SK Telecom turned a century-old handwritten dictionary into a free Hangul font

SK Telecom wanted a Hangul Day centenary campaign that carried Korean words collected more than 100 years ago into everyday use, run with the National Institute of Korean Language and the National Hangeul Museum.

Feed a scan of the century-old Malmoi dictionary manuscript to AI, rebuild its handwriting as a free font, and let the model pick 100 forgotten Korean words.

SKT's AI foundation model A.X K2 analyzed a complete scan of Malmoi — the dictionary manuscript compiled by Ju Si-gyeong and his students — organized the consonant and vowel forms preserved in the handwriting, and turned them into the 'Malmoi font', downloadable free from the Korean Language Society website. The model also mined the Standard Korean Language Dictionary and Urimalsaem for 100 beautiful native words, published as a booklet and donated to the museum.

The Malmoi font is free to download from the Korean Language Society website; the booklet of 100 words — Yoonseul, Sutnun, Putnat, Bolumul among them — went to the National Hangeul Museum and public distribution from October 8, 2026, alongside a campaign video and social activations.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Hangul Day, SK Telecom launched the '2026 Malmoi' campaign with the National Institute of Korean Language and the National Hangeul Museum. Malmoi is the dictionary manuscript compiled more than a century ago by Ju Si-gyeong and his students, who collected Korean words. SK Telecom analyzed a complete scan of the manuscript with its own AI foundation model, A.X K2, and organized the forms of the consonants and vowels preserved in the handwritten characters.

That analysis became a working artifact: a digital font called the Malmoi font, downloadable and usable for free from the Korean Language Society website. The company also turned A.X K2 loose on the living language, tasking it with finding native Korean words that remain in dictionaries but have grown unfamiliar — drawing on the National Institute of Korean Language's Standard Korean Language Dictionary and Urimalsaem, a public Korean-language knowledge dictionary.

The model's shortlist — words whose definitions evoke lyrical or positive imagery and that would not sound awkward today — was reviewed by the National Institute of Korean Language and published as '100 Beautiful Native Korean Words Collected by Artificial Intelligence': Yoonseul (ripples shimmering in sunlight or moonlight), Sutnun (clean, untouched fallen snow), Putnat (people who know each other by sight), Bolumul (dimples). The words are compiled into a booklet donated to the National Hangeul Museum and distributed from October 8, 2026.

The campaign also restores the sound of Korean: a YouTube video released on October 7 features the actual voice of scholar Lee Geung-ro, preserved at the National Library of France, and SKT's social channels run activities on regional dialects, generational neologisms and collecting contemporary words with users.

The centenary brief was answered with working artifacts — a usable font and a published booklet — rather than a commemorative film alone.

Using its own foundation model made the campaign a proof of capability: A.X K2 read historical handwriting and curated vocabulary.

Free, open distribution (font on the Korean Language Society site, words donated to the museum) matches the campaign's cultural-preservation framing.

Institutional partners — the language regulator and the museum — supplied review and custody, keeping AI output accountable.

An AI brand showcase earns its keep when the artifact is genuinely useful: a free font anyone can type with outlives a film nobody rewatches.

The campaign launched October 7–8, 2026 with the font live for free download, the booklet in distribution and the campaign video on YouTube; SK Telecom says it will continue work on using AI to protect the value of the Korean language and culture.