Korean language
Spoken in South Korea, North Korea, People's Republic of China
Total speakers 78 million
Ranking 13
Language family Debated (see the classification)
Writing system Exclusive use of Hangul (Both Koreas), mix of Hangul and hanja (some professional scripts in S. Korea), or Cyrillic alphabet (lesser used in Goryeomal)
Official status
Official language in
North Korea
South KoreaYanbian (
People's Republic of China)
Regulated by South Korea:
The National Institute of the Korean Language
국립국어원
North Korea:
Sahoe Kwahagwon Ŏhak Yŏnguso
사회과학원 어학연구소
Language codes
ISO 639-1 ko
ISO 639-2 kor
ISO 639-3 kor
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
Korean (한국어/조선말, see below) is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong the Great, the system being currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters) to write for over a millennium.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated by a small number of linguists. Most classify it as a language isolate while a few consider it to be in the Altaic language family. Some believe it to be distantly related to Japanese-Ryukyuan. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
Names
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal (한국말; 韓國말), or more formally, Hangugeo (한국어; 韓國語) or Gugeo (국어; 國語; literally "national language").
In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called Chosŏnmal (조선말; with hanja: 朝鮮말), or more formally, Chosŏnŏ (조선어; 朝鮮語).
On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (고려사람; also Goryeoin [고려인; 高麗人; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal (고려말; 高麗말).
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ (朝鲜语 or the short form: Cháoyǔ (朝语)) has normally been used to refer to the language spoken in North Korea and Yanbian, while Hánguóyǔ (韩国语 or the short form: Hányǔ (韩语)) is used to refer to the language spoken in South Korea.
Some older English sources also used the name "Korean" to refer to the language, country, and people. The word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first dynasty known to western countries.
Classification
Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1928, some linguists support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to the Altaic languages in that they both lack certain grammatical elements, including articles, fusional morphology and relative pronouns. However, linguists agree today on the fact that typological resemblances cannot be used to prove genetic relatedness of languages as these features are typologically connected and easily borrowed. 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 more supporters due to some considerable overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin and Roy Andrew Miller. Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese-Korean 100-word Swadesh list, which - if valid - would place these two languages closer together than other possible members of the Altaic family.
Other linguists, most notably Alexander Vovin, argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing especially from Korean into Western Old Japanese. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm < Proto-Korean *asam ‘hemp’ and Japanese asa ‘hemp’. This word seems to be cognate, but while 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. Then, the doublet wo ‘hemp’ is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryūkyū. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Classification of Japanese for further details on the discussion of a possible relationship.
History
Korean is descended from Old Korean, Middle Korean and Modern Korean. Controversy remains over the proposed Altaic language family and its inclusion of Proto-Korean. Since the Korean War, contemporary North-South differences in Korean have developed, including variance in pronunciation, verb inflection, and vocabulary.
Geographic distribution
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, Japan, and the United States. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Korean immigrants may speak it with native fluency.
Official status
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 (국립국어원), which was created by presidential decree on January 23, 1991. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Sahoe Kwahagwon Ŏhak Yŏnguso (사회과학원 어학연구소).
Dialects
Korean has several dialects (called mal (말) [literally "speech"], saturi (사투리), or bang-eon (방언) in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yŏngyang. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other, and are in fact all mutually intelligible, perhaps with the exception of the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju is in fact classified as a different language by some Korean linguists.[who?] One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul dialect use very little stress, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect have a very pronounced intonation.
It is also worth noting that 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.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
Standard dialect Where usedSeoul Seoul (서울), Incheon (인천/仁川), most of Gyeonggi (경기/京畿)
P'yŏngan (평양
/平壤)
P'yŏngyang, P'yŏngan region, Chagang (North Korea)Regional dialect Where used
Gyeonggi limited areas of the Gyeonggi region (South Korea)
Chungcheong Daejeon, Chungcheong region (South Korea)
Gangwon Gangwon-do (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea)
Gyeongsang Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Gyeongsang region (South Korea)
Hamgyŏng Rasŏn, Hamgyŏng region, Ryanggang (North Korea)
Hwanghae Hwanghae region (North Korea)
Jeju Jeju Island/Province (South Korea)
Jeolla Gwangju, Jeolla region (South Korea)