Korean language

Korean
한국어/韓國語 (South Korea) 조선말/朝鮮말 (North Korea)
The Korean language written in Hangul: South Korean: Hangugeo (left) North Korean: Chosŏnmal (right) In Hanja, 韓國語 and 朝鮮말
Pronunciation	[ha(ː)n.ɡu.ɡʌ] (South Korea) [tso.sɔn.mal] (North Korea)
Native to	Korea
Ethnicity	Koreans
Native speakers	77.2 million (2011)[1]
Language family	Koreanic Korean
Early forms	Proto-Koreanic Old Korean Middle Korean
Standard forms	Pyojuneo (South Korea) Munhwa'ŏ (North Korea)
Dialects	Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul/Chosŏn'gŭl (Korean Script) Hanja/Hancha (Chinese Characters) Mixed script Korean Braille
Official status
Official language in	South Korea  North Korea  China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)
Recognised minority language in	Russia (Primorsky Krai)[citation needed]  China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)
Regulated by	National Institute of the Korean Language (국립국어원/國立國語院) (Republic of Korea) The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science (사회과학원 어학연구소/社會科學院 語學硏究所) (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) China Korean Language Regulatory Commission (중국조선어규범위원회/中国朝鲜语规范委员会) (People's Republic of China)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ko
ISO 639-2	kor
ISO 639-3	kor
Linguist List	kor
Glottolog	kore1280
Linguasphere	45-AAA-a
Countries with native Korean-speaking populations (established immigrant communities in green).
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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v t

Korean (South Korean: 한국어/韓國語, hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말/朝鮮말, chosŏnmal) is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people,^[a] mainly Korean, as of 2010.^[2] It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (originally Korea), with different standardized official forms used in each country. It is a recognised minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin Province, China. It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin, Russia and Central Asia.^[3]

Modern linguists generally classify Korean as a language isolate, and its connection to languages such as Japanese is unclear;^[4][5][6] however, it does have a few extinct relatives, which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language (spoken in the Jeju Province) form the Koreanic language family. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in Manchuria.^[3]

Modern Korean is written in Hangul, a system developed in the 15th century for that purpose. Modern Hangul uses 24 basic letters and 27 complex letters. Originally, Korean was a spoken language, as written records were maintained in Classical Chinese, which is not mutually intelligible with either the historical or modern Korean languages, even in its spoken form. Hanja, Chinese characters adapted to the Korean language, are still used to a very limited extent in South Korea.

History[]

Modern Korean descends from Middle Korean, which in turn descends from Old Korean, which descends from the Proto-Koreanic language which is generally suggested to have its linguistic homeland.^[7][8] Whitman (2012) suggests that the proto-Koreans, already present in northern Korea, expanded into the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families.^[9]

Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separation, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation and vocabulary chosen, but these minor differences can be found in any of the Korean dialects, which are still largely mutually intelligible.

Writing systems[]

Chinese characters arrived in Korea (see Sino-Xenic pronunciations for further information) together with Buddhism during the Proto-Three Kingdoms era in the 1st century BC. They were adapted for Korean and became known as Hanja, and remained as the main script for writing Korean for over a millennium alongside various phonetic scripts that were later invented such as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in Hanja. However, most of the population was illiterate.

In the 15th century, King Sejong the Great personally developed an alphabetic featural writing system known today as Hangul.^[10][11] He felt that Hanja was inadequate to write Korean and that this was the cause of its very restricted use; Hangul was designed to either aid in reading Hanja or replace Hanja entirely. Introduced in the document Hunminjeongeum, it was called eonmun (colloquial script) and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea. Hangul was widely used by all the Korean classes, but often treated as amkeul ("script for women") and disregarded by privileged elites, whereas Hanja was regarded as jinseo ("true text"). Consequently, official documents were always written in Hanja during the Joseon era. Since most people couldn't understand Hanja, Korean kings sometimes released public notices entirely written in Hangul as early as the 16th century for all Korean classes, including uneducated peasants and slaves. By the 17th century, the elite class of Yangban exchanged Hangul letters with their slaves, suggesting a high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era.^[12]

Today, Hanja is largely unused in everyday life due to its inconvenience, but it is still important for historical and linguistic studies. Neither South Korea nor North Korea opposes the learning of Hanja, though they are not officially used in North Korea anymore, and their usage in South Korea is mainly reserved for specific circumstances, such as newspapers, scholarly papers, and disambiguation.

Names[]

The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in both South Korea and North Korea. The English word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first Korean dynasty known to Western nations. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and/or Koryo-in (literally, "Koryo/Goryeo person(s)"), and call the language Koryo-mal. Some older English sources also use the spelling "Corea" to refer to the nation, and its inflected form for the language, culture and people, "Korea" becoming more popular in the late 1800s.^[13]

In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by many names including hanguk-eo ("Korean language"), hanguk-mal ("Korean speech") and uri-mal ("our language"); "hanguk" is taken from the name of the Korean Empire (대한제국; 大韓帝國; Daehan Jeguk). The "han" (韓) in Hanguk and Daehan Jeguk is derived from Samhan, in reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula),^[14][15] while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally "national language". This name is based on the same Han characters (國語 "nation" + "language") that are also used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages.

In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Joseon-mal, or more formally, Joseon-o. This is taken from the North Korean name for Korea (Joseon), a name retained from the Joseon dynasty until the proclamation of the Korean Empire, which in turn was annexed by the Empire of Japan.

In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ or the short form Cháoyǔ has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, whereas Hánguóyǔ or the short form Hányǔ is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.^{[citation needed]}

Classification[]

Korean is considered by most linguists to be a language isolate or, if Jeju is recognized as a separate language, as belonging to a small Koreanic family. Some linguists have included it in the Altaic family, but the core Altaic proposal itself has lost most of its prior support.^[16] The Khitan language has several vocabulary items similar to Korean that are not found in other Mongolian or Tungusic languages, suggesting a Korean influence on Khitan.^[17]

The hypothesis that Korean could be related to Japanese has had some supporters due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin^[18] and Roy Andrew Miller.^[19] Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list.^[20] Some linguists concerned with the issue between Japanese and Korean, including Alexander Vovin, have argued that the indicated similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing, especially from Ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese.^[21] A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning "hemp".^[22] This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern Ryukyuan languages, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three dialects of the Southern Ryukyuan language group. Also, the doublet wo meaning "hemp" is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryukyuan languages. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term.^[23] (See Classification of the Japonic languages or Comparison of Japanese and Korean for further details on a possible relationship.)

Another lesser-known theory is the Dravido-Korean languages theory which suggests a relation with the Dravidian languages of India. Some of the common features in Korean and the Dravidian languages are that they share some similar vocabulary, are agglutinative, and follow the subject-object-verb order; in both languages, nominals and adjectives follow the same syntax, particles are post-positional, and modifiers always precede modified words.^[24] However, typological similarities such as these could have arisen by chance.^[25][26]

Phonology[]

Consonants[]

Bilabial Alveolar/Alveolo-palatal Dorsal Glottal Nasal ㅁ /m/ ㄴ /n/ ㅇ /ŋ/2 Plosive plain ㅂ /p/ ㄷ /t/ ㄱ /k/ tense ㅃ /p͈/ ㄸ /t͈/ ㄲ /k͈/ aspirated ㅍ /pʰ/ ㅌ /tʰ/ ㅋ /kʰ/ Affricate plain ㅈ /t͡s/ or /t͡ɕ/ tense ㅉ /t͡s͈/ or /t͡ɕ͈/ aspirated ㅊ /t͡sʰ/ or /t͡ɕʰ/ Fricative plain ㅅ /s/ or /sʰ/ ㅎ /h/ tense ㅆ /s͈/ Approximant /w/1 /j/1 Liquid ㄹ /l/ or /ɾ/

The Korean consonants

¹ The semivowels /w/ and /j/ are represented in Korean writing by modifications to vowel symbols (see below).

