When someone in Korea says ‘머리’ (meaning ‘head’) they are guided into forming their lips in the shape of ㅁ, the character that appears in the first syllabic group. In this way the Korean language, Hangul, is remarkable in containing micro-instructions to the speaker (or <em>phonological encoding</em>) within the characters themselves. Hangul is one of the most phonologically encoded languages in existence, but it is also relatively new.<br><br>Before 1443, although Korean was <em>spoken</em> by its people, the language did not have its own alphabet. This meant that, due to centuries of Chinese rule and cultural influence, Chinese characters (called <em>Hanja</em> in the Korean context) were frequently used to transcribe spoken Korean. To read and write the thousands of Hanja characters required costly education, which effectively excluded the common people, and meant that literacy in Korea became confined to intellectuals and society’s elites.<br><br>To combat widespread illiteracy, King Sejong (1397–1450) instigated a language reform, which led to the creation of Hangul in 1443. Sejong’s role in the invention of Hangul is not exactly clear. He may have only decreed its creation or may have been directly involved: either collaboratively or working alone to develop the writing system secretly, so as not to offend China.<sup>1</sup><br><br>Today, Korean is the native language of more than 77 million people. Hangul is celebrated by Koreans worldwide, with annual commemorative ‘Hangeul Day’ occurring on 9 October in South Korea, and ‘Chosŏn'gŭl Day’ on 15 January in North Korea. Chinese is still found in South Korean newspapers and scholarly journals alongside Hangul, but its use is increasingly considered elitist by South Koreans.<sup>2</sup> In North Korea, Hangul has completely replaced Chinese.<br>