Korean language — A Video Map Guide

.hatnotediv.hatnote.hatnote i.hatnote+link+.hatnote@media printHistory of Korean 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 somewhere in Manchuria. 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. Since the establishment of two independent governments, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation and vocabulary chosen. While there tends to be strong political conflict between North and South Korea regarding these linguistic "differences," regional dialects within each country actually display greater linguistic variations than those found between North and South Korean standards. Nevertheless, these dialects remain largely mutually intelligible. Writing systems Origin of Hangul King Sejong's proclamation of the Hangul script, written in Classical Chinese The Chinese language, written with Chinese characters and read with Sino-Xenic pronunciations, was first introduced to Korea in the 1st century BC, and remained the medium of formal writing and government until the late 19th century. Korean scholars adapted Chinese characters (known in Korean as Hanja) to write their own language, creating scripts known as idu, hyangchal, gugyeol

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 or Koryo-in (literally, 'Koryo/Goryeo people'), and call the language Koryo-mar. 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. In South Korea the Korean language is referred to by many names including hangugeo ('Korean language'), hangungmal ('Korean speech') and urimal ('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), while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as gugeo, 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 Joseonmal, or more formally, Joseoneo. This is taken from the North Korean name for Korea (Joseon), a name retained from the Joseon period 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

Comparison of Japanese and Korean Korean is a member of the Koreanic family along with the Jeju language. Some linguists have included it in the Altaic family, but the core Altaic proposal itself has lost most of its prior support. 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. 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 and Roy Andrew Miller. Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list. 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. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning 'hemp'. 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. Hudson & Robbeets (2020) suggested that there are traces of a pre-Nivkh substratum in Korean. According to the hypothesis, ancestral varieties of Nivkh (also known as Amuric) were once distributed on the Korean Peninsula before the arrival of Koreanic speakers.

Korean phonology Spoken Korean (adult man): 구매자는 판매자에게 제품 대금으로 20달러를 지급하여야 한다. gumaejaneun panmaejaege jepum daegeumeuro isip dalleoreul ($20) jigeuphayeoya handa. "The buyer must pay the seller $20 for the product."lit. [the buyer] [to the seller] [the product] [in payment] [twenty dollars] [have to pay] [do] 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. Consonants Bilabial Alveolar Alveolo-palatal Velar Glottal Nasal ㅁ /m/ ㄴ /n/ ㅇ /ŋ/[A] Plosive/Affricate plain ㅂ /p/ ㄷ /t/ ㅈ /t͡s/ or /t͡ɕ/ ㄱ /k/ tense ㅃ /p͈/ ㄸ /t͈/ ㅉ /t͡s͈/ or /t͡ɕ͈/ ㄲ /k͈/ aspirated ㅍ /pʰ/ ㅌ /tʰ/ ㅊ /t͡sʰ/ or /t͡ɕʰ/ ㅋ /kʰ/ Fricative plain ㅅ /s/ or /ɕ/ ㅎ /h/ tense ㅆ /s͈/ or /ɕ͈/ Approximant /w/[B] /j/[B] Liquid ㄹ /l/ or /ɾ/ .skin-vector-2022 .skin-vector-2022 .references[data-mw-group=upper-alpha].references[data-mw-group=upper-roman].references[data-mw-group=lower-alpha].references[data-mw-group=lower-greek].references[data-mw-group=lower-roman]div .referencesdiv .referencesdiv .referencesdiv .referencesdiv

Korean 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 sentence structure or basic form of a Korean sentence is subject–object–verb (SOV), but the verb is the only required and immovable element and word order is highly flexible, as in many other agglutinative languages. Question .interlinear .bold.interlinear .smallcaps가게에gage-estore-LOC가셨어요?ga-syeoss-eo-yogo-HON.PAST-CONJ-POL가게에 가셨어요?gage-e ga-syeoss-eo-yostore-LOC go-HON.PAST-CONJ-POL'Did [you] go to the store?' Response 예/네.ye/neAFF예/네.ye/neAFF'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 Korean 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 so

The oldest Korean dictionary (1920) 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. To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages. More recent loanwords are dominated by English. In South Korea, it is widely believed that North Korea wanted to emphasize the use of unique Korean expressions in its language and eliminate the influence of foreign languages. However, according to researchers such as Jeon Soo-tae, who has seen first-hand data from North Korea, the country has reduced the number of difficult foreign words in a similar way to South Korea. In 2021, Moon Sung-guk of Kim Il Sung University in North Korea wrote in his thesis that Kim Jong Il had said that vernacularized Sino-Korean vocabulary should be used as it is, not modified. "A language is in constant interaction with other languages, and in the process it is constantly being developed and enriched," he said. According to the paper, Kim Jong Il argued that academic terms used in the natural sciences and engineering, such as 콤퓨터 (k'omp'yut'ŏ; 'computer') and 하드디스크 (hadŭdisŭk'ŭ; 'hard disk') should remain in the names of their inventors, and that the word 쵸콜레트 (ch'ok'ollet'ŭ; 'chocolate') should not be replaced because it had been used for so long. South Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the 표준국어대사전 (Standard Korean Language Dictionary), and North Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the 조선말대사전 (Korean Language Dictionary). Sino-Korean Sino-Korean vocabulary Number Sino-Korean cardinal numbers Native Korean cardinal numbers Hangul Hanja Romanization Hangul Romanization 1 일 一 il 하나 hana 2 이 二 i 둘 dul 3 삼 三 sam 셋 set 4 사 四 sa 넷 net 5 오 五 o 다섯 daseot 6 육, 륙 六 yuk, ryuk 여섯 yeoseot 7 칠 七 chil 일곱 ilgop

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 third-person singular pronoun and had no grammatical gender. Its origin causes 그녀 never to be used in spoken Korean but appearing only in writing. To have a more complete understanding of the intricacies of gender in Korean, 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 that 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 the models to better understand the misogynistic conditions that shaped the ways that men and women use the language. Korean's lack of grammatical gender makes it different from most European languages. Rather, gendered differences in Korean can be observed through formality, intonation, word choice, etc. However, one can still find stronger contrasts between genders within Korean speech. Some examples of this can be seen in: (1) the 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. Between two people of asymmetric status in Korean society, people tend t

The Latin alphabet used in romanization on road signs, for foreigners in South Korea Road Name Address sign in Hangul and Latin script in South Korea Main articles: Hangul, Hanja, and Korean Braille Hangul consonant and vowel tables Modern Korean is written with an alphabet script, known as Hangul in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea. The Korean mixed script, combining Hanja and Hangul, is still used to a certain extent in South Korea, but that method is slowly declining in use even though students learn Hanja in school. Below are charts of the letters of the Korean alphabet and their Revised Romanization (RR) and canonical International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) values: Consonants Hangul ㄱ ㄲ ㄴ ㄷ ㄸ ㄹ ㅁ ㅂ ㅃ ㅅ ㅆ ㅇ ㅈ ㅉ ㅊ ㅋ ㅌ ㅍ ㅎ RR g kk n d tt r (initial), l (final) m b pp s ss — (initial), ng (final) j jj ch k t p h IPA k k͈ n t t͈ ɾ (initial), ɭ (final) m p p͈ s s͈ ∅ (initial), ŋ (final) t͡ɕ t͡ɕ͈ t͡ɕʰ kʰ tʰ pʰ h Vowels Hangul 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 Chinese

Main articles: Korean dialects and Koreanic languages Korean dialect zones Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal (말; lit. ''speech''), saturi (사투리), or bangeon (방언; 方言)). South Korean authors claim that the standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) 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), but since 1966, North Korea officially states that its standard is based on the Pyongyang speech. All dialects of Korean are similar to one another and largely are mutually intelligible (with the exception of dialect-specific phrases or nonstandard vocabulary unique to dialects) though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be generally considered a separate language. The Yukjin dialect in the far northeast is also quite distinctive. One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of the Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, but 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, and others are highly innovative. Kang Yoonjung & Han Sungwoo (2013), Kim Mi-Ryoung (2013), and Cho Sunghye (2017) 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 Jiyoun, Kim Sahyang & Cho Taehong (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 con

North–South differences in the Korean language The language used in the North and the South exhibit 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 modified Hangul (what the Korean characters would be if one were to write the word as pronounced). Word .tooltip-dottedRR Meaning Pronunciation North South RR MR Chosŏn'gŭl 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 Korean spelling alphabet 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

Korean diaspora 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. In 2001, Korean was the fourth most popular foreign language in China, following English, Japanese, and Russian. 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 Highway sign in Korean,Reunification Highway, Pyongyang, Korea Highway sign in Korean and English,Gyeongbu Expressway, Daegu, Korea Highway sign in Korean and Chinese,Hunwu Expressway, Yanbian, China 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; Sahoegwahagwŏn ŏhagyŏn'guso). In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of 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 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 empl

Korean 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." 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 was dominated by Korean American heritage language students; in 2007, these students 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, which they attribute to rising popularity of South Korean music and television shows. In 2018, it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities. Testing There are two widely used tests of Korean as a foreign language: the Korean Language Ability Test (KLAT) 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 firs

From Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Korean (South Korean standard): 모든Modeun인간은inganeun태어날taeeonal때부터ttaebuteo자유로우며jayuroumyeo그geu존엄과joneomgwa권리에gwollie있어isseo동등하다.dongdeunghada.인간은Inganeun천부적으로cheonbujeogeuro이성과iseonggwa양심을yangsimeul부여받았으며buyeobadasseumyeo서로seoro형제애의hyeongjeaeui정신으로jeongsineuro행동하여야haengdonghayeoya한다.handa.모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유로우며 그 존엄과 권리에 있어 동등하다. 인간은 천부적으로 이성과 양심을 부여받았으며 서로 형제애의 정신으로 행동하여야 한다.Modeun inganeun taeeonal ttaebuteo jayuroumyeo geu joneomgwa gwollie isseo dongdeunghada. Inganeun cheonbujeogeuro iseonggwa yangsimeul buyeobadasseumyeo seoro hyeongjeaeui jeongsineuro haengdonghayeoya handa.All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.