² only at the end of a syllable

The IPA symbol ⟨◌͈⟩ (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the Tensed consonants /p͈/, /t͈/, /k͈/, /t͡ɕ͈/, /s͈/. Its official use in the Extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx.

Korean syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), consisting of an optional onset consonant, glide /j, w, ɰ/ and final coda /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l/ surrounding a core vowel.

Vowels[]

Monophthongs ㅏ   /a/NOTE ㅓ   /ʌ/ ㅗ   /o/ ㅜ   /u/ ㅡ   /ɯ/ ㅣ   /i/ /e/ ㅔ,  /ɛ/ ㅐ, /ø/ ㅚ,  /y/ ㅟ Vowels preceded by intermediaries, or diphthongs ㅑ   /ja/ ㅕ   /jə/ ㅛ   /jo/ ㅠ   /ju/ /je/ ㅖ,  /jɛ/ ㅒ,  /wi/ ㅟ,  /we/ ㅞ,  /wɛ/ ㅙ,  /wa/ ㅘ,  /ɰi/ ㅢ,  /wə/ ㅝ

The basic Korean vowels (red: the regular dipthongs)

^NOTE ㅏ is closer to a near-open central vowel ([ɐ]), though ⟨a⟩ is still used for tradition.

Allophones[]

/s/ is aspirated [sʰ] and becomes an alveolo-palatal [ɕʰ] before [j] or [i] for most speakers (but see North–South differences in the Korean language). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (example: beoseot (버섯) 'mushroom').

/h/ may become a bilabial [ɸ] before [o] or [u], a palatal [ç] before [j] or [i], a velar [x] before [ɯ], a voiced [ɦ] between voiced sounds, and a [h] elsewhere.

/p, t, t͡ɕ, k/ become voiced [b, d, d͡ʑ, ɡ] between voiced sounds.

/m, n/ frequently denasalize at the beginnings of words.

/l/ becomes alveolar flap [ɾ] between vowels, and [l] or [ɭ] at the end of a syllable or next to another /l/. Note that a written syllable-final 'ㄹ', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ㅇ'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes [ɾ].

Traditionally, /l/ was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before [j], and otherwise became /n/. However, the inflow of western loanwords changed the trend, and now word-initial /l/ (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either [ɾ] or [l]. The traditional prohibition of word-initial /l/ became a morphological rule called "initial law" (두음법칙) in South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial /l/ in North Korea.

All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) at the end of a word are pronounced with no audible release, [p̚, t̚, k̚].

Plosive stops /p, t, k/ become nasal stops [m, n, ŋ] before nasal stops.

Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.

One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial [ɾ], and initial [n]. For example,

• "labor" – north: rodong (로동), south: nodong (노동)
• "history" – north: ryeoksa (력사), south: yeoksa (역사)
• "female" – north: nyeoja (녀자), south: yeoja (여자)

Morphophonemics[]

Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-은/-는) and -i/-ga (-이/-가).

Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-을/-를), -euro/-ro (-으로/-로), -eseo/-seo (-에서/-서), -ideunji/-deunji (-이든지/-든지) and -iya/-ya (-이야/-야).

• However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a ㄹ (rieul consonant).

Korean particles

After a consonant	After a ㄹ (rieul)	After a vowel
-ui (-의)
-eun (-은)		-neun (-는)
-i (-이)		-ga (-가)
-eul (-을)		-reul (-를)
-gwa (-과)		-wa (-와)
-euro (-으로)	-ro (-로)

Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.

Grammar[]

Korean is an agglutinative language. The Korean language is traditionally considered to have nine parts of speech. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The basic form of a Korean sentence is subject–object–verb, but the verb is the only required and immovable element and word order is highly flexible, as in many other agglutinative languages.

Question:	"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)
		가게에		가셨어요?
		gage-e		ga-syeo-sseo-yo
		store + [location marker (에)]		[go (verb root) (가)] + [honorific (시)] + [conjugated (contraction rule)(어)] + [past (ㅆ)] + [conjunctive (어)] + [polite marker (요)]

Response:	"Yes."
		예. (or 네.)
		ye (or ne)
		yes

The relationship between a speaker/writer and their subject and audience is paramount in Korean grammar. The relationship between the speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, whereas that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.

Honorifics[]

When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if they are an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if they are a younger stranger, student, employee, or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences; and both honorific or normal sentences.

Honorifics in traditional Korea were strictly hierarchical. The caste and estate systems possessed patterns and usages much more complex and stratified than those used today. The intricate structure of the Korean honorific system flourished in traditional culture and society. Honorifics in contemporary Korea are now used for people who are psychologically distant. Honorifics are also used for people who are superior in status. For example, older people, teachers, and employers.^[27]

Speech levels[]

There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation.^[28] Unlike honorifics—which are used to show respect towards the referent (the person spoken of) —speech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience (the person spoken to). The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb 하다 (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix 체 ("che", Hanja: 體), which means "style".

The three levels with high politeness (very formally polite, formally polite, casually polite) are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (존댓말), whereas the two levels with low politeness (formally impolite, casually impolite) are banmal (반말) in Korean. The remaining two levels (neutral formality with neutral politeness, high formality with neutral politeness) are neither polite nor impolite.

Nowadays, younger-generation speakers no longer feel obligated to lower their usual regard toward the referent. It is common to see younger people talk to their older relatives with banmal (반말). This is not out of disrespect, but instead it shows the intimacy and the closeness of the relationship between the two speakers. Transformations in social structures and attitudes in today's rapidly changing society have brought about change in the way people speak.^[27]

Gender[]

In general, Korean lacks grammatical gender. As one of the few exceptions, the third-person singular pronoun has two different forms: 그 geu (male) and 그녀 geunyeo (female). Before 그녀 was invented in need of translating 'she' into Korean, 그 was the only one third-person singular pronoun, and had no grammatical gender.

In order to have a more complete understanding of intricacies of gender within the Korean language, we can look at the three models of language and gender that have been proposed: the deficit model, the dominance model, and the cultural difference model. In the deficit model, male speech is seen as the default, and any form of speech that diverges from this norm (female speech) is seen as lesser than. The dominance model sees women as lacking in power due to living within a patriarchal society. The cultural difference model proposes that the difference in upbringing between men and women can explain the differences in their speech patterns. It is important to look at these models so that one can better understand the misogynistic conditions that shaped the way men and women use the Korean language. Korean is different from most European languages in that there is no grammatical gender. Rather, gendered differences in Korean can be observed through formality, intonation, word choice, etc.^[29]

However, one can still find stronger contrasts between the sexes within Korean speech. Some examples of this can be seen in: (1) softer tone used by women in speech; (2) a married woman introducing herself as someone's mother or wife, not with her own name; (3) the presence of gender differences in titles and occupational terms (for example, a sajang is a company president and yŏsajang is a female company president.); (4) females sometimes using more tag questions and rising tones in statements, also seen in speech from children.^[30]

Between two people of asymmetrical status in a Korean society, people tend to emphasize differences in status for the sake of solidarity. Koreans prefer to use kinship terms, rather than any other terms of reference.^[31] In traditional Korean society, women have long been in disadvantaged positions. Korean social structure traditionally was a patriarchically dominated family system that emphasized the maintenance of family lines. This structure has tended to separate the roles of women from those of men.^[32]

Cho and Whitman (2019) explain that the different categories like male and female in social conditions influence the Korean language features. What they noticed was the word "Jagi (자기)". Before explaining the word "Jagi (자기)", one thing that needs to be clearly distinguished is that "Jagi (자기)" can be used in a variety of situations, not all of which mean the same thing, but it depends on the context. Parallel variable solidarity and affection move the convention of speech style, especially terms of address that Jagi (자기 'you') has emerged as a gender-specific second-person pronoun used by women. However, unlike the preceding, young Koreans use the word "Jagi (자기)" to their lovers or spouses regardless of gender. Among middle-aged women, the word "Jagi (자기)" is sometimes used when calling someone who is close to them.

