Korean Writing

 

Hanja refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation. 

Hangeul (Hangul) - a phonetic alphabet - was introduced under King Sejong the Great and finished around 1444. Up until and even after that time, Chinese characters were used as the written language, limiting reading and writing to the royal and government elite. King Sejong wanted Korea to have its own script that could be easily learned by anyone -- even commoners. 

In the image above the leftmost are Hanja, and that is the way I always saw Tae Kwon Do written when I first began practicing back in 1979 and throughout the 80s.  Now, the Hangul is much, much more common.

Respectfully,

Kathy Wiz