The king was worried that the korean people might not accept the new
alphabet, and thought that it should appear to have a magical origin. So one
evening he used some honey to paint large leaves with the shapes of the new
letters. Next day he took a walk with his soothsayer, who saw the leaves. Just
those parts of them that had been painted with honey had been eaten by insects,
making it seem as if the letters had been etched into the leaves. The
soothsayer thought that the letters were gifts from Heaven, and adopted the
king's suggestion that they should be used for writing Korean. From that
day on the Koreans have celebrated the invention of their alphabet. October
9 is a nationaly holiday. As far as I know, Korea is the only country that
has a national holiday celebrating a linguistic event.
Perhaps we should all join in and make this an international linguists'
festival.
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