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Hanja were once used to write native Korean words, in a variety of systems collectively known as idu, but by the 20th century Koreans used hanja only for writing Sino-Korean words, while writing native vocabulary and loanwords from other languages in Hangul. By the 21st century, even Sino-Korean words are usually written in the Hangul alphabet ...
Korean mixed script (Korean: 국한문혼용; Hanja: 國漢文混用) is a form of writing the Korean language that uses a mixture of the Korean alphabet or hangul (한글) and hanja (漢字, 한자), the Korean name for Chinese characters.
The Korean alphabet faced opposition in the 1440s by the literary elite, including Choe Manri and other Korean Confucian scholars. They believed Hanja was the only legitimate writing system. They also saw the circulation of the Korean alphabet as a road to break away from Sinosphere as well as a threat to their status.
Korean calligraphy, also known as Seoye (Korean: 서예), is the Korean tradition of artistic writing. Calligraphy in Korean culture involves both Hanja (Chinese logograph) and Hangul (Korean native alphabet). Early Korean calligraphy was exclusively in Hanja, or the Chinese-based logography first used to write the Korean language.
Since removing of Hanja would result in much ambiguity, it was proposed that Chinese words would be replaced by words of Korean origin (compare linguistic purism in Korean). The new alphabet, made by famous Koreanist Aleksandr Kholodovich , who would later make a system of transcribing Korean words into Russian , looked like this:
[8] [9] He felt that Hanja was inadequate to write Korean and that caused its very restricted use; Hangul was designed to either aid in reading Hanja or to replace Hanja entirely. Introduced in the document Hunminjeongeum , it was called eonmun (colloquial script) and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea.
The Korean alphabet was designed not just to write Korean, but to accurately represent Chinese. Many Chinese words historically began with [ŋ] , but by Sejong's day this had been lost in many regions of China, and was silent when these words were borrowed into Korean, so that [ŋ] only remained at the middle and end of Korean words.
When all jamo making up a syllabic block has been entered, the user may initiate a conversion to hanja (or other special characters) using a keyboard shortcut or interface button; South Korean keyboards have a key for this. Subsequent semi-automated hanja conversion is supported in varying degrees by word processors.