Korean language

Korean
한국어 (韓國語) / 조선말 (朝鮮말) Hanguk-eo, Chosŏnmal
Native to	Korean Peninsula
Native speakers	~ 75 million (2008–2012)
Language family	Koreanic
Early forms	Old Korean Middle Korean
Dialects	Jeju mainland Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul (primary) Hanja (mixed script) Korean Braille Chesili script (Koryo-mar)
Official status
Official language in	Republic of Korea Democratic People's Republic of Korea People's Republic of China's Yanbian and Changbai
Recognised minority language in	People's Republic of China CIS
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 語學研究所 (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	Variously: kor – Modern Korean okm – Middle Korean oko – Old Korean oko – Proto Korean
Linguist List	okm Middle Korean
	oko Old Korean
Glottolog	kore1280
Linguasphere	45-AAA-a
Countries with native Korean-speaking populations (established immigrant communities in green).

Korean language (한국어, see below) is the official language of the Republic of Korea and Democratic People's Republic of Korea, with different official forms used in each nation-state; it is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of the People's Republic of China. Approximately 80 million people worldwide speak Korean.

Korean has a few extinct relatives, which together with Korean itself form the Koreanic language family. Despite this, historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. The idea that Korean belongs to a putative Altaic language family has been generally discredited. There is still debate on whether Korean and Japanese are related languages. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.

History

Main article: History of the Korean language

Modern Korean descends from Middle Korean, which in turn descends from Old Korean, which descends from the language spoken in Prehistoric Korea (labeled Proto-Korean), whose nature is debated, in part because Korean genetic origins are controversial. A relation of Korean (together with its extinct relatives which form the Koreanic family) with Japonic languages has been proposed by linguists like William George Aston and Samuel Martin. Roy Andrew Miller and others suggested or supported the inclusion of Koreanic and Japonic languages in the purported Altaic family (a macro-family that would comprise Tungusic, Mongolian and Turkic families), now not accepted by most specialists.

Chinese characters arrived in Korea together with Buddhism during the pre-Three Kingdoms period and remained as the sole script for writing Korean through over a millennium (Chinese script adapted for Korean is known as hanja) along with the phonetic scripts that were later invented. Only privileged elites were educated to fluently read and write, however, and most of the population was illiterate. In the 15th century, King Sejong the Great felt that the hanja were not adequate to write Korean and this was the cause of its very restricted use, so (with a likely help of the Hall of Worthies) he developed an alphabetic featural writing system known today as hangul, which was designed to either aid in reading hanja or replace them. Introduced in the document hunminjeongeum, it quickly became popular and increased literacy in Korea, but it was only after the end of World War II that it was definitely widespread and made official in both North and South Koreas. Today, the hanja are largely unused in everyday life, but in South Korea they experience revivals on artistic works and are important in historic and/or linguistic studies of Korean.

Since the Korean War, through 70 years of separations North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary chosen.

Names

The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.

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". In "hanguk-eo" and "hanguk-mal", the first part of the word, "hanguk", refers to the Korean nation while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also referred to as guk-eo, literally "national language". This name is based on the same Chinese characters meaning "nation" + "language" ("國語") 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 Chosŏn-mal, or more formally, Chosŏn-ŏ. The English word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to Western countries. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and Goryeo In (literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]), and call the language Koryo-mar.

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.

Some older English sources also use the spelling "Corea" to refer to the country, and its inflected form for the language and people, "Korea" becoming more popular in the late 1800s according to Google's NGram English corpus of 2015.

Classification

The majority of historical linguists classify Korean as a language isolate. There are still a small number who think that Korean might be related to the putative Altaic language grouping, but linguists agree today that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages, as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed from one language to the other. Such factors of typological divergence as Middle Mongolian's exhibition of gender agreement can be used to argue that a genetic relationship is unlikely.

The hypothesis that Korean might 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 and Roy Andrew Miller. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list. Some linguists concerned with the issue, for example Alexander Vovin, have argued that the indicated similarities between Japanese and Korean are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing, especially from ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asa, meaning "hemp". This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern Ryūkyū, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three subdialects of the South-Ryūkyūan dialect group. Also, the doublet wo meaning "hemp" is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryūkyū. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. (See Classification of Japonic languages for further details on a possible relationship.)

Among ancient languages, various closer relatives of Korean have been proposed, constituting a possible small Koreanic language family. Some classify the language of Jeju Island as a distinct modern Koreanic language.

Other famous theories are the Dravido-Korean languages theory and the mostly unknown "southern-theory" which suggest a Austronesian relation. Korean and Dravidian languages share similar vocabulary, both languages are agglutinative, follow the SOV order, nominal and adjectives follow the same syntax, particles are post positional, modifiers always precede modified words are some of the common features.

Alexander Vovin suggests that Korean is part of the Paleosiberian languages and not related to Altaic.

