The Teaching to Ignorant a Collection of Characters or the Hunmongjahoe (訓蒙字會, 훈몽자회) was another popular primer on Chinese characters (漢字, 한자). During the Chosun dynasty, it was often used with the Thousand Character Classic (千字文, 천자문) in teaching children. The Hunmongjahoe is composed of three volumes with 3360 characters in total. The first volume is broken into thematic characters, including: astronomy (天文, 천문), geography (地理, 지리), flowers (花品, 화품), animals (獸畜, 수축), food (食饌, 식찬), vehicles (車輿, 거여), and et cetera.
The Hunmongjahoe was compiled by Choe Sejin (崔世珍, 최세진, ?-1542), a literati bureaucrat and a scholar on Classical and Vernacular Chinese, who published many work on those subjects. He published this work with Classical Chinese and Korean annotations in 1527. The oldest surviving copy, however, dates back to 1613. Although in the modern era the Hunmongjahoe is not as popular as the Thousand Character Classics, there were a few new editions made. The Luminous Classics Society (光文會, 광문회, Gwangmunhoe), which was founded in 1910, published an edition of this work in 1913; however, this work was riddled with errors that made it difficult to read. An edition with Modern Korean pronunciations of Chinese Characters was published in 1958 by a professor named Nam Gwang’u (南廣祐, 남광우). Below is an excerpt from two chapters of the Hunmongjahoe.
天文 천문
Astronomy
天地霄壤 乾坤宇宙 천지소양 건곤우주
日月星辰 陰陽節候 일월성신 음양절후
春夏秋冬 晝夜寒暑 춘하추동 주야한서
㫾晩昏暮 早晨曉曙 상만혼모 조신효서
Heaven and earth; the skies and the ground; firmament and terra; the universe;
Sun and moon; stars and constellations; Yin and Yang; the solar terms;
Spring, summer, autumn, and winter; day and night; cold and heat;
Midday, afternoon, evening, and sunset; early, morn, dawn, and daybreak;
…
天倫 천륜
Family Relationships
祖父爹爺 媽婆考妣 조부다야 마파고비
母孃妻妾 妯娌娣姒 모양처첩 류리제사
男女夫婦 嫡蘖眷族 남녀부부 적얼권족
妗嫂嬸娘 舅姑伯叔 금수심낭 구고백숙
Grandfather and father; grandmother and deceased mother;
Mother, lady, wife, and concubine; wife’s in-laws and younger in-laws;
Man, woman, husband, and wife; first wife and child of concubine, dependents, and family;
Younger maternal aunt-in-law, brother’s wife, younger aunt-in-law, and husband’s younger sister; father-in-law, paternal aunt, elder brother, and youngest brother;
…
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