Japanese diffused Hangul to Korean; Korea And Her Neighbors by Isavella Bird Bishop

 

Anthor evidence about that Japan had diffused Hangul (Korean alphabet) to Korean from Korea And Her Neighbors by Isabella Bird Bishop published in 1897.

Isabella Bird Bishop(1831-1904) was an English explorer and writer who travelled East Asia in late 19C. Korea and Her Neighbors is one of the most valuable journey book as a primary source about 19th century Korea through Europian eyes.

En-mun, the Korean script, is utterly despised by the educated, whose sole education is in the Chinese classics.

Only women, children, and the uneducated used the En-mun till January, 1895, when a new departure was made by the official Gazette, which for several hundred years had been written in Chinese, appearing in a mixture of Chinese characters and En-mun, a resemblance to the Japanese mode of writing, in which the Chinese characters which play the chief part are connected by kana syllables.

So what is occured in 1895?

In July, 1894, Mr Otori made the useful innovation of publishing the Gasette in clear type, and in the following January [1895] it appeared in a mixture of Chinese hieroglyphs and En-mun, the "vulgar script" of Korea, and became intelligible to the common people.

Otori Keisuke(1833-1911) was a Samurai in Tokugawa era, later a diplomat in Maiji era. (Of course he was a Japanese.) He was also known as a inventor of “Otori Type” which is a clear type Japanese and Chinese font. He was sent as an ambassador to Korea in1984 and applied Otori Type to Hangul to publish Gazzete from 1895.

Thanks to that, ordenary Korean people finally could access to official announcement which had been dominated by the Korean Establishment until that time. This obviously served as a foundation for Korean democracy.

Yes, again, Japanese diffused Hangul as "official" language in Korea.