Geographic distribution and international spread

See also: Korean diaspora

Korean is spoken by the Korean people in North Korea and South Korea and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, the United States, Japan, and Russia. 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

Street signs in Korean; Daegu, South Korea.

Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It is also one of the two official languages of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China.

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 January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Language Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences (사회과학원 어학연구소; 社會科學院語學研究所, Sahoe Kwahagwon Ŏhak Yŏnguso).

King Sejong Institute

The King Sejong Institute is a central public institution supporting the King Sejong Institute which is the overseas educational institution of the Korean language and Korean cultures. It was established based on Article 9, Section 2 of the [Framework Act on the National Language] in order to do coordination management of the government's propagation project of the Korean language and Korean cultures.

• Increase in the demand for the Korean language education
• Rapid increase in the Korean language education thanks to the spread of Hanryu, Increase in international marriage, expansion of Korean enterprises' making inroads into overseas markets, and enforcement of employment license system
• Necessity of the National Brand representing the educational institution of the Korean language
• Awareness of necessity of specialized brand cultivation which can do general support of overseas Korean language education based on the successful strategic propagation project of their own language

TOPIK KOREA Institute

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 TOPIK KOREA Institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as King Sejong Institute. Unlike the organization, however, TOPIK KOREA Institutes operate within established universities and colleges around the world, providing educational materials.

Dialects

Main articles: Korean dialects and Koreanic languages

Dialects of Korean

Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal (말) [literally "speech"], saturi (사투리), or bang'eon (방언) in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of both South Korea and North Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, though the northern standard has been influenced by the dialect of P'yŏngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other and at least partially mutually intelligible, though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be sometimes classified as a separate language. One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of 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.

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, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean 입 /ip/ "mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect /t͡ɕʌŋ.ɡu.d͡ʑi/ vs. Standard Korean /puːt͡ɕʰu/ "garlic chives". This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.

Nonetheless, the separation of the two Korean nations 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 would therefore borrow a number of Russian terms. Likewise, since the United States helped South Korea extensively to develop militarily, economically, and politically, South Koreans would therefore borrow 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. More info 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.

Standard language	Locations of use
Seoul	Seoul (서울); very similar to Incheon (인천/仁川) and most of Gyeonggi (경기/京畿), west of Gangwon-do (Yeongseo region)
Munhwaŏ	Northern standard. Based on P'yŏngan dialect.
Regional dialects	Locations of use
Hamgyŏng (Northeastern)	Rasŏn, most of Hamgyŏng region, northeast P'yŏngan, Ryanggang (North Korea), Jilin (China)
P'yŏngan (northwestern)	P'yŏngan region, P'yŏngyang, Chagang, Hwanghae, northern North Hamgyŏng (North Korea), Liaoning (China)
Central	Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi, Daejeon, Chungcheong (South Korea), Yeongseo (Gangwon-do (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea) west of the Taebaek Mountains)
Yeongdong (East coast)	Yeongdong region (Gangwon-do (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea) east of the Taebaek Mountains)
Gyeongsang (Southeastern)	Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Gyeongsang region (South Korea)
Jeolla (Southwestern)	Gwangju, Jeolla region (South Korea)
Jeju	Jeju Island/Province (South Korea)

Phonology

Main article: Korean phonology

Consonants

The Korean consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		ㅁ /m/	ㄴ /n/		ㅇ /ŋ/
Plosive and Affricate	plain	ㅂ /p/ or /b/	ㄷ /t/ or /d/	ㅈ /t͡ɕ/ or /d͡ʑ/	ㄱ /k/ or /g/
	tense	ㅃ /p͈/	ㄸ /t͈/	ㅉ /t͡ɕ͈/	ㄲ /k͈/
	aspirated	ㅍ /pʰ/	ㅌ /tʰ/	ㅊ /t͡ɕʰ/	ㅋ /kʰ/
Fricative	plain		ㅅ /sʰ/			ㅎ /h/
	tense		ㅆ /s͈/
Approximant		/w/1	ㄹ /l/	/j/1

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

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.

Vowels

The basic Korean vowels

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

^* 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 to [b, d] 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: ryŏksa (력사), south: yeoksa (역사)
• "female" – north: nyŏja (녀자), south: yeoja (여자)

Morphophonemics

Main article: Morphophonology

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 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

Main article: Korean grammar

Korean is an agglutinative language. The Korean language is traditionally considered to have nine parts of speech. For details, see Korean 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.

A:		가게에		갔어요?
		ga-ge-e		ga-sseo-yo
		store + [location marker (에)]		[go (verb root) (가)]+[conjugated (contraction rule)(아)]+[past (ㅆ)]+[conjunctive (어)]+ [polite marker (요)]

"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)

B:		예. (or 네.)
		ye (or ne, de)
		yes

"Yes."

Speech levels and honorifics

Main article: Korean honorifics

The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean grammar. The relationship between 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 he/she is 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 he/she is 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. They are made for easier and faster use of Korean.

