The “2024 Hangeul Week” will kick off on Oct. 4 with a series of events to promote the use of Korean and the Korean alphabet, known as Hangeul. This week-long event, which celebrates the 578th anniversary of the annual Hangeul Day on Oct. 9, aims to encourage people to reflect on the role of the Korean language in everyday life.
Hangeul was created in 1443 by Sejong the Great, the fourth king of the Joseon dynasty, to boost literacy. Hangeul served as a complementary alternative to the logographic Sino-Korean Hanja, which had been the primary way of writing Korean for over a thousand years.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will host a “What Should We Call Our Home?” contest from Oct. 9 to 13. This contest aims to rename apartment complexes with foreign names into Korean equivalents.
Burger King will introduce special edition electronic menus that fully use Korean words in over 400 stores from Oct. 7 to 9. The KBS Nine O’Clock News plans to minimize using foreign terms on Hangeul Day to demonstrate its commitment to promoting Korean.
