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{{Short description|Language spoken in Korea}}{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2020}}

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(South Korea){{IPA-ko>tso.sʌn.maɭYEAR=1994 LOCATION=BERLIN PAGE=26 ACCESS-DATE=27 APRIL 2023, (North Korea)| states = Korea| ethnicity = Koreans81.109730|2}} million| date = 2022| ref = e27| familycolor = AltaicKoreanic languages>KoreanicProto-Koreanic language>Proto-Koreanic| ancestor2 = Old Korean| ancestor3 = Middle Korean| dialects = see Korean dialects| sign = South Korean standard language>Pyojuneo (South Korea)North Korean standard language>Munhwaŏ (North Korea)Hangul>Hangul / chosŏn'gŭl (Korean script); Hanja / hancha (auxiliary script for disambiguation [South Korea], historical in North Korea)South Korea}}{{flag|North Korea}}China}} (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)

• National Institute of Korean Language()
• The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science()
• China Korean Language Regulatory Commission( / )

{edih}| iso1 = ko| iso2 = kor| iso3 = kor| lingua = 45-AAA-a| map = Idioma coreano.png| notice = IPA| glotto = kore1280| glottorefname = Korean}}{{Culture of Korea}}Korean (South Korean: }}, hangugeo; North Korean: }}, chosŏnmal) is the native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Korean descent.{{efn|Measured as of 2020. The estimated 2020 combined population of North and South Korea was about 77 million.}} It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea. The language has notable differences in each of the Koreas, in part owing to different official standardizations of the language. They are still largely mutually intelligible, however. South Korean newspaper Daily NK has claimed North Korea criminalizes the use of the South's standard language with the death penalty,NEWS, Daily NK obtains the full text of the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act,weblink 27 April 2023, 23 March 2023, 26 April 2023,weblink live, and South Korean education and media often portray the North's language as alien and uncomfortable.NEWS, "북한말, 낯설고 과격하기만 하다고요? 그건 착각입니다",weblink 28 April 2023, 노컷뉴스, 24 August 2019, 28 April 2023,weblink live, Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture, and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of Central Asia.BOOK,weblink A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An ecological perspective, Hölzl, Andreas, 2018-08-29, Language Science Press, 9783961101023, 25, 13 December 2020, 6 November 2023,weblink live, The language has a few extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not mutually intelligible. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in contemporary Manchuria. The hierarchy of the society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to a system of speech levels and honorifics indicative of the formality of any given situation.Modern Korean is written in the Korean script ({{Korean |hangul = 한글 |rr = Hangul |labels = no }} in South Korea, {{Korean |hangul = 조선글 |rr = Chosŏn'gŭl |labels = no }} in North Korea), a system developed during the 15th century for that purpose, although it did not become the primary script until the 20th century. The script uses 24 basic letters (jamo) and 27 complex letters formed from the basic ones. When first recorded in historical texts, Korean was only a spoken language; all written records were maintained in Hanmun or classical Chinese along with invented phonetic scripts like as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. Later, written Chinese characters adapted to the Korean language, Hanja (), were used to write the language for most of Korea's history and are still used to a limited extent in South Korea, most prominently in the humanities and the study of historical texts.Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of Korean culture have spread to other countries through globalization and cultural exports. As such, interest in Korean language acquisition (as a foreign language) is also generated by longstanding alliances, military involvement, and diplomacy, such as between South Korea–United States and China–North Korea since the end of World War II and the Korean War. Along with other languages such as Chinese and Arabic, Korean is ranked at the top difficulty level for English speakers by the United States Department of Defense.

History

{{See also|Origin of Hangul}}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.JOURNAL, Janhunen, Juha, 2010, Reconstructing the Language Map of Prehistorical Northeast Asia, Studia Orientalia, ... there are strong indications that the neighbouring Baekje state (in the southwest) was predominantly Japonic-speaking until it was linguistically Koreanized., 108, JOURNAL, Vovin, Alexander, 2013, From Koguryo to Tamna: Slowly riding to the South with speakers of Proto-Korean, Korean Linguistics, 15, 2, 222–240, 10.1075/kl.15.2.03vov, 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.JOURNAL, Whitman, John, 2011-12-01, Northeast Asian Linguistic Ecology and the Advent of Rice Agriculture in Korea and Japan, Rice, 4, 3, 149–158, 1939-8433, 10.1007/s12284-011-9080-0, free, 2011Rice....4..149W, Since the establishment of two independent governments, 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

(File:The oldest Korean dictionary.jpg|left|thumb|The oldest Korean dictionary (1920))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.BOOK, Kim-Renaud, Young-Key, The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure, 1997, University of Hawaii Press, 9780824817237, 15,weblink 16 May 2018, 11 January 2023,weblink live, WEB, 알고 싶은 한글,weblink live,weblink 18 February 2020, 4 December 2017, National Institute of Korean Language, ko, He felt that Hanja was inadequate to write Korean and that caused its very restricted use; Hangul was designed to either aid in reading Hanja or to replace Hanja entirely. Introduced in the document , it was called (colloquial script) and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea. Hangul was widely used by all the Korean classes but was often treated as ("script for women") and disregarded by privileged elites, and Hanja was regarded as ("true text"). Consequently, official documents were always written in Hanja during the Joseon era. Since few people could 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 had exchanged Hangul letters with slaves, which suggests a high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era.WEB,weblink Archive of Joseon's Hangul letters – A letter sent from Song Gyuryeom to slave Guityuk (1692), 9 September 2018, 9 September 2018,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180909112530weblink">weblink Today Hanja is largely unused in everyday life because of its inconvenience but it is still important for historical and linguistic studies. Neither South Korea nor North Korea opposes the learning of Hanja, but they are no longer officially used in North Korea 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 or (literally, "Koryo/Goryeo persons"), and call the language . 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.According to Google's NGram English corpus of 2015, WEB,weblink Google Ngram Viewer, In South Korea the Korean language is referred to by many names including ("Korean language"), ("Korean speech") and ("our language"); "" is taken from the name of the Korean Empire ({{korean|대한제국|大韓帝國|Daehan Jeguk|labels=no}}). The "" () in and is derived from Samhan, in reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula),WEB, 이기환, [이기환의 흔적의 역사]국호논쟁의 전말…대한민국이냐 고려공화국이냐,weblink Kyunghyang Shinmun, 2 July 2018, ko, 30 August 2017, 12 August 2019,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20190812154305weblink">weblink live, WEB, 이덕일, [이덕일 사랑] 대~한민국, 조선닷컴, The Chosun Ilbo,weblink 2 July 2018, ko, 18 February 2020,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20200218134345weblink">weblink live, while "" and "" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as , literally "national language". This name is based on the same Han characters ( "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 , or more formally, . 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 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 |date=December 2014}}

