Epitaph of Yi Yun-tak Written in Hangeul (Korean Alphabet), Seoul

This stele was erected in 1536 in front of the grave when Yi Mun-geon, pen name Mukjae, combined the grave of his father, Yi Yun-tak, with that of his mother, Lady Sin of Goryeong. On its front and back faces are inscribed the name of the deceased and his life story respectively, while on its left and right faces are inscribed cautionary texts in Hangeul and Chinese characters. The stele's distinctive value lies in the Hangeul warning text on its left face, believed to be Korea's earliest epitaph inscription written in Hangeul, which gives it great historical value and makes it an important source for the history of the Korean language. This "Hangeul Spirit Stele" holds several important values for the history of Korean-language life. First, it shows how widely Hangeul was known by 1536, the thirty-first year of King Jungjong. Second, the style of the Hangeul characters carved on it is intermediate in form between the script of the Hunminjeongeum Haerye edition and that of the Yongbieocheonga, characteristic of a script from just after the creation of Hunminjeongeum. Third, apart from the stele's own title, "Yeongbi" (Spirit Stele), its text is written entirely in Hangeul, without any mixture of Chinese characters; documents written entirely in Hangeul did not properly appear until the eighteenth century, yet this stele already consists of sentences written purely in Hangeul in the sixteenth century. Fourth, the text is an original Korean-language composition rather than an eonhae, or translated, text: from the fifteenth century onward, most Hangeul material consisted of eonhae texts translated from Chinese originals, but this stele, though a short piece, was composed in Korean from the outset, demonstrating that Hangeul had changed from a tool for translating Chinese texts into a tool for directly conveying thoughts and feelings. Fifth, the linguistic features found in its text well reflect the language of the time and help scholars understand the Korean language as it then was.

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Where it is

Region

Nowon-gu, Seoul

Designation

Treasure · 보물