Hunminjeongeum Haerye

Hunminjeongeum Haerye (Korean: 훈민정음 해례; Hanja: 訓民正音解例), or simply Haerye, refers to either a commentary section on the text Hunminjeongeum or to copies of the Hunminjeongeum that contain the commentary section. The Hunminjeongeum and commentary were published together as a single text around October 1446 (Gregorian calendar). Together, they introduce the native Korean alphabet Hangul.

The Joseon king Sejong the Great (r. 1418–1450) authored the preface to the overall text as well as the basic introduction of the letters. The following members of the government agency Hall of Worthies coauthored the Haerye section: Chŏng Inji, Ch'oe Hang, Pak P'aengnyŏn, Sin Sukchu, Sŏng Sammun, Kang Hŭian, Yi Kae, and Yi Sŏllo. The text's postface was written by Chŏng Inji. The commentary and postface describe how the shapes of Hangul's letters were derived.

The base Hunminjeongeum was republished separately from the Haerye on a number of occasions and consistently remained in the historical record. However, the Haerye section was eventually lost and forgotten, possibly by the early 16th century. A copy of the full Hunminjeongeum Haerye text was only rediscovered in 1940. Its rediscovery revolutionized scholarship on Hangul. As it is now in the collection of Kansong Art Museum, it is known as the "Kansong copy".

A second copy, the "Sangju copy", was discovered in 2008, although its discoverer has continually refused to show much of it to others. The South Korean government agency Korea Heritage Service was ruled the legal owner of that copy in 2019. A number of police raids to seize the copy from the discoverer have failed.

The Kansong copy of the Haerye was designated a National Treasure of South Korea in 1962 and entered into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register in 1997.