훈민정음의 단모음 글자 ㆍ, ㅡ, ㅣ, ㅗ, ㅏ, ㅜ, ㅓ가 처음부터 각각 특정한 모음을 겨냥해서 만들어진 것이 아니다. 각 글자에 모음이 배정됨에 있어서 기준이 된 것은 음절별로 모아 쓴 모양의 짜임새였다. 정광 님은 훈민정음의 모음자를 신미가 만들었다고 주장하는데 그의 주장은 아래와 같은 세부적인 주장들로 이루어져 있다. 이 글에서 아래의 주장들은 모두 세밀한 검토의 대상이다. ① 훈민정음은 애초에 한자음을 나타내는 발음기호로 만들어졌다. ② 최초의 훈민정음에는 자음자만 있었다. ③ 음절을 초성, 중성, 종성으로 분석함으로써 모음자를 따로 만들 수 있었던 것은 범자의 영향 덕택이었다. ④ 단모음을 적는 7자는 파스파 문자의 모음자에 맞추어 만들어졌다. ⑤ 중세국어에 모음조화가 존재했는지 의심스럽다. ⑥ 중세국어에 모음 ‘ㆍ’가 존재했는지 의심스럽다. 위의 주장들 가운데서 옳은 것은 하나도 없음이 세밀한 검토로써 밝혀진다. 그러니만큼 정광 님의 주장은 사실과 크게 동떨어진 것이다. 한글의 가장 중요한 장점은 모양이 단순하고 체계적이어서 익히기 쉽다는 점인데 그것은 오로지 세종의 뛰어난 창의적 발상의 결과이다.
Hunminjeongeum, the Korean alphabet invented in 1443, had seven letters for monophthongs: ㆍ, ㅡ, ㅣ, ㅗ, ㅏ, ㅜ, and ㅓ, which represented /ʌ/, /ɨ/, /i/, /o/, /a/, /u/, and /ə/, respectively. This paper explains that the most important criteria for deciding the letter-vowel correspondence was creating compact syllable block shapes as Hunminjeongeum used a syllable block system. In this system, the word for root, for example, was written as 불휘 (/pulhuj/), not as ㅂㅜㄹㅎㅜㅣ. It is well attested that Hunminjeongeum was invented by King Sejong, but an aberrant claim about the inventor has been raised by Prof. Kwang Chung. He claims that King Sejong only invented the consonant letters while the vowel letters were invented later by a Buddhist monk named Sinmi, who, Prof. Chung believes, was well versed in Sanskrit and ’Phags-pa scripts. His claim comprises the following series of sub-claims:
1. At first, Hunminjeongeum was invented as system of phonetic symbols to represent the Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters. 2. At first, Hunminjeongeum had only consonant letters. 3. Under the influence of Sanskrit script, it was realized that rhymes could be divided into a nucleus and coda, which led to the invention of vowel letters. 4. The seven letters for monophthongs were modeled on the vowel letters of ’Phags-pa script. 5. It is doubtful that Middle Korean had vowel harmony. 6. It is doubtful that Middle Korean had the vowel /ʌ/ (ㆍ).
This paper demonstrates that none of these claims are reasonable. Claims 3 and 4 are the most important for Prof. Chung, but they are far from the truth. In Korean verbal and nominal inflections, when a vowel-initial suffix is added to a consonant-final stem, the stem-final consonant is disassociated from its coda position and reassociates as an onset of the next syllable. This phenomenon exhibits a nucleus-coda division. Korean speakers cannot be unaware of the fact that rhymes are divided into a nucleus and coda. Thus Claim 3 is groundless. Claim 4 is based on the fact that the vowel harmony implied in Hunminjeongeum, a commentary on Hunminjeongeum, is similar to that of Middle Mongolian written in ’Phags-pa script. However, both Middle Korean and Middle Mongolian had in common a vowel harmony in which /i/ was neutral and the remaining six monophthongs were divided into two classes, which Prof. Chung ignores to maintain his claim. Thus Claim 4 is nonsensical.