Idu script

Idu script
A page from the 19th-century yuseopilji.
Korean name
Hangul
이두
Hanja
Revised RomanizationIdu
McCune–ReischauerIdu

Idu (Korean이두; Hanja吏讀 "official's reading") is an archaic writing system that represents the Korean language using Chinese characters ("hanja"). The script, which was developed by Buddhist monks, made it possible to record Korean words through their equivalent meaning or sound in Chinese.[1]

The term idu may refer to various systems of representing Korean phonology through hanja, which were used from the early Three Kingdoms to Joseon periods. In this sense, it includes hyangchal,[2] the local writing system used to write vernacular poetry[2] and gugyeol writing. Its narrow sense only refers to idu proper[3] or the system developed in the Goryeo (918–1392), and first referred to by name in the Jewang ungi.

  1. ^ Lowe, Roy & Yasuhara, Yoshihito (2016). The Origins of Higher Learning: Knowledge Networks and the Early Development of Universities. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-138-84482-7.
  2. ^ a b Grimshaw-Aagaard, Mark; Walther-Hansen, Mads & Knakkergaard, Martin (2019). The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 426. ISBN 978-0-19-046016-7.
  3. ^ Li, Yu (2019-11-04). The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-00-069906-7.