As you might know, Sejong the Great created the Hangul alphabet during his reign, one of the most intuitive and easy to learn alphabets ever devised. Why wasn't this invention spread widely in Korea? And further, what if it was? What would be the effects of a fifteenth-century state that had near-perfect literacy in East Asian politics? Furthermore, if it had achieved popularity in Joseon, would it spread to other countries as well?
WI: Korea Achieves Mass Literacy Earlier?
- Thread starter Tripledot
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To some degree, Hangeul was used across Korean society during the Joseon period.
While Sejong and the people who assisted him in creating Hangul may have had this in mind, I doubt the court officials and nobles would have allowed this to happen- weakens their near monopoly on making Yangban positions hereditary. The way I can see this happening? Story-wise, during the Imjin War, some well-educated, well-connected, bright young officer has the bright idea of making his troops literate. There's a distinct advantage to having mooks able to read. Field orders needing to be written down now are far more likely to get to someone in the chain of command who can actually carry them out efficiently. Plus, reading captured enemy field orders becomes easier. Only downside to mass literacy? SO MANY MORE CORRUPT BUREAUCRATS, HNGGGGGGGGH 
Confucian scholars during Sejong's time saw hangul as a threat to their special status, given their literacy in Hanja (Chinese characters) and the difficulty in learning it. In the end, the scholars won out in preventing hangul in becoming an official script after Sejong's death. Had Sejong and his successors been more hardened in pressing for literacy reform, this might have changed.
As for the possibility of its spread, you have to keep in mind that hangul was made with the Korean language in mind. Would other groups in Manchuria implement a similar script? Maybe. Would it be hangul, letter for letter. Probably not. Some alterations would be needed. Beyond that, though, it's much harder to convince the Chinese court to implement something similar (pretty prideful of the Chinese script), and Japan was already starting to develop hiragana based on Chinese characters with localized pronunciations
As for the possibility of its spread, you have to keep in mind that hangul was made with the Korean language in mind. Would other groups in Manchuria implement a similar script? Maybe. Would it be hangul, letter for letter. Probably not. Some alterations would be needed. Beyond that, though, it's much harder to convince the Chinese court to implement something similar (pretty prideful of the Chinese script), and Japan was already starting to develop hiragana based on Chinese characters with localized pronunciations
While Sejong and the people who assisted him in creating Hangul may have had this in mind, I doubt the court officials and nobles would have allowed this to happen- weakens their near monopoly on making Yangban positions hereditary. The way I can see this happening? Story-wise, during the Imjin War, some well-educated, well-connected, bright young officer has the bright idea of making his troops literate. There's a distinct advantage to having mooks able to read. Field orders needing to be written down now are far more likely to get to someone in the chain of command who can actually carry them out efficiently. Plus, reading captured enemy field orders becomes easier. Only downside to mass literacy? SO MANY MORE CORRUPT BUREAUCRATS, HNGGGGGGGGH
wait really? How does more literacy create more corrupt bureaucrats? Is it just because there are more bureaucrats in general? Isn't that just a plain linear increase?
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I was thinking that the officials were afraid of greater literacy because it would allow more people from the lower classes to enter government service, meaning more competition for those already in it. This would threaten their power over the king.
Contrary to popular conception, literacy goes beyond just the complexity of the script (see how many people were literate in China vs Europe until relatively recently). You would need broad societal changes for true mass literacy in Korea, where Hangul was indeed "spread widely" (and standardized to some degree) by the late Joseon era.
Yes, I don't see how it being relatively simple would help literacy too much. Look to Europe and the latin alphabet for instance. Also pretty simple, particularly in the days where spelling was something you made up as you went along, yet literacy tended not to be too high.
Agreed the bureaucrats wouldn't like losing their monopoly on Chinese.
As well as this it somewhat goes against Korean thinking and belief in Confucianism. Though pre-Qing it wasn't as deeply held as it would later become...the Koreans were very big on seeing their place in the Chinese world order and being perfect models of Chinese civilization.
Agreed the bureaucrats wouldn't like losing their monopoly on Chinese.
As well as this it somewhat goes against Korean thinking and belief in Confucianism. Though pre-Qing it wasn't as deeply held as it would later become...the Koreans were very big on seeing their place in the Chinese world order and being perfect models of Chinese civilization.
Change the social stigmatisation on the matter. Also get someone like 주시경, because otherwise Hangul's gonna look like shit((ㆁ)웅링낭랑(ㆁ)읭(ㆁ)잉릉믄댕한민궁깁닝당)
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Also, here's a video on how Middle Korean sounded like. Then you realise how flawed Hangul actually was by not representing the tonal aspect of vernacular Korean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Xfl3Eza5M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0Xfl3Eza5M
Hangul did originally have tone marks (vertical row of dots on the left).
...well then.
At least my point on the significance of a Ju Si-kyung esque figure still stands.
Do you have a reference for high Chinese literacy? Because the 163x community docs about the state of 17c German society have convinced me that Germany at the time already approached universal literacy, with children going to school until grade 4. A couple of other European states had universal education too, e.g. Scotland. People didn't learn to write with pens, so they couldn't always sign their names, but they could read.
It's virtually impossible to know for sure, especially with the different levels of literacy, but see Crisis and Transformation in Seventeenth-century China: Society, Culture, and Modernity in Li Yü's World, University of Michigan Press, 1998. 17th century male literacy in Ming China, particularly in the Jiangnan, was almost definitely higher than in Europe at the same time.
In East Prussia 10% of the population was literate in 1750...
But anyways the literacy rate of 18th century Germany was not too dissimilar from the literacy rate of England and France. England was probably first majority male literate (which is not universal literate) in the early 18th century, France was only about 48% male literate during the Revolution. So no, you appear to have been wrongly convinced.
Western Germany was different in many ways from East Elbia - higher population density making it easier to serve people with schools, not much of a Junker class, etc.
But western and central Germany had universal primary education in most villages whereas England and France were laggards...
The idea that the German literacy rate was similar to the French or English one isn't my personal conjecture, it comes directly from a book published by Cambridge University in 2001 (Rise of the Public in Enlightenment Europe or somesuch).