Korean society's prevalent attitude towards men being in public (outside the home) and women living in private still exists today. For instance, the word for husband is bakkath|yangban (바깥양반 'outside' 'nobleman') whereas a husband introduces his wife as an|salam (안사람 an 'inside' 'person'). Also in Kinship terminology, Oy (외 'outside' or 'wrong') is added for maternal grandparents, creating oy-hal-abeoji and oy-hal-meoni (외할아버지, 외할머니 'grandfather and grandmother') to different lexicons for males and females, reveal patriarchal society. Further, questioning sentences to an addressee of equal or lower status, Korean men tend to use 'haessnya (했냐? 'did it?’)' in aggressive masculinity, whereas women use 'haessni (했니? 'did it?’)' as a soft expression.^[33] However, not all of the foregoing are correct. If we observe how Korean society used the question endings '-ni (니)' and '-nya (냐)', the ending '-ni (니)' prevailed not only among women but also among men until a few decades ago. In fact, '-nya (냐)' was a characteristic that was observed in Jeolla and Chungcheong dialects. However, since the 50s, large numbers of people have moved to Seoul from Chungcheong and Jeolla, and as a result, they began to influence the way men speak. Recently, women, regardless of gender, also use the term '-nya (냐)'. To sum up, in the case of '-ni (니)', even if you are not close or younger than yourself, it is usually used for people who need to be polite, and in the case of '-nya (냐)', it is used mainly for close friends regardless of gender.

Korea is a patriarchal society that had a negative attitude toward women, so a female prefix was added to the default lexicon, including terms for titles and occupations. For instance, Sino Korean terms 'female' in SK morpheme yeo (여) 'women,’ used in yeoseong-siin (여성 시인 'female poet') and yeo-biseo (여비서 'female secretary'). The male prefix adds the negligence lexicon, including discriminatory terms for women. For example, for female for yeo-seongmi (여성미 ‘ female beauty') is social terms referring to human physical characteristics.^[34]

Another crucial difference between genders of men and women is the tone and pitch of their voices and how that affects the perception of politeness. Upspeak Men learn to use an authoritative falling tone, and in Korean culture a deeper voice is associated with being more polite. In addition to the deferential speech endings being used, men are seen as more polite as well as impartial and professional. When compared to women who use a rising tone in conjunction with the -yo (요) ending, they are not perceived to be as polite as men. The -yo (요) ending also indicates uncertainty due to how this ending has many prefixes which indicate uncertainty and questioning. While the deferential ending does not have any prefixes which can indicate uncertainty. The -habnida (합니다) ending is the most polite and formal form of Korea, while the -yo (요) ending is less polite and formal which is where the perception of women being less professional originates from.^[33][35]

Hedges soften an assertion and its function as a euphemism in women's speech in terms of discourse difference. Women expected to add nasal sounds, neyng, neym, ney-ey, more frequently than men at the last syllable. The sound L is often added in women's for female stereotypes that igeolo (이거로 'this thing') become igeollo (이걸로 'this thing') to refer a lack of confidence and passive construction.^[36]

Women use more linguistic markers such as exclamation eomeo (어머 'oh') and eojjeom (어쩜 'what a surprise') to cooperative communication.^[33]

Vocabulary[]

Number	Sino-Korean cardinals		Native Korean cardinals
	Hangul	Romanization	Hangul	Romanization
1	일	il	하나	hana
2	이	i	둘	dul
3	삼	sam	셋	set
4	사	sa	넷	net
5	오	o	다섯	daseot
6	육, 륙	yuk, ryuk	여섯	yeoseot
7	칠	chil	일곱	ilgop
8	팔	pal	여덟	yeodeol
9	구	gu	아홉	ahop
10	십	sip	열	yeol

Sino-Korean[]

The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. However, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words (of Chinese origin),^[37] either:

• directly borrowed from written Chinese, or
• coined in Korea or Japan using Chinese characters.

Most of the vocabulary consists of these two sets of words: native Korean and Sino-Korean. Therefore, just like other words, Korean has two sets of numeral systems. English is similar, having native English words and Latinate equivalents such as water-aqua, fire-flame, sea-marine, two-dual, sun-solar, star-stellar. However, unlike English and Latin which belong to the same Indo-European languages family and bear a certain resemblance, Korean and Chinese are genetically unrelated and the two sets of Korean words differ completely from each other. All Sino-Korean morphemes are monosyllabic as in Chinese, whereas native Korean morphemes can be polysyllabic. The Sino-Korean words were deliberately imported alongside corresponding Chinese characters for a written language and everything was supposed to be written in Hanja, so the coexistence of Sino-Korean would be more thorough and systematic than that of Latinate words in English. To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages.^[38]

The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50–60%.^[37] Later, the same author (2006, p. 5) gives an even higher estimate of 65%.^[27] Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Keun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the colonial period include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as low as 30%.^[39]

Western loanwords[]

The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, approximately 90% of which are from English.^[37] Many words have also been borrowed from Western languages such as German via Japanese (아르바이트 (areubaiteu) "part-time job", 알레르기 (allereugi) "allergy", 기브스 (gibseu or gibuseu) "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > ダース dāsu > 다스 daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current "Hangulization" rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see names of Germany), the first part of whose endonym Deutschland [ˈdɔʏtʃlant] the Japanese approximated using the kanji 獨逸 doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: 獨 dok + 逸 il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented "Hangeulizations" of the countries' endonyms or English names.

Because of such a prevalence of English in modern South Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or "Konglish" (콩글리쉬), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the South Korean dialect of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary).^[27] However, due to North Korea's isolation, such influence is lacking in North Korean speech.

Korean uses words adapted from English in ways that may seem strange or unintuitive to native English speakers. For example, fighting (화이팅 / 파이팅 hwaiting / paiting) is a term of encouragement, like 'come on'/'go (on)' in English. Something that is 'service' (서비스 seobiseu) is free or 'on the house'. A building referred to as an 'apart' (아파트 apateu) is an 'apartment' (but in fact refers to a residence more akin to a condominium) and a type of pencil that is called a 'sharp' (샤프) is a mechanical pencil. Like other borrowings, many of these idiosyncrasies, including all the examples listed above, appear to be imported into Korean via Japanese, or influenced by Japanese. Many English words introduced via Japanese pronunciation have been reformed, as in 멜론 (melon) which was once called 메론 (meron) as in Japanese.

