adults' literacy skills are deteriorating once they leave school. Part of this can be attributed to the lack of regular Chinese character education in Korean schools.

Vocabulary and information

Hangul exclusivity

Proponents of Hangul exclusivity argue that it is a thorough understanding of the text, acquired through reading experience and literary analysis, that determines one's ability to accurately interpret the meaning of a word, not the writing system itself.
To combat the homophonic ambiguity of Sino-Korean vocabulary, proponents of Hangul exclusivity proposed the adaptation of more obscure native Korean words for homophonic Sino-Korean words or the creation of new words to disambiguate the language. Along with this, proponents claim that Hangul exclusivity has made the language both more understandable and easier to comprehend.

Mixed script

It is estimated that up to 60% of the Korean vocabulary is composed of Sino-Korean words; according to these estimates, native Korean words form a minority of the vocabulary in the spoken Korean language.
Each character of Hanja conveys more information than each letter of Hangul as there are still many more Hanja characters than Hangul letters. The fact that Hanja conveys more information than Hangul has ramifications in the semantic meaning of each character. The word "일", for example, is composed of three Hangul letters ㅇ, ㅣ, and ㄹ. In only three letters, there is much ambiguity over the meaning of the Hangul block, as "일" could mean "one" or "day" in Sino-Korean vocabulary or a native Korean word for "work". Writing the Hanja makes it clear which "일" is in question.
* Similarly, when comparing the words and, the "전" in both words describe the pronunciation of two completely different Hanja characters with different meanings.
* As another example, Latin roots in the English language have very few homonyms. For example, words that have pyro- as a root will almost always mean fire. However, the Sino-Korean root for fire, 화, shares the same Hangul spelling with many other roots. As a result, many words as a whole are spelled identically in Hangul but vary widely in meaning. The sheer number of homonyms causes severe limitations to vocabulary acquisition when homophonous words are being transcribed entirely phonetically, and purely phonetic transcription reduces understanding and depth of knowledge of Sino-Korean words.
Many Korean speakers cannot tell apart Sino-Korean words from “pure” Korean words, many Sino-Korean words are of Korean coinage, and many so-called “pure” Korean words were originally Sino-Korean words.
There is a large quantity of Sino-Korean words that are unique/exclusive to Korean or differ drastically in usage in comparison to Chinese or Japanese.
In addition to Sino-Korean words only used in Korean, many native Korean words are suggested to have originated from Sino-Korean words themselves, whose pronunciations have since deviated from their Hanja pronunciation. For instance, the word kimchi from 沈菜 has its origins in a Hanja word.
The use of Hanja allows easier interpretation of complex terms, as it is more helpful for the reader to assume an unknown vocabulary in context.
Attempts to completely replace Hanja with native words have been made before; these attempts have ultimately returned to the use of Sino-Korean vocabulary.

Politics

Hangul exclusivity

Supporters of Hangul exclusivity argue that mixed script is an invention that was made and forced upon the Korean people by the Japanese during World War II. This argument is used as a call to action against mixed script as a legacy of the Japanese colonial past. It is seen as an embarrassment for Korea to uphold Japan's legacy of oppression.

Mixed script

Arguments against the notion that mixed script was a Japanese creation include the fact that the concept of a "mixed script" predates Hangul in the forms of Idu, Gugyeol, and Hyangchal. These were used to transcribe Korean grammatical particles to aid in reading in Classical Chinese texts. All three of these scripts were "mixed scripts". For example, Idu used either the pronunciation or the Korean native reading of the character to transcribe the grammatical particles, while kugyŏl used specialised marking characters based on simplifications of Hanja for the same purpose.
Mixed script has been in continual use since the introduction of Hangul. The Songs of Dragons Flying to Heaven, Sŏkbosangjŏl, Wŏl’insŏkbo, and A Vernacular Translation of the Lotus Sutra, are all pioneering Hangul works written in Korean mixed script.
Mixed script advocates sometimes point out that Hangul itself was standardized under the Japanese colonial administration by Japanese collaborators who sought to make propaganda that could be consumed by all Koreans.
Furthermore, mixed script proponents use the fact that Hangul exclusivity has been enacted under dictatorships. In South Korea, Hangul exclusivity was enforced by the government of Park Chung Hee who came to power through a military coup d'état. Similarly, in North Korea, Hangul exclusivity was enacted by Kim Il-Sung after he took power in 1949.
It is widely known that the standard versions of Korean in the north and south may differ significantly in both phonology and vocabulary. Within a hypothetical scenario of reunification, the use of the Korean mixed script could increase intelligibility and promote the ethnolinguistic unity of Koreans due to the following reasons:
* The use of the same Sino-Korean base vocabulary could increase mutual intelligibility, decreasing so the use of loanwords that are used in both sides of Korea.
* The use of the Korean mixed script could decrease spelling differences, since they should use Hanja instead. This phono-orthographic ambiguity could decrease the discrimination that both groups might suffer, something that nowadays is happening to North Korean defectors living in South Korea.