Linguist Kwon Mun Hae
Linguist Kwon Mun Hae
Kwon Mun Hae was a linguist of the late 16th century. He passed the examinations and served as an official in the central authority.
After resigning from his position, full of hatred of the ever-growing factional struggle of the rulers, he spent the rest of his life by engaging in education and research until his death in 1591.
On the basis of his thorough research on Korean history, Korean language and Chinese characters, he compiled the "Taedongunbugunok" in 1589. It is the first Chinese character and phrase dictionary of our country and has 20 volumes and 20 books.
It classified and explained historical facts from ancient Korea until the end of the 16th century using rhyming characters.
The book is divided into various catalogues including geography, name of countries, first names, person's names, devoted offspring, faithful women, tree name, flower name, metal name, etc.
Entry words include the common vocabulary and other proper nouns such as names of people, land and country and various other terminology of plants, animals, astronomy, geography, philosophy, history, literature, art, etc.
Each letter was annotated and enlisted with their lexical source together with a brief explanation and historical reference..
The dictionary quotes data from 174 domestic books and 15 foreign ones.
This book is the first of its kind in the feudal era of our country, and it is the oldest and most precious legacy of our country that remains to this date.