North Korea[]

North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings, especially with recent political objectives aimed at eliminating foreign influences on the Korean language in the North. In the early years, the North Korean government tried to eliminate Sino-Korean words. Consequently, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which are not in North Korean.

Writing system[]

Korean writing systems
Hangul
Chosŏn'gŭl (in North Korea)
Hanja
Hyangchal Gugyeol Idu
Mixed script
Braille
Transcription
McCune–Reischauer Revised Romanization (South) Romanization of Korean (North) Kontsevich (Cyrillic)
Transliteration
Yale (scholar) RR Transliteration (South) ISO/TR 11941 SKATS (coding)
Unused
Gukja
v t

Before the creation of the modern Korean alphabet, known as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea and as Hangul in South Korea, people in Korea (known as Joseon at the time) primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing systems that predate Hangul by hundreds of years, including idu, hyangchal, gugyeol, and gakpil.^{[40][41][42][43]} However, due to the fundamental differences between the Korean and Chinese languages and the large number of characters to be learned, the lower classes, who often didn't have the privilege of education, had much difficulty in learning how to write using Chinese characters. To assuage this problem, King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people.^[44]

The Korean alphabet was denounced and looked down upon by the yangban aristocracy, who deemed it too easy to learn,^[45][46] but it gained widespread use among the common class,^[47] and was widely used to print popular novels which were enjoyed by the common class.^[48] With growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Gabo Reformists' push, and the promotion of Hangul in schools,^[49] in 1894, Hangul displaced Hanja as Korea's national script.^[50] Hanja are still used to a certain extent in South Korea, where they are sometimes combined with Hangul, but this method is slowly declining in use, even though students learn Hanja in school.^[51]

Symbol chart[]

Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's (Hangul) symbols and their Revised Romanization (RR) and canonical International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) values:

Consonants

Hangul 한글	ㅂ	ㄷ	ㅈ	ㄱ	ㅃ	ㄸ	ㅉ	ㄲ	ㅍ	ㅌ	ㅊ	ㅋ	ㅅ	ㅎ	ㅆ	ㅁ	ㄴ	ㅇ	ㄹ
RR	b	d	j	g	pp	tt	jj	kk	p	t	ch	k	s	h	ss	m	n	ng	r, l
IPA	p	t	t͡ɕ	k	p͈	t͈	t͡ɕ͈	k͈	pʰ	tʰ	t͡ɕʰ	kʰ	s	h	s͈	m	n	ŋ	ɾ, l

Vowels

Hangul 한글	ㅣ	ㅔ	ㅚ	ㅐ	ㅏ	ㅗ	ㅜ	ㅓ	ㅡ	ㅢ	ㅖ	ㅒ	ㅑ	ㅛ	ㅠ	ㅕ	ㅟ	ㅞ	ㅙ	ㅘ	ㅝ
RR	i	e	oe	ae	a	o	u	eo	eu	ui	ye	yae	ya	yo	yu	yeo	wi	we	wae	wa	wo
IPA	i	e	ø, we	ɛ	a	o	u	ʌ	ɯ	ɰi	je	jɛ	ja	jo	ju	jʌ	ɥi, wi	we	wɛ	wa	wʌ

The letters of the Korean alphabet are not written linearly like most alphabets, but instead arranged into blocks that represent syllables. So, while the word bibimbap (Korean rice dish) is written as eight characters in a row in the Latin alphabet, in Korean it is written 비빔밥, as three "syllabic blocks" in a row. Mukbang (먹방 'eating show') is seven characters after romanization but only two "syllabic blocks" before.

Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese (except when Japanese is written exclusively in hiragana, as in children's books). The marks used for Korean punctuation are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, like traditional Japanese. However, the syllabic blocks are now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom, like English.

Dialects[]

Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal (말) [literally 'speech'], saturi (사투리), or bang'eon (방언). The standard language (pyojun-eo or pyojun-mal) of both South Korea and North Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul (which, as Hanyang, was the capital of Joseon-era Korea for 500 years), though the northern standard after the Korean War has been influenced by the dialect of P'yŏngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other and largely mutually intelligible (with the exception of dialect-specific phrases or non-Standard vocabulary unique to dialects), though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be sometimes classified as a separate language.^[52][53][54] One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of the Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, whereas speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect maintain the pitch accent of Middle Korean. Some dialects are conservative, maintaining Middle Korean sounds (such as z, β, ə) which have been lost from the standard language, whereas others are highly innovative.

Kang Yoon-jung et al. (2013),^[55] Kim Mi-ryoung (2013),^[56] and Cho Sung-hye (2017)^[57] suggest that the modern Seoul dialect is currently undergoing tonogenesis, based on the finding that in recent years lenis consonants (ㅂㅈㄷㄱ), aspirated consonants (ㅍㅊㅌㅋ) and fortis consonants (ㅃㅉㄸㄲ) were shifting from a distinction via voice onset time to that of pitch change; however, Choi Ji-youn et al. (2020) disagree with the suggestion that the consonant distinction shifting away from voice onset time is due to the introduction of tonal features, and instead proposes that it is a prosodically-conditioned change.^[58]

There is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects. Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, for example "garlic chives" translated into Gyeongsang dialect /t͡ɕʌŋ.ɡu.d͡ʑi/ (정구지; jeongguji) but in Standard Korean, it is /puːt͡ɕʰu/ (부추; buchu). This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present.^[59] See also the Japanese–Koguryoic languages hypothesis.

Nonetheless, the separation of the two Korean states has resulted in increasing differences among the dialects that have emerged over time. Since the allies of the newly founded nations split the Korean peninsula in half after 1945, the newly formed Korean nations have since borrowed vocabulary extensively from their respective allies. As the Soviet Union helped industrialize North Korea and establish it as a communist state, the North Koreans therefore borrowed a number of Russian terms. Likewise, since the United States helped South Korea extensively to develop militarily, economically, and politically, South Koreans therefore borrowed extensively from English.

The differences among northern and southern dialects have become so significant that many North Korean defectors reportedly have had great difficulty communicating with South Koreans after having initially settled into South Korea. In response to the diverging vocabularies, an app called Univoca was designed to help North Korean defectors learn South Korean terms by translating them into North Korean ones.^[60] More information can be found on the page North-South differences in the Korean language.

Aside from the standard language, there are few clear boundaries between Korean dialects, and they are typically partially grouped according to the regions of Korea.^[61][62]

Recently, both North and South Korea's usage rate of the regional dialect have been decreasing due to social factors. In North Korea, the central government is urging its citizens to use Munhwaŏ (the standard language of North Korea), to deter the usage of foreign language and Chinese characters: Kim Jong-un said in a speech "if your language in life is cultural and polite, you can achieve harmony and comradely unity among people."^[63] In South Korea, due to relocation in the population to Seoul to find jobs and the usage of standard language in education and media, the prevalence of regional dialects has decreased.^[64] Moreover, internationally, due to the increasing popularity of K-pop, the Seoul standard language has become more widely taught and used.

Standard language	Locations of use
Pyojuneo (표준어)	Standard language of ROK. Based on Seoul dialect; very similar to Incheon and most of Gyeonggi, west of Gangwon-do (Yeongseo region); also commonly used among younger Koreans nationwide and in online context.
Munhwaŏ (문화어)	Standard language of DPRK. Based on Seoul dialect and P'yŏngan dialect.[65]
Regional dialects	Locations of use and example compared to the standard language
Hamgyŏng/Northeastern (함경/동북)	Rasŏn, most of Hamgyŏng region, northeast P'yŏngan, Ryanggang Province (North Korea), Jilin (China). The Hamgyŏng dialect is a dialect with tones like the Yeongdong dialect and the Gyeongsang dialect. It is also the most spoken dialect by North Korean defectors in South Korea, as about 80% of them are from Hamgyŏng Province. , the moribund variety of Korean spoken mainly by elderly Koryo-Saram in Central Asia and Russia, is descended from the Northern Hamgyong Dialect, as well as the Yukchin Dialect. Honorific Munhwaŏ Hamgyŏng Ryukjin 하십시오 (hasibsio) 합소(세) (Habso(se)) 합쇼 (Habsyo) 해요 (haeyo) 하오 (Hao) 하오 (Hao) Ordinary way of speaking The vowel 'ㅔ(e)' is changed to 'ㅓ(eo)'. example: "Your daughter has come." Munhwaŏ Hamgyŏng 당신네 딸이 찾아 왔소. (dangsinne ttal-i chaj-a wattso.) 당신너 딸이가 찾아 왔슴메. (dangsinneo ttal-iga chaj-a wattseumme.) When calling a superior person, always put the ending '요(yo)' after the noun. example: "Grandpa, come quickly." Munhwaŏ Hamgyŏng 할아버지, 빨리 오세요. (hal-abeoji, ppalli oseyo.) 클아바네요, 빨리 오옵소. (keul-abaneyo, ppalli oobso.) The ending '-니까(-nikka)' is changed to '-을래(-lrae)'. example: "Come early because you have to cultivate the field." Munhwaŏ Hamgyŏng 밭을 매야 하니까 일찍 오너라. (bat-eul maeya hanikka iljjig oneola.) 밭으 매야 하길래 일찍 오나라. (bat-eu maeya hagilrae iljjig onala.)
P'yŏngan/Northwestern (평안/서북)	P'yŏngan region, P'yŏngyang, Chagang, northern North Hamgyŏng (North Korea), Liaoning (China) The Pyongan dialect, along with the Gyeonggi dialect, is also a dialect that greatly influenced the formation of Munhwaŏ. It is also the North Korean dialect best known to South Koreans. Honorific Munhwaŏ Pyongan 하십시오 (hasibsio) 하시 (hasi) 해요 (haeyo) 해요 (haeyo) Ordinary way of speaking The vowel 'ㅕ(yeo)' is changed to'ㅔ(e)'. example: armpit Munhwaŏ Pyongan 겨드랑이 (gyeodeulang-i) 게드랑이 (gedeulang-i) When '이(i)', '야(ya)', '여(yeo)', '요(yo)', '유(yu)', '에(e)' appear at the beginning, the consonant is changed to 'ㄴ(n)'. example: 1) Summer 2) Seven 3) Trend Munhwaŏ Pyongan 여름 (yeoleum) 너름 (neoleum) 일곱 (ilgob) 닐굽 (nilgub) 유행 (yuhaeng) 누행 (nuhaeng) When representing the past, there is a dropout phenomenon of 'ㅆ(ss/tt)'. example: "I brought this." Munhwaŏ Pyongan 이거 내가 가져왔어 (igeo naega gajyeowass-eo.) 이거 내가 개와서 (igeo naega gaewaseo)
Hwanghae/Central (황해/중부)	Hwanghae region (North Korea). Also in the Islands of Yeonpyeongdo, Baengnyeongdo and Daecheongdo in Ongjin County of Incheon. Hwanghae dialect was originally more similar to the Gyeonggi dialect, but as the division between North and South Korea prolonged, it is now heavily influenced by the Pyongan dialect. It is also the least existential dialect of all Korean dialects, and there has been little study regarding the dialect. Due to a high amount of korean war refugees, areas such as Incheon close to Hwanghae, have large populations of people originally from Hwanghae. Thus, certain phrases and words from the dialect can seldom be heard among older residents of such cities. Honorific Munhwaŏ Hwanghae 하십시오 (hasibsio) 하서 (haseo) 해요 (haeyo) 해요 (haeyo) 습니까 (seubnikka) 시꺄 (shikkya) Ordinary way of speaking Many of the vowels are pronounced as 'ㅣ(i)'. example: habit Munhwaŏ Hwanghae 습관 (seubgwan) 십관 (sibgwan) '네(ne)' is used as a questionable form. example: "Did you eat?" Munhwaŏ Hwanghae 밥 먹었니? (bab meog-eossni?) 밥 먹었네? (bab meog-eossne?) '-누만(-numan)' is often used as an exclamation sentence. example: "It got a lot colder" Munhwaŏ Hwanghae 많이 추워졌구나 (manh-i chuwojyeottguna) 많이 추어졌누만 (manh-i chueojyeottnuman) Areas in Northwest Hwanghae, such as Ongjin County in Hwanghae Province, pronounced 'ㅈ' (j'), originally pronounced the letter more closely to tz. However, this has largely disappeared. The rest is almost similar to the Gyeonggi and Pyongan dialect.
Gyeonggi/Central (경기/중부)	Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi region (South Korea), as well as Kaeseong, and Changpung in North Korea. Seoul dialect, which was the basis of Pyojuneo, is a subdialect of Gyeonggi dialect. About 70% of all Seoul dialect vocabulary has been adopted as Pyojuneo, and only about 10% out of 30% of Seoul dialect vocabulary that has not been adopted in Pyojuneo have been used so far. Gyeonggi dialect is the least existential dialect in South Korea, and most people do not know that Gyeonggi dialect itself exists. So, Gyeonggi-do residents say they only use standard language, and many people know the language spoken by Gyeonggi-do residents as standard language in other regions. Recently, young people have come to realize that there is a dialect in Seoul as they are exposed to the Seoul dialect through media such as YouTube.[66][67] Among the Gyeonggi dialects, the best known dialect along with Seoul dialect is Suwon dialect. The dialects of Suwon and its surrounding areas are quite different from those of northern Gyeonggi Province and surrounding areas of Seoul.[68] In some areas of the southern part of Gyeonggi Province, which is close to Chungcheong Province, such as Pyeongtaek and Anseong, it is also included in the Chungcheong dialect area. Local residents living in these areas also admit that they speak Chungcheong dialect. Traditionally, coastal areas of Gyeonggi, particularly Incheon, Ganghwa, Ongjin and Gimpo have been recorded to have some influence from the dialects of Hwanghae and Chungcheong, due to historic intermixing with the two regions, as well as geographical proximity. This old influence, however, has largely died out among most middle aged and younger locals from the region. Originally, northern Gyeonggi Province, including Seoul, received some influence from Northern dialects (Areas of Kaeseong along the Ryesong River, or Ganghwa Island, received an especially high amount of influence from the Hwanghae dialect), while southern Gyeonggi Province was similar to Chungcheong Province's. However, as a result of the prolonged division and the large number of migrants from Chungcheong Province and Jeolla Province to Seoul, the current way of speaking in Gyeonggi has been greatly influenced by Chungcheong and Jeolla. Honorific Pyojuneo Gyeonggi 하십시오 (hasibsio) - 하오 (hao) 하우/허우 (hau/heou) 해요 (haeyo) 해요 (haeyo) Ordinary way of speaking The vowel 'ㅏ(a)' is changed to 'ㅓ(eo)', and 'ㅓ(eo)' is changed to 'ㅡ(eu)'. example: 1) "It hurts." 2) "It's dirty" Pyojuneo Gyeonggi 아파 (apa) 아퍼 (apeo) 더러워 (deoleowo) 드러워 (deuleowo) The vowel 'ㅏ(a)' and 'ㅓ(eo)' are sometimes changed to 'ㅐ(ae)'. example: 1) Sesame oil 2) "You look like a fool." Pyojuneo Gyeonggi 참기름 (chamgileum) 챔기름 (chaemgileum) 너 바보 같아 (neo babo gat-a) 너 바보 같애 (neo babo gat-ae) The vowel 'ㅗ(o)' is mainly changed to 'ㅜ(u)'. example: 1) "What are you doing?" 2) uncle Pyojuneo Gyeonggi 뭐하고 있어? (mwohago iss-eo?) 뭐허구 있어? (mwoheogu iss-eo?) 삼촌 (samchon) 삼춘 (samchun) Dialects of Suwon and its surrounding areas. The ending '~거야(geoya)' ends briefly with '~거(geo)' example: "Where will you go?" Pyojuneo Suwon 어디 갈 거야? (eodi gal geoya?) 어디 갈 거? (eodi gal geo?)
