This paper contends that Donggukjeongun was a pronunciation dictionary of Sino-Korean characters in Middle Korean by King Sejong. King Sejong realized that many Sino-Korean words had a incorrect pronunciation, so he tried to establish standard pronunc...
This paper contends that Donggukjeongun was a pronunciation dictionary of Sino-Korean characters in Middle Korean by King Sejong. King Sejong realized that many Sino-Korean words had a incorrect pronunciation, so he tried to establish standard pronunciations of them after collecting and assessing all the pronunciations and phonological characteristics of Sino-Korean characters. He tried to underscore the autonomy of the pronunciations as Donggukjeongun is a unique Korean way of rending Chinese characters. Donggukjeongun is difficult to identify as 운서 (韻書, rhyme dictionary, i.e., books classifying Chinese characters depending on the phonological properties) because it contains little exegesis. Further it does not follow the organization of 운도 (韻圖, rhyme table, i.e., chart showing the place of articulation and aperture along with illustrations). Therefore, Donggukjeongun is identified as a pronunciation dictionary.