Ch'oe Manli, anti-Hangul Confucian scholar

In 1444, an associate professor (bujehag 부제학 副提學) in the Hall of Worthies, Ch'oe Manli (최만리 崔萬里; d. October 23, 1445), along with other Confucian scholars, spoke out against the creation of hangul (then called eonmun).  See here for the Classical Chinese text and English translation (less than felicitous, but easily available) of Ch'oe's 1444 protest against the reforms leading to Hangul.  As we all know, King Sejong (1397-1450; r. 1418-1450) nonetheless promulgated Hangul in 1446, so I wondered whether anything unfavorable happened to Ch'oe as a result (note that he died the year after delivering his protest and the year before the promulgation of Hangul).  Ross King kindly replied to my inquiry on this matter as follows:

Ch'oe Malli was (in essence) fired by King Sejong after his memorial, then reinstated a day later, after which he resigned his government post, and went back to his home town. He died in 1445 a year or so later. There is actually nothing in his memorial explicitly in opposition to the new script itself; rather, on the basis of what comes down to us in the Sillok (Veritable Records) and Ch'oe's memorial itself, scholars in South Korea tend to view him as having opposed Sejong's ideas around reforming Sino-Korean pronunciation, along with Sejong's work—concurrent with and probably the major impetus for inventing the alphabet in the first place—on the 'translation' of the Yunhui rime dictionary (古今韻會擧要) that eventually took shape as the Tongguk chŏngun 동국정운(東國正韻), or Correct Rimes of the Eastern Nation (1447). Much of this is covered already in Gari K. Ledyard's amazing dissertation from 1966 (published in 1998 in Seoul by Sin'gu Munhwasa: The Korean Language Reform of 1446, esp. ch. 3: "The Announcement and Early Progress of the Korean Alphabet," where he translates Ch'oe's memorial in full, with commentary). The authoritative Han'guk Minjok Munhwa Tae Paekkwasajŏn web-based encyclopedia page on Ch'oe Malli (written by no less than Professor Yi Sungnynŏng of SNU [Seoul National University]) notes that if one sees Ch'oe's opposition as being primarily targeted at Sejong's quixotic attempt to reform Sino-Korean pronunciation, history vindicates him, as this was ultimately a huge failure (as was the 洪武正韻 [VHM:  vital information here])—but this underplays the ruling elite's opposition to the new alphabet. Thus, in the court of public opinion in South Korea, Ch'oe has been judged not only a traitorous sinophile, but worse—a traitor to the alphabet (inexcusable in a country where a sort of 'cult of hangeul' rules supreme).

Ross's observations are of extraordinary importance concerning the actual political and linguistic issues that were operative in this monumental struggle between reformist king and conformist scholars.  My own humble opinion is that King Sejong, by advancing his cause for fundamental changes in the pronunciation of Korean vis-à-vis Chinese, was standing up for the dignity and independence of his own nation against the giant next door, whereas the scholars thought of themselves and their country as belonging to the great Confucian Way (MSM rúdào / K yudo 유도 儒道).  It should be easy to see the fundamental issues that were at stake, as well as why King Sejong is viewed as a towering national hero, whereas Ch'oe Manli and his sinophilic colleagues have been seen as traitors to their land.

N.B.: 

King Sejong "…is regarded as the greatest ruler in Korean history [VHM:  that's saying a lot!], and is remembered as the inventor of Hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language. (source)

King Sejong's epochal work introducing Hangul to the world in 1446 is most significantly titled Hunminjeongeum (Korean: 훈민정음; Hanja: 訓民正音; lit. "The Correct/Proper Sounds for the Instruction of the People").

 

Selected readings

• "Hangul as alphasyllabary" (5/14/25)
• "Hangul: Joseon subservience to Ming China" (5/14/22)

[Thanks to Bob Ramsey who, like Ross, has the highest regard for Gari Ledyard's remarkable 1966 Berkeley dissertation:  "The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background, and Early History of the Korean Alphabet", later published in Korea in 1998 (ISBN 89-7668-066-9). As Bob says, "…it is the best work ever written on Korean writing history, both about writing before Hangul and then of the early history of the Korean alphabet itself, and the whole narrative in this dissertation is written in Gari's wonderful, inimitable prose style. And most important of all is his matchless translation of the 訓民正音 itself, the best there is".]