Gangwon<Yeongseo/Yeongdong>/Central (강원<영서/영동>/중부)	Yeongseo (Gangwon (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea) west of the Taebaek Mountains), Yeongdong (Gangwon (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea), east of the Taebaek Mountains) Gangwon Province is divided between Yeongseo and Yeongdong due to the Taebaek Mountains, so even if it is the same Gangwon Province, there is a significant difference in dialect between the two regions. In the case of the Yeongseo dialect, the accent is slightly different from the dialect of Gyeonggi Province, but most of the vocabulary is similar to the dialect of Gyeonggi Province. Unlike the Yeongseo dialect, Yeongdong dialect has a tone, such as Hamgyeong dialect and Gyeongsang dialect. Gangwon dialect is the least spoken dialect of all dialects in South Korea except Jeju. Honorific Pyojuneo Yeongseo Yeongdong 하십시오 (hasibsio) -Lack of data- - 하오 (hao) 하오, 하우 (hao, hau) 하오 (hao) 해요 (haeyo) 해오 (haeyo) 해요 (haeyo) Ordinary way of speaking There are pronunciations, such as 'ㆉ(yoi)' and 'ㆌ(yui)', that you cannot hear in most regions of Korea. The vowel 'ㅠ(yu)' is changed to 'ㅟ(wi)' or 'ㆌ(yui)'. example: Vacation Pyojuneo Gangwon 휴가 (hyuga) 휘가 (hwiga) Use '나(na)' a lot in questionable form. example: "What are you doing lately?" Pyojuneo Gangwon(Yeongdong) 요즘 뭐해? (yojeum mwohae?) 요즘 뭐하나? (yojeum mwohana?)
Chungcheong/Central (충청/중부)	Daejeon, Sejong, Chungcheong region (South Korea) Chungcheong dialect is considered to be the softest dialect to hear among all dialects of Korean. Chungcheong dialect is one of the most recognized dialects in South Korea, along with Jeolla dialect and Gyeongsang dialect. Chungcheong dialect was the most commonly used dialect by aristocrats(Yangban) during the Joseon Dynasty, along with dialects in northern Gyeongsang Province. In the case of Chungcheong dialect, it is a dialect belonging to the central dialect along with Gyeonggi, Gangwon, and Hwanghae dialects, but some scholars view it as a separate dialect separated from the central dialect. In addition, some scholars classify southern Chungcheong dialect regions such as Daejeon, Sejong, and Gongju as the southern dialect such as Jeolla and Gyeongsang dialects. Honorific Pyojuneo Chungcheong 하십시오 (hasibsio) 하시오(충남 서해안 일부 지역) (hasio(Some areas on the west coast of South Chungcheong Province)) 하오 (hao) 하게 (hage) 해요 (haeyo) 해유(기본) (haeyu(General)) Ordinary way of speaking The vowel 'ㅑ(ya)' that comes to the ending is changed to 'ㅕ(yeo)'. example: 1) "What are you talking about?" 2) "What are you doing?" Pyojuneo Chungcheong 무슨 소리야? (museun soliya?) 뭔 소리여~? (mwon soliyeo~?) 뭐하는 거야? (mwohaneun geoya?) 뭐허는 거여~?/뭐하는 겨~? (mwoheoneun geoyeo~?/mwohaneun gyeo~?) 'ㅔ(e)' is mainly changed to 'ㅣ(i)', and 'ㅐ(ae)' is mainly changed to 'ㅑ(ya)' or 'ㅕ(yeo)'. example: 1) "He/She/They said he/she/they put it outside." 2) "Would you like to eat this?" 3) "Okay." Pyojuneo Chungcheong 그거 바깥에다가 뒀대 (geugeo bakkat-edaga dwossdae) 고거 바깥이다가 뒀댜~ (gogeo bakkat-idaga dwossdya~) 이거 먹을래? (igeo meog-eullae?) 여거 먹을려?/이거 먹을쳐? (yeogeo meog-eullyeo?/igeo meog-eulchyeo?) 그래 (geulae) 그려~/그랴~/기여~/겨~ (geulyeo~/geulya~/giyeo~/gyeo~) The ending '겠(gett)' is mainly pronounced as '겄(geott)', and the ending'까(kka)' is mainly pronounced as '께(kke)'. example: "I've put it all away, so it'll be okay." Pyojuneo Chungcheong 내가 다 치워뒀으니까 괜찮겠지 (naega da chiwodwoss-eunikka gwaenchanhgettji) 내가 다 치워뒀으니께 갠찮겄지 (naega da chiwodwoss-eunikke gaenchanhgeottji) The rest is almost similar to the Gyeonggi dialect.
Jeolla/Southwestern (전라/서남)	Gwangju, Jeolla region (South Korea) Jeolla dialect is a dialect that feels rough along with Gyeongsang dialect. Especially it is well known for its swearing. Jeolla dialect speakers, along with Gyeongsang dialect speakers, have high self-esteem in their local dialects. Many Jeolla dialect speakers can be found not only in Jeolla Province but also in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, because Jeolla Province itself was alienated from development, so many Jeolla residents came to Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. Much of Northern Jeolla, especially in areas close to Southern Chungcheong like Jeonju, Gunsan and Wanju have traditionally had weaker accents compared to the south, and in some cases, might be more closer to the Chungcheong dialect in terms of vocabulary and intonation. Honorific Pyojuneo Jeolla 하십시오 (hasibsio) 허씨요(기본) (heossiyo(General)) 하오 (hao) 허소 (heoso) 해요 (haeyo) 허라(우)(서중부 지역) (heola(u)(West Central Region)) Ordinary way of speaking The vowel 'ㅢ(ui)' is pronounced as 'ㅡ(eu)'. example: Doctor Pyojuneo Jeolla 의사 (uisa) 으사 (eusa) The ending '지(ji)' is pronounced as '제(je)'. example: "That's right." Pyojuneo Jeolla 그렇지 (geuleohji) 그라제/글제 (geulaje/geulje) Use a lot of '잉(ing)' at the end of words. example: "It's really pretty." Pyojuneo Jeolla 진짜 예쁘다 (jinjja yeppeuda) 참말로 이쁘다잉~/참말로 귄있다잉~ (chammallo ippeudaing~/chammallo gwin-ittdaing~) Famously, natives of Southern Jeolla pronounce certain combinations of vowels in Korean more softly, or omit the latter vowel entirely. Pyojuneo Jeolla 육학년 (yoog-kak-nyeon) 유각년 (yoog-ag-nyeon) 못해 (mot-tae) 모대 (mot-dae) The rest is almost similar to the Chungcheong dialect.
Gyeongsang/Southeastern (경상/동남)	Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Gyeongsang region (South Korea) Gyeongsang dialect is the best known dialect of all South Korean dialects. This is known not only by Koreans but also by foreigners interested in Korean culture. Gyeongsang dialect is also known as the most rough and macho-like dialect of all South Korean dialects. Gyeongsang dialect has a tone like Hamgyeong dialect and Yeongdong dialect. Gyeongsang dialect is the most common dialect in dramas among all Korean dialects except for Gyeonggi dialect. Honorific Pyojuneo Gyeongsang 하십시오 (hasibsio) 하이소 (haiso) 하오 (hao) 하소 (haso) 해요 (haeyo) 해예/해요 (haeye/haeyo) Ordinary way of speaking In question, '노(no)' and '나(na)' are mainly used. Use '나(na)' when asking for a short answer, and '노(no)' when asking for a specific answer. example: 1) "Have you eaten?" 2) "What did you eat?" Pyojuneo Gyeongsang 너 밥 먹었어? (neo bab meog-eott-eo?) 니 밥 뭇나? (ni bab mutna?) 뭐 먹었어? (mwo meog-eoss-eo?) 뭐 먹었노? (mwo meog-eossno?) When talking, the sentence often ends with '~다 아이가(~da aiga)'. example: "You said so." Pyojuneo Gyeongsang 네가 그렇게 말했잖아. (nega geuleohge malhaettjanh-a.) 니가 그렇게 말했다 아이가. (niga geuleohge malhaettda aiga.) '~하다(~hada)' is pronounced as '~카다(~kada)'. example: "Why are you doing that?" Pyojuneo Gyeongsang 왜 그렇게 하는 거야? (wae geuleohge haneun geoya?) 와 그 카는데? (wa geu kaneunde?) The rest is almost similar to the Jeolla dialect.
Jeju (제주)*	Jeju Island/Province (South Korea); sometimes classified as a separate language in the Koreanic language family example: Hangul[69] Pyojuneo: 한글 (Hangul) Jeju: ᄒᆞᆫ글 (Hongul) Honorific Pyojuneo Jeju 하십시오 (hasibsio) ᄒᆞᆸ서 (hobseo) 하오 (hao) ᄒᆞᆸ소 (hobso) 해요 (haeyo) ᄒᆞ여마씀/양/예 (hobyeomasseum/yang/ye)

