Korea's Smaller Catalogue
Japan invented over 1,000 kokuji. Korea's equivalent — sometimes called guyuja (固有字) or joseon-guja — numbers roughly 100 documented characters. The disparity is real, and the reasons are instructive.
Key Korean-Made Characters
- 畓 (dap, paddy field): 水 (water) + 田 (field). The single most important guyuja. Rice farming was central to the Korean peninsula; a dedicated single character was practical. China used 水田 as a compound.
- 乭 (Dol): a character used almost exclusively in personal names, especially in traditional rural names. Its structure is transparent, and characteristically Korean: 石 supplies both the meaning and the native reading dol (stone), while 乙 is appended to write the final -l — the idu device of spelling out a native word's last consonant with an extra character.
- 㔓 (ttak): used in place names and older texts. One of several characters appearing in 조선시대 (Joseon-era) administrative documents whose meaning is now obscure.
- Various place-name characters: many Korean county and village names in historical records use characters not found in any Chinese dictionary. These were practical administrative inventions.
Why Fewer Than Japan?
Several factors explain the gap. First, Korea maintained a stronger literary Chinese (hanmun) tradition in official writing — the Joseon dynasty prized Classical Chinese as the prestige register. Creating new characters risked appearing unlearned. Second, after Sejong invented Hangeul (한글) in 1443, Korean phonetic needs could be met without inventing characters. Japan had no such phonetic escape valve until kana, and even then kana did not eliminate the drive to create new kanji. Third, Korean geography — while mountainous — did not generate the same density of hyper-local flora and craft vocabulary that drove Japanese kokuji creation.
Legacy
Most Korean guyuja survive only in 古典 (classical texts), administrative records, and personal names. 畓 is a striking exception: it still appears in modern Korean legal documents about land. The others have largely retreated into the realm of specialist philology.