Classification

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.{{sfnp|Cho|Whitman|2020|pp=11–12}} 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.JOURNAL, Vovin, Alexander, June 2017, Koreanic loanwords in Khitan and their importance in the decipherment of the latter, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 70, 2, 207–215, 10.1556/062.2017.70.2.4,weblink 20 September 2019, 24 February 2021,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20210224042740weblink">weblink live, 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{{harvp|Martin|1966}}, {{harvp|Martin|1990}} and Roy Andrew Miller.e.g. {{harvp|Miller|1971}}, {{harvp|Miller|1996}} Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list.BOOK, Starostin, Sergei,weblink Altaiskaya problema i proishozhdeniye yaponskogo yazika, Nauka, 1991, Moscow, ru, The Altaic Problem and the Origins of the Japanese Language, 22 November 2012, 9 May 2021,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20210509142850weblink">weblink live, 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.{{sfnp|Vovin|2008}} A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning "hemp".{{harvp|Whitman|1985|p=232}}, also found in {{harvp|Martin|1966|p=233}} 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.{{sfnp|Vovin|2008|pp=211–212|ps=.}}{{verify source|date=September 2023|reason=The Vovin 2008 source that I found for the other SFN does not have 200+ pages.}} (See Classification of the Japonic languages or Comparison of Japanese and Korean for further details on a possible relationship.)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.JOURNAL, Hudson, Mark J., Mark J. Hudson, Robbeets, Martine, Martine Robbeets, 2020, Archaeolinguistic Evidence for the Farming/Language Dispersal of Koreanic, Evolutionary Human Sciences, en, 2, e52, 10.1017/ehs.2020.49, 37588366, 10427439, free,

Phonology

(File:Ko-구매자는 판매자에게 제품 대금으로 20달러를 지급하여야 한다.ogg|thumb|right|Spoken Korean (adult man):{{Break}}구매자는 판매자에게 제품 대금으로 20달러를 지급하여야 한다.{{Break}}gumaejaneun panmaejaege jepum daegeumeuro isip dalleoreul ($20) jigeuphayeoya handa.{{Break}}"The buyer must pay the seller $20 for the product."{{Break}}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 {{IPA|/j, w, ɰ/}} and final coda {{IPA|/p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l/}} surrounding a core vowel.

Consonants{| class"wikitable" style"text-align:center;"

! colspan="2" |!Bilabial!Alveolar!Alveolo-palatal!Velar!Glottal! rowspan="3" |Plosive/Affricate!plaint͡ɕ}}! tense/t͡ɕ͈/}}! aspirated/t͡ɕʰ/}}! colspan=2|Nasalonly at the end of a syllable}}|! rowspan=2|Fricative! plain|/sʰ/}}||! tense|! colspan=2|Approximantw}}{{efn-uaThe semivowels {{IPA/j/}} are represented in Korean writing by modifications to vowel symbols (see below).}}|j}}{{efn-ua|name=semivowels}}||! colspan=2|Liquid|ɾ}}|||{{notelist|group=upper-alpha}}

Assimilation and allophony

The IPA symbol {{angbr IPA|◌͈}} ({{unichar|0348|cwith=◌}}) is used to denote the tensed consonants {{IPA|/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.{{IPA|/s/}} is aspirated {{IPA|[sʰ]}} and becomes an alveolo-palatal {{IPA|[ɕʰ]}} before {{IPA|[j]}} or {{IPA|[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, {{IPA|/s/}} changes to {{IPA|/t/}} (example: beoseot () 'mushroom').{{IPA|/h/}} may become a bilabial {{IPA|[ɸ]}} before {{IPA|[o]}} or {{IPA|[u]}}, a palatal {{IPA|[ç]}} before {{IPA|[j]}} or {{IPA|[i]}}, a velar {{IPA|[x]}} before {{IPA|[ɯ]}}, a voiced {{IPA|[ɦ]}} between voiced sounds, and a {{IPA|[h]}} elsewhere.{{IPA|/p, t, t͡ɕ, k/}} become voiced {{IPA|[b, d, d͡ʑ, ɡ]}} between voiced sounds.{{IPA|/m, n/}} frequently denasalize at the beginnings of words.{{IPA|/l/}} becomes alveolar flap {{IPA|[ɾ]}} between vowels, and {{IPA|[l]}} or {{IPA|[ɭ]}} at the end of a syllable or next to another {{IPA|/l/}}. A written syllable-final , when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with ), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes {{IPA|[ɾ]}}.Traditionally, {{IPA|/l/}} was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before {{IPA|[j]}}, and otherwise became {{IPA|/n/}}. However, the inflow of western loanwords changed the trend, and now word-initial {{IPA|/l/}} (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either {{IPA|[ɾ]}} or {{IPA|[l]}}.All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) at the end of a word are pronounced with no audible release, {{IPA|[p̚, t̚, k̚]}}.Plosive sounds {{IPA|/p, t, k/}} become nasals {{IPA|[m, n, ŋ]}} before nasal sounds.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.The traditional prohibition of word-initial {{IPA|/ɾ/}} became a morphological rule called "initial law" () in the pronunciation standards of South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial {{IPA|/ɾ/}} in the pronunciation standards of North Korea. For example,

• "labor" (å‹žå‹•) – north: rodong (), south: nodong ()
• "history" (歷史) – north: ryeoksa (), south: yeoksa ()
• "female" (女子) – north: nyeoja (), south: yeoja ()

Vowels

File:Korean_short_vowel_chart.svg|thumb|Short vowelShort vowelFile:Korean_long_vowel_chart.svg|thumb|Long vowelLong vowel{| class="wikitable"!Monophthongs/a/}}{{refNOTE}}   {{IPA/o/}}   {{IPA/ɯ/}}   {{IPA/e/}} ,  {{IPA/ø/}} ,  {{IPA!Vowels preceded by intermediaries,or diphthongs/ja/}}   {{IPA/jo/}}   {{IPA/je/}} ,  {{IPA/we/}} ,  {{IPA/wa/}} ,  {{IPA/wÊŒ/}} {{note|ㅏ|NOTE}} is closer to a near-open central vowel ({{IPA|[ɐ]}}), though {{angbr|a}} is still used for tradition.

Morphophonemics

Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun () and -i/-ga ().Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (), -euro/-ro (), -eseo/-seo (), -ideunji/-deunji () and -iya/-ya ().

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

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"|+ Korean particles! After a consonant !! After a ㄹ (rieul) !! After a vowel -ui () -eun () -neun ()-i () -ga () -eul () -reul () -gwa () -wa ()-euro () > -ro ()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 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:"Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation)|ga-syeo-sseo-yoRoot verb>verb root) ()] + [honorific ()] + [Grammatical conjugation (contraction rule)()] + [Past tense>past ()] + [conjunctive ()] + [polite marker ()]{||Response:"Yes."|ye (or ne)|yesThe 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, such as older people, teachers, and employers.{{sfnp|Sohn|2006}}

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.BOOK, Choo, Miho, 2008, Using Korean: A Guide to Contemporary Usage, Cambridge University Press, 3, 978-1-139-47139-8, 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 (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix ("che", Hanja: ), which means "style".The three levels with high politeness (very formally polite, formally polite, casually polite) are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (), whereas the two levels with low politeness (formally impolite, casually impolite) are banmal () 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 (). 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.{{sfnp|Sohn|2006}}{{page needed|date=January 2022}}

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 geu-nyeo (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.{{sfnp|Cho|2006|p=189}}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.{{sfnp|Cho|2006|pp=189–198}}Between two people of asymmetric status in 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.JOURNAL, Kim, Minju, Cross Adoption of language between different genders: The case of the Korean kinship terms hyeng and enni, Proceedings of the Fifth Berkeley Women and Language Conference, Berkeley, Berkeley Women and Language Group, 1999, 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. That structure has tended to separate the roles of women from those of men.JOURNAL, Palley, Marian Lief, Women's Status in South Korea: Tradition and Change, Asian Survey, 30, 12, December 1990, 1136–1153, 10.2307/2644990, 2644990, Cho and Whitman (2019) explain that the different categories like male and female in social conditions influence Korean's features. What they noticed was the word jagi (자기). Before explaining the word jagi, one thing that needs to be clearly distinguished is that jagi can be used in a variety of situations, not all of which mean the same thing, but they depend 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, young Koreans use the word jagi to their lovers or spouses regardless of gender. Among middle-aged women, the word jagi is sometimes used to call 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 bakkat-yangban (바깥양반 'outside' 'nobleman'), but a husband introduces his wife as an-saram (안사람 an 'inside' 'person'). Also in kinship terminology, we (외 'outside' or 'wrong') is added for maternal grandparents, creating oe-harabeoji and oe-hal-meoni (외할아버지, 외할머니 'grandfather and grandmother'), with different lexicons for males and females and patriarchal society revealed. Further, in interrogatives to an addressee of equal or lower status, Korean men tend to use haennya (했냐? 'did it?')' in aggressive masculinity, but women use haenni (했니? 'did it?')' as a soft expression.{{sfnp|Brown|2015}} However, there are exceptions. Korean society used the question endings -ni (니) and -nya (냐), the former prevailing among women and men until a few decades ago. In fact, -nya (냐) was characteristic of the Jeolla and Chungcheong dialects. However, since the 1950s, large numbers of people have moved to Seoul from Chungcheong and Jeolla, and they began to influence the way men speak. Recently, women also have used the -nya (냐). As for -ni (니), it is usually used toward people to be polite even to someone not close or younger. As for -nya (냐), it is used mainly to close friends regardless of gender.Like the case of "actor" and "actress", it also is possible to add a gender prefix for emphasis: biseo (비서 'secretary') is sometimes combined with yeo (여 'female') to form yeo-biseo (여비서 'female secretary'); namja (남자 'man') often is added to ganhosa (간호사 'nurse') to form namja-ganhosa (남자간호사 'male nurse').JOURNAL, Song, Sooho, 2022, Analysis of Gender Pronoun Errors in Korean Speakers' English Speech,weblink English Teaching, 77, 1, 7–8, 10.15858/engtea.77.1.202203.21, 247804299, 21 December 2023, 21 December 2023,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20231221211809weblink">weblink live, Another crucial difference between men and women is the tone and pitch of their voices and how they affect the perception of politeness. Men learn to use an authoritative falling tone; 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. Compared to women who use a rising tone in conjunction with -yo (요), they are not perceived to be as polite as men. The -yo (요) also indicates uncertainty since the ending has many prefixes that indicate uncertainty and questioning. The deferential ending does not have any prefixes and do can indicate uncertainty. The -hamnida (합니다) ending is the most polite and formal form of Korea, and the -yo (요) ending is less polite and formal, which causes the perception of women as less professional.{{sfnp|Brown|2015}}{{sfnp|Cho|2006|pp=193–195}}Hedges soften an assertion, and their function as a euphemism in women's speech in terms of discourse difference. Women are expected to add nasal sounds neyng, neym, ney-e, more frequently than men do in the last syllable. Often, l is often added in women's for female stereotypes and so igeolo (이거로 'this thing') becomes igeollo (이걸로 'this thing') to refer to a lack of confidence and passive construction.{{sfnp|Sohn|2006}}{{page needed|date=January 2022}}Women use more linguistic markers such as exclamation eomeo (어머 'oh') and eojjeom (어쩜 'what a surprise') than men do in cooperative communication.{{sfnp|Brown|2015}}

Vocabulary

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).{{harvp|Sohn|2001|loc=Section 1.5.3 "Korean vocabulary", pp. 12–13}} To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages.{{sfnp|Lee|Ramsey|2011|p=6}} 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.NEWS, 남북의 언어: 종결편 이장균 기자,weblink 27 April 2023, 27 April 2023,weblink live, 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 {{Korean|hangul=콤퓨터|labels=no}} ({{Transliteration|ko|mr|compyutŏ}}; computer) and {{Korean|hangul=하드디스크|labels=no}} ({{Transliteration|ko|mr|hadǔdisǔkǔ}}; hard disk) should remain in the names of their inventors, and that the word {{Korean|hangul=쵸콜레트|labels=no}} ({{Transliteration|ko|mr|ch'okoletǔ}}; chocolate) should not be replaced because it had been used for so long.WEB, 위대한 령도자 김정일동지께서 어휘정리사업이 편향없이 진행되도록 이끌어주신 불멸의 령도,weblink 27 April 2023, 26 December 2022,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20221226081751weblink">weblink live, 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

{| class="wikitable floatright"! rowspan="2" | Number! colspan="2" | Sino-Korean cardinals! colspan="2" | Native Korean cardinals! Hangul! Romanization! Hangul! Romanization1 (number)>1ilhana2 (number)>2idul3 (number)>3samset4 (number)>4sanet5 (number)>5odaseot6 (number)>6yuk, ryukyeoseot7 (number)>7chililgop8 (number)>8palyeodeol9 (number)>9guahop10 (number)>10sipyeolSino-Korean vocabulary consists of:

• words directly borrowed from written Chinese, and
• compounds coined in Korea or Japan and read using the Sino-Korean reading of Chinese characters.

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.The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50–60%. In 2006 the same author gives an even higher estimate of 65%.{{sfnp|Sohn|2006|p=5}} 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%.NEWS, Kim, Jin-su, 2009-09-11, ko:우리말 70%가 한자말? 일제가 왜곡한 거라네, ko, Our language is 70% hanja? Japanese Empire distortion, The Hankyoreh,weblink 2009-09-11, 11 October 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20171011114508weblink">weblink live, The dictionary mentioned is BOOK, 1992, ko:우리말 큰 사전, Seoul, Hangul Hakhoe, 27072560,

Western loanwords

{{See also|Konglish}}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 (e.g. ((wikt:アルバイト|areubaiteu)) "part-time job", (allereugi) "allergy", (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" > dāsu > daseu. However, most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current "Hangulization" rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. 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.JOURNAL, Choo, Sungjae, The use of Hanja (Chinese characters) in Korean toponyms: Practices and issues, Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, 2016, 51, 13–24, 10.34158/ONOMA.51/2016/2, free, Because of such a prevalence of English in modern South Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or "Konglish" (), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the South Korean dialect of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary).{{sfnp|Sohn|2006|p=87}} However, due to North Korea's isolation, such influence is lacking in North Korean speech.

Writing system

{{Korean writing}}File:Yeongdong Expressway Entrance Sign in Wonju Interchange.JPG|thumb|The Latin alphabet used in romanization on road signsroad signs{{See also|Hangul consonant and vowel tables}}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.BOOK, Hannas, Wm C., Asia's Orthographic Dilemma, University of Hawaii Press, 978-0-8248-1892-0, 57,weblink 20 September 2016, 1997, 6 November 2023,weblink live, BOOK, Chen, Jiangping, Multilingual Access and Services for Digital Collections, ABC-CLIO, 978-1-4408-3955-9, 66,weblink 20 September 2016, 2016-01-18, 6 November 2023,weblink live, MAGAZINE, Invest Korea Journal, 2005, 23,weblink 20 September 2016, Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, They later devised three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters: Hyangchal, Gukyeol and Idu. These systems were similar to those developed later in Japan and were probably used as models by the Japanese., Invest Korea Journal, 6 November 2023,weblink live, {{page needed|date=September 2023}}NEWS, Korea Now, 1 July 2000, 29,weblink 20 September 2016, The Korea Herald, 6 November 2023,weblink live, Few people in the lower classes had the opportunity to receive an education, and they found it extremely difficult to learn how to write in Chinese characters due to the fundamental disparities between the Korean and Chinese languages and the sheer amount of characters that needed to be taught. To assuage that problem, King Sejong ({{reign|1418|1450}}) created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people.BOOK, Koerner, E. F. K., Asher, R. E., Concise History of the Language Sciences: From the Sumerians to the Cognitivists, Elsevier, 2014-06-28, 54,weblink 13 October 2016, 978-1-4832-9754-5, 15 January 2023,weblink live, The Korean alphabet was denounced and looked down upon by the yangban aristocracy, who deemed it too easy to learn,WEB,weblink Korean Literature in Translation – Chapter Four: It All Changes! The Creation of Hangul, Montgomery, Charles, 19 January 2016, KTLit, 2016-04-20, Hangul was sometimes known as the "language of the inner rooms," (a dismissive term used partly by yangban in an effort to marginalize the alphabet), or the domain of women., 8 May 2016,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160508055319weblink">weblink live, BOOK, Chan, Tak-hung Leo, One into Many: Translation and the Dissemination of Classical Chinese Literature, Rodopi, 978-9042008151, 183,weblink 26 December 2016, en, 2003, but it gained widespread use among the common classMAGAZINE, Korea News Review, 1 January 1994,weblink 26 December 2016, Korea Herald, Incorporated, en, Korea Newsreview, 6 November 2023,weblink live, and was widely used to print popular novels which were enjoyed by the common class.BOOK, Lee, Kenneth B., Korea and East Asia: The Story of a Phoenix, Greenwood Publishing Group, 978-0-275-95823-7, 90,weblink 26 December 2016, en, 1997, With growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Gabo Reformists' push, and the promotion of Hangul in schools,JOURNAL, Silva, David J., 2008, Missionary Contributions toward the Revaluation of Han'geul in Late 19th Century Korea, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 192, 57–74, 10.1.1.527.8160, 10.1515/ijsl.2008.035, 43569773,weblink 3 March 2016,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160303212333weblink">weblink in 1894, Hangul displaced Hanja as Korea's national script.WEB,weblink Korean History, Korea.assembly.go.kr, 2016-04-26, Korean Empire, Edict No. 1 – All official documents are to be written in Hangul, and not Chinese characters., 4 February 2016,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20160204210419weblink">weblink live, Hanja are still used to a certain extent in South Korea, where they are sometimes combined with Hangul, but that method is slowly declining in use even though students learn Hanja in school.WEB, royalpalace.go.kr,weblink 2016-04-26, 현판 글씨들이 한글이 아니라 한자인 이유는?, ko,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170310060249weblink">weblink 2017-03-10,

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:{| class="wikitable"|+ Consonants! Hangul ! RR| g| kk| n| d| tt| r (initial), l (final)| m| b| pp| s| ss| silent (initial), ng (final)| j| jj| ch| k| t| p| h! IPAk}}k͈}}n}}t}}t͈}}ɾ (initial)}}, {{IPA|l (final)}}m}}p}}p͈}}s}}s͈}}∅ (initial), ŋ (final)}}t͡ɕ}}t͡ɕ͈}}t͡ɕʰ}}kʰ}}tʰ}}pʰ}}h}}{| class="wikitable"|+ Vowels! Hangul ! RR| i| e| oe| ae| a| o| u| eo| eu| ui| ye| yae| ya| yo| yu| yeo| wi| we| wae| wa| wo! IPAi}}e}}ø}}, {{IPA|we}}ɛ}}a}}o}}u}}ʌ}}ɯ}}ɰi}}je}}jɛ}}ja}}jo}}ju}}jʌ}}ɥi}}, {{IPA|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 ( '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. However, the syllabic blocks are now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom, like English.

Dialects

File:Koreandialects.png|thumb|upright=1.36|Regional dialects of Koreandialects of Korean{{Cleanup|date=August 2023|reason=Section should be greatly shortened because it has its own article. Move info from here to that article, then replace with a brief summary of the other article|talk=Dialects section|section}}Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal () [literally 'speech'], saturi (), or bang'eon (). South Korean authors claim that 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), however since 1966 North Korea officially states that its standard is based on the Pyongyang speech.WEB, 전, 영선, 북한 언어문화의 변화양상과 전망,weblink 28 April 2023, 2 August 2023,weblink live, BOOK, Brown, Lucien, Yeon, Jaehoon, The handbook of Korean linguistics, 2015, 477, 484, Wiley-Blackwell, Malden, MA, 9781118371008, 1st, 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 generally considered a separate language.BOOK, Yang, Changyong, Revising the Language Map of Korea, 2019, Handbook of the Changing World Language Map, 1–15, Brunn, Stanley D, Cham, Springer International Publishing, 10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_110-1, 978-3-319-73400-2, O’Grady, William, Yang, Sejung, Hilton, Nanna Haug, Kang, Sang-Gu, Kim, So-Young, 188565336, Kehrein, Roland,weblink 26 September 2023, 2 November 2023,weblink live, JOURNAL, 김보향 (Kim Bo-hyang), August 2014, Osaka Ikuno-ku jiyeok jaeil-Jeju-in-ui Jeju bang'eon sayong siltae-e gwanhan yeon'gu, ko:오사카 이쿠노쿠 지역 재일제주인의 제주방언 사용 실태에 관한 연구, A Study on the Jeju Dialect Used by Jeju People Living in Ikuno-ku, Osaka, Japan, 영주어문 학술저널, 28, 120, Yeongju Language and Literature Academic Journal, 1598-9011,weblink 2023-09-25, 2 November 2023,weblink live, 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.{{harvp|Kang Yoonjung|Han Sungwoo|2013}}, {{harvp|Kim Mi-Ryoung|2013}}, and {{harvp|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;JOURNAL, Kang Yoonjung, Han Sungwoo, September 2013, Tonogenesis in early Contemporary Seoul Korean: A longitudinal case study, Lingua, 134, 62–74, 10.1016/j.lingua.2013.06.002, JOURNAL, Kim Mi-Ryoung, 2013, Tonogenesis in contemporary Korean with special reference to the onset-tone interaction and the loss of a consonant opposition, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133, 5 Supplement, 3570, 10.1121/1.4806535, 2013ASAJ..133.3570K, THESIS, Cho Sunghye, 2017, PhD, Development of pitch contrast and Seoul Korean intonation, University of Pennsylvania,weblinkweblink 2020-03-21, dead, however, {{harvp|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 conditioned change.JOURNAL, Choi Jiyoun, Kim Sahyang, Cho Taehong, October 22, 2020, An apparent-time study of an ongoing sound change in Seoul Korean: A prosodic account, PLOS ONE, 15, 10, e0240682, 10.1371/journal.pone.0240682, 2020PLoSO..1540682C, 33091043, 7580931, free, 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 {{IPA|/t͡ɕʌŋ.ɡu.d͡ʑi/}} (; jeongguji) but in Standard Korean, it is {{IPA|/puːt͡ɕʰu/}} (; buchu). This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present.WEB, 정(Jeong), 상도(Sangdo),weblink 도청도설 부추와 정구지, 31 March 2017, Kookje Newspaper, ko, 2 April 2021, 14 April 2021,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20210414142006weblink">weblink live, See also the Japanese–Koguryoic languages hypothesis.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.WEB,weblink 2016-01-18, Korean is virtually two languages, and that's a big problem for North Korean defectors, Public Radio International, 24 October 2021,weblink live, More information can be found on the page North-South differences in the Korean language.Meanwhile, in South Korea, some South Korean linguists and North Korean defectors have argued that South Korean media and education overemphasize or exaggerate the differences between North Korean and South Korean languages. At the 2014 National Conference of the Korean Language and Literature Association, Yonsei University professor Hong Yun-pyo argued that language differences between North and South Korea were exaggerated in the context of the Cold War.WEB, 홍, 윤표, 통일 시대를 위한 한국 어문학의 성찰과 모색,weblink 27 April 2023, 8 April 2023,weblink live, According to Hong, after the Korean War, words like dongmu(동무; comrade, friend) and inmin(인민; people) that had been in common use in South Korea before that disappeared, and if anyone used them, they could be reported to the authorities, which was important evidence of espionage. The language differences between the North and South continued to be exaggerated. The language of the North, the North Korean language, was used to promote anti-communist ideology. He even said that research on North Korean in South Korea "has not been done with actual language materials."Hong had numerous meetings with North Korean scholars for academic conferences and dictionary compilations, but he rarely encountered communication difficulties; rather, he was more likely to encounter communication difficulties with speakers of the Gyeongsang or Jeolla dialects.Journalist Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector, and Park No-pyeong, a North Korean defector who worked as a professor in North Korea, claimed that there are exaggerations, such as claiming that vocabulary that is unfamiliar to South Koreans but also unfamiliar to North Koreans is common in North Korea, or claiming vocabulary that is different from the North Korean standard as the standard in North Korea. For example, he said that there are rumors in South Korea that the word jeon-gu(전구; bulb) is called bural(불알; balls) in North Korea, which is not true.NEWS, 통일 위업에 필수적…누군가는 반드시 해야 할 소중한 일,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20200809202701weblink">weblink dead, 9 August 2020, 27 April 2023, NEWS, 주, 성하, 당신이 배운 것은 80% 이상 틀렸다. 너무나 황당한 방송과 국어사전, 북한말 퀴즈 실태,weblink 27 April 2023, 24 December 2022,weblink live, Most North Korean defectors spoke the dialect of their homeland, not the standard North Korean language, which has some similarities to the standard South Korean language, and it is believed that many did not even know the standard North Korean language when they arrived in South Korea.BOOK, 언어생활, 통일부, 15,weblink 27 April 2023, 27 April 2023,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20230427164135weblink">weblink live, In South Korea, the idea that there are linguistic differences between the languages of North and South Korea gained traction until the mid-to-late 2010s. However, as exploration of the actual language of North Korea has progressed, it has been argued that any differences in communication between the two Koreas stem from "cultural" differences, such as economic conditions and traditional ways of expression in certain regions.For example, North Korean defectors who have fled the country tend to have more direct communication habits that reveal their true feelings compared to South Korean language etiquette, which is prominent in defectors' hometowns but rare in other areas where defection is rare, such as Pyongyang.NEWS, 이, 혜원, 북한의 지역색,weblink 28 April 2023, Radio Free Asia, 28 April 2023,weblink live, 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.WEB, Korean Language,weblink 2021-01-22, Asia Society, en, 27 January 2021,weblink live, WEB, Han, JiEun,weblink 한국어 방언 제대로 알기_'한국어 대방언과 일반론, 18 March 2015, [Dokseo Newspaper], Korean, 5 April 2021, 14 April 2021,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20210414143401weblink">weblink live, 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, literally 'Cultural language'), to prevent the use of foul language by the people: 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."NEWS, 정(Jeong), 아란(Aran),weblink 북한, 사투리·외래어·한자어 배격…"고유한 평양말 쓰자", 12 May 2020, Yonhap News Agency, Korean, 26 November 2020, 28 January 2021,weblink live, 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.WEB, 이(Lee), 기갑(Kikab),weblink 표준어와 방언의 오늘과 내일, Korean, 26 November 2020, 6 November 2023,weblink live, Moreover, internationally, due to the increasing popularity of K-pop, the Seoul standard language has become more widely taught and used.The North Korean government has become increasingly wary of the Korean Wave, and as such, has been very wary of slangs that reflect South Korean culture since 2020.NEWS, "날 키운 건 당 아닌 장마당" BTS 춤추는 MZ세대, 北 체제 흔든다,weblink 27 April 2023, 27 April 2023,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20230427183344weblink">weblink live, In January 2023, North Korea adopted a law that could lead to public execution for excessive use of South Korean slang, which the North's government labeled as "puppet language" or "koeroemal (괴뢰말)." The word oppa(오빠, originally used by a woman who was the younger sibling in a sibling relationship to refer to a man who was older than her, but in South Korea, also became a way for a younger woman to refer to her male lover in a romantic relationship) was a prime example of this.{| class="wikitable"! Standard language! Locations of useSouth Korean standard language>Pyojuneo ()South Korea>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.North Korean standard language>Munhwaŏ ()North Korea>DPRK. Claimed politically by the North Korean government as "the language of Pyongyang(평양말)"," but linguistically it is believed to be primarily derived from the Seoul dialect. It also reflects language use in regions of North Korea outside of Pyongyang.LEE >FIRST1=IKSOP FIRST2=S. ROBERT DATE=1 JANUARY 2000 ISBN=978-0-7914-4832-8 LANGUAGE=EN ARCHIVE-DATE=6 NOVEMBER 2023 URL-STATUS=LIVE, {{page neededSCRIPT-TITLE=KO:남북한 언어 이질화와 그에 관련된 몇 문제 PAGE=23 ACCESS-DATE=27 APRIL 2023 ARCHIVE-URL=HTTPS://WEB.ARCHIVE.ORG/WEB/20230408060624/HTTPS://WWW.KOREAN.GO.KR/NKVIEW/NKLIFE/2001_1/2001_0101.PDF, live, ! Regional dialects! Locations of use and example compared to the standard language There are few clear boundaries between Korean dialects, andHamgyŏng dialect>Hamgyŏng/Northeastern(/)Rason>Rasŏn, most of Hamgyong Province region, northeast Pyongan Province>P'yŏngan, Ryanggang Province (North Korea), Jilin (China).

• Koreans who have heard the Hamgyŏng dialect describe it as similar in tone to the Gyeongsang and southern Yeongdong dialects.NEWS, ko:[공감세상] 삼척을 고향으로 대는 이유, The Hankyoreh, 주승현,weblink 27 April 2023, 29 August 2021, 27 April 2023,weblink live,
• It is also the most spoken dialect by North Korean defectors in South Korea, as about 80% of them are from Hamgyŏng Province.
• Koryo-mar, the moribund variety of Korean spoken mainly by elderly in Central Asia and Russia, is descended from the Northern Hamgyong Dialect, as well as the Yukchin Dialect.

* Honorific{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hamgyŏng! Ryukjinhasibsio)Habso(se))Habsyo)haeyo)Hao)Hao)

* Ordinary way of speaking (near Hamhung, Hyesan)

• The vowel 'ã…”(e)' is changed to 'ã…“(eo)'.
  • example: "Your daughter has come."{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hamgyŏnglang=kodangsinne ttal-i chaj-a wattso.|}}lang=kodangsinneo ttal-iga chaj-a wattseumme.|}}

• When calling a superior person, always put the ending 'ìš”(yo)' after the noun.
  • example: "Grandpa, come quickly."{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hamgyŏnglang=kohal-abeoji, ppalli oseyo.|}}lang=kokeul-abaneyo, ppalli oobso.|}}

• The ending '-니까(-nikka)' is changed to '-길래(-gilrae)'.
  • example: "Come early because you have to cultivate the field."{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hamgyŏnglang=kobat-eul maeya hanikka iljjig oneola.|}}lang=kobat-eu maeya hagilrae iljjig onala.|}}Pyongan dialect>P'yŏngan/Northwestern(/)Pyongan Province>P'yŏngan region, Pyongyang, Chagang Province>Chagang, northern North Hamgyŏng (North Korea), Liaoning (China)

• It is also the North Korean dialect best known to South Koreans. However, North Korean defectors also claim that South Koreans have less accurate knowledge of the dialect due to the long division.NEWS, 내래 ë°¥ 먹었지비? 평안·함경도 말 뒤섞인 엉터리,weblink 28 April 2023, 28 April 2023,weblink live,

* Honorific{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Pyonganlang=kohasibsio|}}lang=kohasi|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}

* Ordinary way of speaking

• The vowel 'ã…•(yeo)' is changed to'ã…”(e)'.
  • example: armpit{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Pyonganlang=kogyeodeulang-i|}}lang=kogedeulang-i|}}

• If a Sino-Korean word is preceded by a 'ㄹ(r)' pronunciation, it is pronounced as 'ã„´(n)'. At the same time, if 'ㄹ(r)' is followed by a diphthong containing the [j] sound, the [j] sound is dropped and pronounced as a short vowel.
• In the front part of the pure vocabulary of Middle Korean, [nj] changed to [j] in the Seoul dialect, which changed to [n] in this dialect.BOOK, ê¹€, 영배, 서북 ë°©ì–¸, 58,weblink 28 April 2023, 20 September 2022,weblink live,
  • example: 1) Summer 2) Seven 3) Trend{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Pyonganlang=koyeoleum|}}lang=koneoleum|}}lang=koilgob|}}lang=konilgub|}}lang=koryuhaeng|}}lang=konuhaeng|}}

• When representing the past, there is a dropout phenomenon of 'ã…†(ss/tt)'.
  • example: "I brought this."{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Pyonganlang=koigeo naega gajyeowass-eo.|}}lang=koigeo naega gaewaseo|}}Hwanghae dialect>Hwanghae/Central(/)Hwanghae Province>Hwanghae region (North Korea). Also in the Islands of Yeonpyeongdo, Baengnyeongdo and Daecheongdo in Ongjin County of Incheon.

• Some North Korean scholars, such as Kim Byung-je, do not recognize this distinction and consider the West-North and Gyeonggi dialects to be spoken in the region.WEB, 김병제,weblink Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 21 May 2023, 21 May 2023,weblink live,
• It is known that dialects are spoken that share characteristics of neighboring regional dialects. It is mainly known to have characteristics of both Gyeonggi and Pyeongan dialects.WEB, 황해도 ë°©ì–¸,weblink Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, 21 May 2023, 21 May 2023,weblink live,

* Honorific{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hwanghaelang=kohasibsio|}}lang=kohaseo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=koseubnikka|}}lang=koshikkya|}}

* Ordinary way of speaking

• Many of the vowels are pronounced as 'ã…£(i)'.
  • example: habit{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hwanghaelang=koseubgwan|}}lang=kosibgwan|}}

• '네(ne)' is used as a questionable form.
  • example: "Did you eat?"{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hwanghaelang=kobab meog-eossni?|}}lang=kobab meog-eossne?|}}

• '-누만(-numan)' is often used as an exclamation sentence.
  • example: "It got a lot colder"{| class="wikitable"

! Munhwaŏ! Hwanghaelang=komanh-i chuwojyeottguna|}}lang=komanh-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 dialect>Gyeonggi/Central(/)Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi Province>Gyeonggi region (South Korea), as well as Kaeseong, Gaepoong 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.WEB,weblinkweblink 2021-12-11, live, '서울 사투리?' 방송 인터뷰 모음.zip, YouTube, ko, 'Seoul dialect?' Collection of interviews.zip, {{cbignore}}WEB,weblinkweblink 2021-12-11, live, 90년대 말투는 서울 사투리가 아니다?...서울 사투리 특징 3가지, YouTube, ko, The way people talk in the 90s is not a Seoul dialect?...Three characteristics of Seoul dialect, {{cbignore}}
• 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.WEB,weblinkweblink 2021-12-11, live, 수원 사투리 쓰는 이창섭, YouTube, ko, Lee Chang-seop speaks Suwon dialect., {{cbignore}}
• 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 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 influenced from Chungcheong dialect. 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{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeonggilang=kohasibsio|}}| -lang=kohao|}}lang=kohau/heou|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}

*Ordinary way of speaking

• The vowel 'ㅏ(a)' is changed to 'ã…“(eo)', and 'ã…“(eo)' is changed to 'ã…¡(eu)'.
  • example: 1) "It hurts." 2) "It's dirty"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeonggilang=koapa|}}lang=koapeo|}}lang=kodeoleowo|}}lang=kodeuleowo|}}

• The vowel 'ㅏ(a)' and 'ã…“(eo)' are sometimes changed to 'ㅐ(ae)'.
  • example: 1) Sesame oil 2) "You look like a fool."{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeonggilang=kochamgileum|}}lang=kochaemgileum|}}lang=koneo babo gat-a|}}lang=koneo babo gat-ae|}}

• The vowel 'ã…—(o)' is mainly changed to 'ã…œ(u)'.
  • example: 1) "What are you doing?" 2) uncle{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeonggilang=komwohago iss-eo?|}}lang=komwoheogu iss-eo?|}}lang=kosamchon|}}lang=kosamchun|}}

• Dialects of Suwon and its surrounding areas.
  • The ending '~거야(geoya)' ends briefly with '~ê±°(geo)'
    • example: "Where will you go?"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Suwonlang=koeodi gal geoya?|}}lang=koeodi gal geo?|}}Gangwon dialect>Gangwon/Central(/)Yeongseo (Gangwon Province (South Korea)>Gangwon (South Korea)/Kangwon Province (North Korea) west of the Taebaek Mountains), Yeongdong region>Yeongdong (Gangwon Province (South Korea)/Kangwon Province (North 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{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Yeongseo! Yeongdonglang=kohasibsio|}}| -Lack of data-| -lang=kohao|}}lang=kohao, hau|}}lang=kohao|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}

*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 'ã… (yu)' is changed to 'ã…Ÿ(wi)' or 'ㆌ(yui)'.
  • example: Vacation{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gangwonlang=kohyuga|}}lang=kohwiga|}}

• Use '나(na)' a lot in questionable form.
  • example: "What are you doing lately?"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gangwon(Yeongdong)lang=koyojeum mwohae?|}}lang=koyojeum mwohana?|}}Chungcheong dialect>Chungcheong/Central(/)Daejeon, Sejong City>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{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Chungcheonglang=kohasibsio|}}lang=koc1=(충남 서해안 일부 지역)c2=(Some areas on the west coast of South Chungcheong Province)|}}lang=kohao|}}lang=kohage|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeyu (General)|}}

*Ordinary way of speaking

• The vowel 'ã…‘(ya)' that comes to the ending is changed to 'ã…•(yeo)'.
  • example: 1) "What are you talking about?" 2) "What are you doing?"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Chungcheonglang=komuseun soliya?|}}lang=komwon soliyeo~?|}}lang=komwohaneun geoya?|}}lang=komwoheoneun geoyeo~? / mwohaneun gyeo~?|}}

• 'ã…”(e)' is mainly changed to 'ã…£(i)', and 'ㅐ(ae)' is mainly changed to 'ã…‘(ya)' or 'ã…•(yeo)'.
  • example: 1) "He/She/They said he/she/they put it outside." 2) "Would you like to eat this?" 3) "Okay." {| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Chungcheonglang=kogeugeo bakkat-edaga dwossdae|}}lang=kogogeo bakkat-idaga dwossdya~|}}lang=koigeo meog-eullae?|}}lang=koyeogeo meog-eullyeo? / igeo meog-eulchyeo?|}}lang=kogeulae|}}lang=kogeulyeo~ / geulya~ / giyeo~ / gyeo~|}}

• The ending 'ê² (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."{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Chungcheonglang=konaega da chiwodwoss-eunikka gwaenchanhgettji|}}lang=konaega da chiwodwoss-eunikke gaenchanhgeottji|}}The rest is almost similar to the Gyeonggi dialect.Jeolla dialect>Jeolla/Southwestern(/)Gwangju, Jeolla Province>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{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Jeollalang=kohasibsio|}}lang=koheossiyo (General)|}}lang=kohao|}}lang=koheoso|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=koc1=(서중부 지역)c2=(West Central Region)|}}

*Ordinary way of speaking

• The vowel 'ã…¢(ui)' is pronounced as 'ã…¡(eu)'.
  • example: Doctor{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Jeollalang=kouisa|}}lang=koeusa|}}

• The ending '지(ji)' is pronounced as 'ì œ(je)'.
  • example: "That's right."{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Jeollalang=kogeuleohji|}}lang=kogeulaje / geulje|}}

• Use a lot of '잉(ing)' at the end of words.
  • example: "It's really pretty."{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Jeollalang=kojinjja yeppeuda|}}lang=kochammallo ippeudaing~ / chammallo gwin-ittdaing~|}}Famously, natives of Southern Jeolla pronounce certain combinations of vowels in Korean more softly, or omit the latter vowel entirely.{| class="wikitable" ! Pyojuneo! Jeollalang=koyoog-kak-nyeon|}}lang=koyoog-ag-nyeon|}}lang=komot-tae|}}lang=komo-dae|}}However, in the case of '모대(modae)', it is also observed in South Chungcheong Province and some areas of southern Gyeonggi Province close to South Chungcheong Province.The rest is almost similar to the Chungcheong dialect.Gyeongsang dialect>Gyeongsang/Southeastern(/)Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Gyeongsang Province>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{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeongsanglang=kohasibsio|}}lang=kohaiso|}}lang=kohao|}}lang=kohaso|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohaeye / haeyo|}}

*Ordinary way of speaking

• In question, 'ë…¸(no)' and '나(na)' are mainly used. Use '나(na)' when asking for a short answer, and 'ë…¸(no)' when asking for a specific answer.
  • example: 1) "Have you eaten?" 2) "What did you eat?"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeongsanglang=koneo bab meog-eott-eo?|}}lang=koni bab mutna?|}}lang=komwo meog-eoss-eo?|}}lang=komwo meog-eossno?|}}

• When talking, the sentence often ends with '~다 아이가(~da aiga)'.
  • example: "You said so."{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeongsanglang=konega geuleohge malhaettjanh-a.|}}lang=koniga geuleohge malhaettda aiga.|}}