Differences between North Korean and South Korean[]

The language used in the North and the South exhibit differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.^[70]

Pronunciation[]

In North Korea, palatalization of /si/ is optional, and /t͡ɕ/ can be pronounced [z] between vowels.

Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently (such as the examples below). The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune–Reischauer and modified Hangul (what the Korean characters would be if one were to write the word as pronounced).

Word	RR	Meaning	Pronunciation
			North			South
			RR	MR	Chosungul	RR	MR	Hangul
읽고	ilgo	to read (continuative form)	ilko	ilko	(일)코	ilkko	ilkko	(일)꼬
압록강	amnokgang	Amnok River	amrokgang	amrokkang	암(록)깡	amnokkang	amnokkang	암녹깡
독립	dongnip	independence	dongrip	tongrip	동(립)	dongnip	tongnip	동닙
관념	gwannyeom	idea / sense / conception	gwallyeom	kwallyŏm	괄렴	gwannyeom	kwannyŏm	(관)념
혁신적*	hyeoksinjeok	innovative	hyeoksinjjeok	hyŏksintchŏk	(혁)씬쩍	hyeoksinjeok	hyŏksinjŏk	(혁)씬(적)

* In the North, similar pronunciation is used whenever the hanja "的" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ㄴ, ㅁ or ㅇ.

* In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.

Spelling[]

Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.

Word		Meaning	Pronunciation (RR/MR)	Remarks
North spelling	South spelling
해빛	햇빛	sunshine	haeppit (haepit)	The "sai siot" ('ㅅ' used for indicating sound change) is almost never written out in the North.
벗꽃	벚꽃	cherry blossom	beotkkot (pŏtkkot)
못읽다	못 읽다	cannot read	modikda (modikta)	Spacing.
한나산	한라산	Hallasan	hallasan (hallasan)	When a ㄴㄴ combination is pronounced as ll, the original Hangul spelling is kept in the North, whereas the Hangul is changed in the South.
규률	규율	rules	gyuyul (kyuyul)	In words where the original hanja is spelt "렬" or "률" and follows a vowel, the initial ㄹ is not pronounced in the North, making the pronunciation identical with that in the South where the ㄹ is dropped in the spelling.

Spelling and pronunciation[]

Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South. Most of the official languages of North Korea are from the northwest (Pyeongan dialect), and the standard language of South Korea is the standard language (Seoul language close to Gyeonggi dialect). some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:

Word				Meaning	Remarks
North spelling	North pronun.	South spelling	South pronun.
력량	ryeongryang (ryŏngryang)	역량	yeongnyang (yŏngnyang)	strength	Initial r's are dropped if followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
로동	rodong (rodong)	노동	nodong (nodong)	work	Initial r's are demoted to an n if not followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
원쑤	wonssu (wŏnssu)	원수	wonsu (wŏnsu)	mortal enemy	"Mortal enemy" and "field marshal" are homophones in the South. Possibly to avoid referring to Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il or Kim Jong-un as the enemy, the second syllable of "enemy" is written and pronounced 쑤 in the North.[71]
라지오	rajio (rajio)	라디오	radio (radio)	radio
우	u (u)	위	wi (wi)	on; above
안해	anhae (anhae)	아내	anae (anae)	wife
꾸바	kkuba (kkuba)	쿠바	kuba (k'uba)	Cuba	When transcribing foreign words from languages that do not have contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated stops, North Koreans generally use tensed stops for the unaspirated ones while South Koreans use aspirated stops in both cases.
페	pe (p'e)	폐	pye (p'ye), pe (p'e)	lungs	In the case where ye comes after a consonant, such as in hye and pye, it is pronounced without the palatal approximate. North Korean orthography reflects this pronunciation nuance.

In general, when transcribing place names, North Korea tends to use the pronunciation in the original language more than South Korea, which often uses the pronunciation in English. For example:

Original name	North Korea transliteration		English name	South Korea transliteration
	Spelling	Pronunciation		Spelling	Pronunciation
Ulaanbaatar	울란바따르	ullanbattareu (ullanbattarŭ)	Ulan Bator	울란바토르	ullanbatoreu (ullanbat'orŭ)
København	쾨뻰하븐	koeppenhabeun (k'oeppenhabŭn)	Copenhagen	코펜하겐	kopenhagen (k'op'enhagen)
al-Qāhirah	까히라	kkahira (kkahira)	Cairo	카이로	kairo (k'airo)

Grammar[]

Some grammatical constructions are also different:

Word				Meaning	Remarks
North spelling	North pronun.	South spelling	South pronun.
되였다	doeyeotda (toeyŏtta)	되었다	doeeotda (toeŏtta)	past tense of 되다 (doeda/toeda), "to become"	All similar grammar forms of verbs or adjectives that end in ㅣ in the stem (i.e. ㅣ, ㅐ, ㅔ, ㅚ, ㅟ and ㅢ) in the North use 여 instead of the South's 어.
고마와요	gomawayo (komawayo)	고마워요	gomawoyo (komawŏyo)	thanks	ㅂ-irregular verbs in the North use 와 (wa) for all those with a positive ending vowel; this only happens in the South if the verb stem has only one syllable.
할가요	halgayo (halkayo)	할까요	halkkayo (halkkayo)	Shall we do?	Although the Hangul differ, the pronunciations are the same (i.e. with the tensed ㄲ sound).

