koreanlit1-10, Exercise 1: Which script, which language?

Model answer (a sample; yours will differ):

1. [Source] "For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja" (Korean literature; Korean Literature 1); the hyangga were written in hyangchal, using Chinese characters to spell Korean (Korean Literature 2).
2. [Source] The 1446 Hunminjeongeum introduced the alphabet; its preface says the sounds of the language differ from Chinese characters, so many ordinary people could not express what they wanted to say; the first major work in Hangul was Yongbi eocheonga (1447) (Korean Literature 3).
3. [Source] Much of Yi Sang's early poetry (1910 to 1937) was written in Japanese, and early Korean translations were loose and inconsistent; Hwang Sun-won was noted, particularly early in his career, for refusing to write in Japanese (Korean Literature 6 and 7).
4. [My own reading] In every period the question of script and language decided who could write and who could be read; the sources do not state this.

Left open in Korean Literature 3: who learned Hangul and how fast it spread.