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 relatives, people who are older, teachers, and employers.

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. 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 highest six levels are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (존댓말), whereas the lowest level (haeche, 해체) is called banmal (반말) in Korean.

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.

Sociolinguistics

Gender and the Korean language

In general, Korean lacks grammatical gender. As one of the few exceptions, third-person singular pronoun has two different forms: 그 geu (male) and 그녀 geunyeo (female). However, these terms were invented in the 20th century under the influence of foreign languages, and they seldom appear in colloquial speech.

However, one can still find stronger contrasts between the genders 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.

In Western societies, individuals tend to avoid expressions of power asymmetry, mutually addressing each other by their first names for the sake of solidarity. 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. 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 roles of women from those of men.

Vocabulary

The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. A significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words, either

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

The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50–60%. Later, the same author (2006, p. 5) gives an even higher estimate of 65%. 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 native Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as high as 70%.

Korean has two numeral systems: one native, and one borrowed from Sino-Korean.

To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.

The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, approximately 90% of which are from English. 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 [ˈd̥ɔɪ̯t͡ʃʷ.la̠ntʰ] 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 Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or 'Konglish' (콩글리쉬), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary).

Korean uses words adapted from English in ways that may seem strange to native English speakers. For example, in soccer heading (헤딩) is used as a noun meaning a 'header', whereas fighting (화이팅 / 파이팅) is a term of encouragement like 'come on'/'go (on)' in English. Something that is 'service' (서비스) is free or 'on the house'. A building referred to as an 'apart-uh' (아파트) 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.

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

The Latin alphabet used for auxiliar purposes in South Korea

Main articles: Hangul, Korean Braille, and Hanja

See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables

Formerly, the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using hanja, called hyangchal or idu: the use of Chinese characters either as rebuses to stand for Korean words, or as synonyms for those words. Writing was confined to the ruling elite, who most often wrote only in Classical Chinese.

In the 15th century, Sejong the Great commissioned a national writing system called Hangul, but the yangban aristocracy denounced it as inferior to hanja. Because of growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Gabo Reformists' push, and the promotion of Hangul in schools, in 1894, hangul displaced hanja as Korea's national script. Hanja is still used to a certain extent in South Korea where it is sometimes combined with Hangul, but this method is slowly declining in use despite Korean students learning Hanja in school.

Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical 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

Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom.

Differences between North Korean and South Korean

Main article: North–South differences in the Korean language

The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

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 Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one were to write the word as pronounced.

Word	Meaning	Pronunciation
		North (RR/MR)	North (Hangul)	South (RR/MR)	South (Hangul)
읽고	to read (continuative form)	ilko (ilko)	일코	ilkko (ilkko)	일꼬
압록강	Amnok River	amrokgang (amrokkang)	암록깡	amnokkang (amnokkang)	암녹깡
독립	independence	dongrip (tongrip)	동립	dongnip (tongnip)	동닙
관념	idea / sense / conception	gwallyeom (kwallyŏm)	괄렴	gwannyeom (kwannyŏm)	관념
혁신적*	innovative	hyeoksinjjeok (hyŏksintchŏk)	혁씬쩍	hyeoksinjeok (hyŏksinjŏk)	혁씬적

* Similar pronunciation is used in the North 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, 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.
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 reflect 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 (josŏnmal)	한국말	han-gukmal (han'gukmal)	Korean language	한국말 is also used in the South
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).

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.

Study by non-native learners

For native English speakers, Korean is generally considered to be one of the most difficult languages to master despite the relative ease of learning Hangul. For instance, the United States' Defense Language Institute places Korean in Category IV, which also includes Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese. This means that 63 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 25 weeks for French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian) are required to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which he or she has "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies places Korean in Category IV, the highest level of difficulty.

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. 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.

Korean is considerably easier for speakers of certain other languages, such as Japanese; in Japan, it is more widely studied by non-heritage learners.

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. 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.

See also

• Hangul
• Korean count word
• Korean language and computers
• Korean mixed script
• Korean numerals
• Korean particles
• Korean phonology
• Korean romanization
  • McCune–Reischauer
  • Revised romanization of Korean
  • SKATS
  • Yale romanization of Korean
• Koreanic languages
• Dravido-Korean languages
• Altaic languages
• Hanja (ancient Chinese characters in Korean)
• List of English words of Korean origin
• List of Korea-related topics
• Sino-Korean vocabulary
• Vowel harmony

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 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. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• 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 978-0-804-83771-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• 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 Ph.D. dissertation.

External links

• Korean phrasebook travel guide from Wikivoyage
• Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
• Sogang University free online Korean language and culture course
• USA Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course
• Linguistic map of Korea
• dongsa.net, Korean verb conjugation tool
• Korean Swadesh vocabulary list (from Wiktionary)
• Hanja Explorer, a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary