Editing Idu script (section)

== History ==
The Idu script developed during the [[Three Kingdoms of Korea|Three Kingdoms]] period of Korea between 57 BC-668 AD. It was used for writing official documents and the imperial examinations from 958 AD-1894 AD. The Idu script was used to write both native Korean expressions as well as Chinese characters (Hanja) that still retained their original meaning and Chinese pronunciation (loanwords). The basic words were commonly Chinese in origin, written in Hanja, and pronounced approximately in the same way as in Chinese (''on''). However unlike Classical Chinese, the Idu script also incorporated Korean words and Korean grammatical morphemes represented using Hanja that only retained their pronunciation but not their original meaning. They were used purely for their phonetic values to represent Korean expressions. The Idu script was written in Korean grammatical word order.{{sfn|Li|2020|p=78-79}}<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Peter H. |editor-last=Lee |year=2003 |title=A History of Korean Literature |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/historykoreanlit00leep |url-access=limited |isbn=9780521828581 |location=Cambridge |page=27 |chapter=Language, forms, prosody and themes |first1=Ho-Min |last1=Sohn |first2=Peter H. |last2=Lee |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/historykoreanlit00leep/page/27/mode/2up  |name-list-style=amp}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Writing on the Wall: How Asian Orthography Curbs Creativity |last=Hannas |first=William C. |date=2013-03-26 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |isbn=978-0-8122-0216-8}}</ref>

Aside from writing official documents and imperial examinations, the Idu script was also used to clarify Chinese government documents written in Classical Chinese so that they could be understood by Korean readers,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |title=The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics |last=Allan |first=Keith |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2013 |isbn=9780199585847 |location=Oxford, UK |page=222}}</ref> to teach Koreans Classical Chinese, and to translate Chinese documents such as the Ming legal code and the ''Essentials of agriculture and sericulture'' (Nongsan jiyao) (ordered by the [[Taejong of Joseon|King Taejong]] in 1414).<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |title=Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia |last=Kornicki |first=Peter Francis |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2018 |isbn=9780198797821 |location=New York |page=197}}</ref>