Vocabulary[]

Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:

Word				Meaning	Remarks
North word	North pronun.	South word	South pronun.
문화주택	munhwajutaek (munhwajut'aek)	아파트	apateu (ap'at'ŭ)	Apartment	아빠트 (appateu/appat'ŭ) is also used in the North.
조선말	joseonmal (chosŏnmal)	한국어	han-guk'eo (han-guk'ŏ)	Korean language	The Japanese pronunciation of 조선말 was used throughout Korea and Manchuria during Japanese Imperial Rule, but after liberation, the government chose the name 대한민국 (Daehanminguk) which was derived from the name immediately prior to Japanese Imperial Rule. The syllable 한 (Han) was drawn from the same source as that name (in reference to the Han people). Read more.
곽밥	gwakbap (kwakpap)	도시락	dosirak (tosirak)	lunch box
동무	dongmu (tongmu)	친구	chin-gu (ch'in-gu)	Friend	동무 was originally a non-ideological word for "friend" used all over the Korean peninsula, but North Koreans later adopted it as the equivalent of the Communist term of address "comrade". As a result, to South Koreans today the word has a heavy political tinge, and so they have shifted to using other words for friend like chingu (친구) or beot (벗). South Koreans use chingu (친구) more often than beot (벗). Such changes were made after the Korean War and the ideological battle between the anti-Communist government in the South and North Korea's communism.[72][73]

Punctuation[]

In the North, guillemets (《 and 》) are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones (" and ") are standard (although 『 』 and 「 」 are also used).

Geographic distribution[]

Korean is spoken by the Korean people in both South Korea and North Korea, and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, the United States, Japan, and Russia. Currently, Korean is the fourth most popular foreign language in China, following English, Japanese, and Russian.^[74] Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Koreans may speak it with native fluency.

Official status[]

Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It, along with Mandarin Chinese, is also one of the two official languages of China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture.

In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Language Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences (사회과학원 어학연구소; 社會科學院語學硏究所, Sahoe Gwahagweon Eohag Yeonguso). In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language, which was created by presidential decree on 23 January 1991.

King Sejong Institute[]

Established pursuant to Article 9, Section 2, of the Framework Act on the National Language, the King Sejong Institute^[75] is a public institution set up to coordinate the government's project of propagating Korean language and culture; it also supports the King Sejong Institute, which is the institution's overseas branch. The King Sejong Institute was established in response to:

• An increase in the demand for Korean language education;
• a rapid increase in Korean language education thanks to the spread of the culture (hallyu), an increase in international marriage, the expansion of Korean enterprises into overseas markets, and enforcement of employment licensing system;
• the need for a government-sanctioned Korean language educational institution;
• the need for general support for overseas Korean language education based on a successful domestic language education program.

Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) Korea Institute[]

The TOPIK Korea Institute is a lifelong educational center affiliated with a variety of Korean universities in Seoul, South Korea, whose aim is to promote Korean language and culture, support local Korean teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges.

The institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as the King Sejong Institute. Unlike that organization, however, the TOPIK Korea Institute operates within established universities and colleges around the world, providing educational materials. In countries around the world, Korean embassies and cultural centers (한국문화원) administer TOPIK examinations.^[76]

As a foreign language[]

For native English speakers, Korean is generally considered to be one of the most difficult foreign languages to master despite the relative ease of learning Hangul. For instance, the United States' Defense Language Institute places Korean in Category IV with Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Arabic, requiring 64 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 26 weeks for Category I languages like Italian, French, and Spanish) to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which they have "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense."^[77][78] Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies places Korean in Category IV, the highest level of difficulty.^[79]

The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; in 2007 they were estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.^[80] However, Sejong Institutes in the United States have noted a sharp rise in the number of people of other ethnic backgrounds studying Korean between 2009 and 2011; they attribute this to rising popularity of South Korean music and television shows.^[81] In 2018 it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities.^[82]

There are two widely used tests of Korean as a foreign language: the Korean Language Proficiency Test (KLPT) and the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK). The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination.^[83] The TOPIK was first administered in 1997 and was taken by 2,274 people. Since then the total number of people who have taken the TOPIK has surpassed 1 million, with more than 150,000 candidates taking the test in 2012.^[84] TOPIK is administered in 45 regions within South Korea and 72 nations outside of South Korea, with a significant portion being administered in Japan and North America, which would suggest the targeted audience for TOPIK is still primarily foreigners of Korean heritage.^[85] This is also evident in TOPIK's website, where the examination is introduced as intended for Korean heritage students.

See also[]

• Outline of Korean language
• Korean count word
• Korean Cultural Center (KCC)
• Korean dialects
• Korean language and computers
• Korean mixed script
• Korean particles
• Korean sign language
• Korean romanization
  • McCune–Reischauer
  • Revised romanization of Korean
  • SKATS
  • Yale romanization of Korean
• List of English words of Korean origin
• List of Korea-related topics
• Vowel harmony
• History of Korean
• Korean films
  • Cinema of South Korea
  • Cinema of North Korea

Notes[]

References[]

Further reading[]

• Argüelles, Alexander, and Jong-Rok Kim (2000). A Historical, Literary and Cultural Approach to the Korean Language. Seoul: Hollym.
• Argüelles, Alexander, and Jongrok Kim (2004). A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
• Arguelles, Alexander (2007). Korean Newspaper Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
• Arguelles, Alexander (2010). North Korean Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press
• Chang, Suk-jin (1996). Korean. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-55619-728-4. (Volume 4 of the London Oriental and African Language Library).
• Hulbert, Homer B. (1905). A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul.
• Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.
• Martin, Samuel E. (1966). Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean. Language 42/2: 185–251.
• Martin, Samuel E. (1990). Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean. In: Philip Baldi (ed.): Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 45: 483–509.
• Martin, Samuel E. (2006). A Reference Grammar of Korean: A Complete Guide to the Grammar and History of the Korean Language – 韓國語文法總監. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8048-3771-2.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1971). Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52719-0.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1996). Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 974-8299-69-4.
• Ramstedt, G. J. (1928). Remarks on the Korean language. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Oigrienne 58.
• Rybatzki, Volker (2003). Middle Mongol. In: Juha Janhunen (ed.) (2003): The Mongolic languages. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3, pp. 47–82.
• Starostin, Sergei A., Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (2003). Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, 3 volumes. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13153-1.
• Sohn, H.-M. (1999). The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Sohn, Ho-Min (2006). Korean Language in Culture and Society. Boston: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8248-2694-9.
• Song, J.-J. (2005). The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.
• Trask, R. L. (1996). Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
• Vovin, Alexander (2010). Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
• Whitman, John B. (1985). The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean. Unpublished Harvard University PhD dissertation.
• Yeon, Jaehoon, and Lucien Brown (2011). Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.

External links[]

Korean edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
• Sogang University free online Korean language and culture course
• Beginner's guide to Korean for English speakers
• U.S. Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course
• Linguistic map of Korea
• dongsa.net, Korean verb conjugation tool
• Hanja Explorer, a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary
• Korean language at Curlie