• '~하다(~hada)' is pronounced as '~카다(~kada)'.
  • example: "Why are you doing that?"{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Gyeongsanglang=kowae geuleohge haneun geoya?|}}lang=kowa geu kaneunde?|}}The rest is almost similar to the Jeolla dialect.Jeju language>Jeju ()*Jeju Island/Jeju Province>Province (South Korea); sometimes classified as a separate language in the Koreanic language family

• example: Hangul{{sfnp|Cho|Whitman|2020}}{{page needed|date=January 2022}}
  • Pyojuneo: (Hangul)
  • Jeju: (Hongul)

* Honorific{| class="wikitable"

! Pyojuneo! Jejulang=kohasibsio|}}lang=kohobseo|}}lang=kohao|}}lang=kohobso|}}lang=kohaeyo|}}lang=kohobyeomasseum / yang / ye|}}

North–South differences

The language used in the North and the South exhibit differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.BOOK, Kanno, Hiroomi, Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan, 1987, Chōsengo o manabō, 『朝鮮語を学ぼう』, ja, Sanshūsha, Tokyo, 4-384-01506-2,

Pronunciation

In North Korea, palatalization of {{IPA|/si/}} is optional, and {{IPA|/t͡ɕ/}} can be pronounced {{IPA|[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).{| class="wikitable"! rowspan="3" | Word! rowspan="3" | {{Tooltip|RR|Revised Romanization}}! rowspan="3" | Meaning! colspan="6" | Pronunciation! colspan="3" | North! colspan="3" | South!{{Tooltip|RR|Revised Romanization}}!{{Tooltip|MR|McCune–Reischauer}}!Chosungul!{{Tooltip|RR|Revised Romanization}}!{{Tooltip|MR|McCune–Reischauer}}!Hangulgo|to read (continuative form)|ilko |ilkokko |ilkkonokgangYalu River>Amnok River|amrokgang |amrokkangnokkang |amnokkangnip|independence|dongrip |tongripnip |tongnipnnyeom|idea / sense / conception|gwallyeom |kwallyŏmnnyeom |kwannyŏmjeok|innovative|hyeoksinjjeok |hyŏksintchŏkjeok |hyŏksinjŏk

• In the North, similar pronunciation is used whenever the hanja "" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in , or .

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

Spelling

{{see also|Korean spelling alphabet}}Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.{| class="wikitable"!colspan="2" | Word!rowspan="2" | Meaning!rowspan="2" | Pronunciation (RR/MR)!rowspan="2" | Remarks!North spelling!South spellingHallasan|hallasan (hallasan)ll, the original Hangul spelling is kept in the North, whereas the Hangul is changed in the South.

Spelling and pronunciation

Basically, the standard languages of North and South Korea, including pronunciation and vocabulary, are both linguistically based on the Seoul dialect, but in North Korea, words have been modified to reflect the theories of scholars like Kim Tu-bong, who sought a refined language, as well as political needs. Some differences are difficult to explain in terms of political ideas, such as North Korea's use of the word rajio(라지오).:{| class="wikitable"! colspan="4" |Word! rowspan="2" |Meaning! rowspan="2" |Remarks! North spelling! North pronun.! South spelling! South pronun.r's are dropped if followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.r's are demoted to an n if not followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.Wonsu>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 in the North.{{harvp2006|p=38}}rajio is considered a Japanese expression that was introduced during the Japanese colonial rule and does not properly represent the pronunciation of Korean.일본을 거쳐서 들어온 외래 어휘 PUBLISHER=NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF KOREAN LANGUAGE ARCHIVE-DATE=24 JUNE 2023 URL-STATUS=LIVE, 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.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:{| class="wikitable"! rowspan="2" | Original name! colspan="2" | North Korea transliteration! rowspan="2" | English name! colspan="2" | South Korea transliteration! Spelling! Pronunciation! Spelling! Pronunciation| Ulaanbaatar| KøbenhavnCopenhagen| al-QāhirahCairo

Grammar

Some grammatical constructions are also different:{| class="wikitable"! colspan="4" |Word! rowspan="2" |Meaning! rowspan="2" |Remarks! North spelling! North pronun.! South spelling! South pronun.

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).

Vocabulary

Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:{| class="wikitable"! colspan="4" |Word! rowspan="2" |Meaning! rowspan="2" |Remarks! North word! North pronun.! South word! South pronun.Names of Korea#20th century>Read more.dosirak (tosirak)| lunch box|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 () or beot (). Today, beot () is closer to a term used in literature, and chingu () is the widest-used word for friend. 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.NEWS,weblink Sang-hun, Choe, Choe Sang-hun, Koreas: Divided by a common language, The New York Times, 2006-08-30, 2012-08-16, 2 March 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20170302145757weblink">weblink live, NEWS,weblink Beliefs that bind, Korea JoongAng Daily, 2007-10-23, 2012-08-16,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130501094647weblink">weblink 2013-05-01, usurped,

Geographic distribution

{{See also|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. Currently, Korean is the fourth most popular foreign language in China, following English, Japanese, and Russian.{{sfnp|Sohn|2001|p=6}} 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

File:Pyongyang-Kaesong motorway 02.JPG|Highway sign in Korean,Reunification Highway, Pyongyang, North KoreaFile:AH1sign-Daegu,Korea.jpg|Highway sign in Korean and English,Gyeongbu Expressway, Daegu, South KoreaFile:大石头还有两公里 （吉延高速 ） Jilin-Yanji Highway - panoramio.jpg|Highway sign in Korean and Chinese,Hunwu Expressway, Yanbian, ChinaKorean 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 (, 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 InstituteWEB,weblink 19 January 2021, 누리-세종학당, 21 January 2021,weblink dead, 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.

King Sejong Institute has 59 in Europe, 15 in Africa, 146 in Asia, 34 in the Americas, and 4 in Oceania.KSIF {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240219122629weblink |date=19 February 2024 }} - KSIF

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.WEB, TOPIK, iSeodang Korean Language Center,weblink 2020-09-15, en-US, 21 October 2020,weblink live,

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."JOURNAL, Raugh, Harold E., The Origins of the Transformation of the Defense Language Program, Applied Language Learning, 16, 2, 1–12,weblink 2008-01-09,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070630173621weblink">weblink 30 June 2007, WEB, 2010-08-01, DLI's language guidelines,weblink 2021-04-20, AUSA, en, 20 April 2021,weblink live, Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies places Korean in Category IV, the highest level of difficulty.WEB,weblink Languages, United States Department of State, 2016-05-27, 5 August 2023,weblink live, The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students, who in 2007 were estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.JOURNAL, Lee, Saekyun H., HyunJoo Han, Issues of Validity of SAT Subject Test Korea with Listening, Applied Language Learning, 17, 1, 33–56,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080625112846weblink">weblink 2008-06-25, 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.NEWS,weblink Global popularity of Korean language surges, The Korea Herald, 2012-07-22, 2012-08-16, 6 November 2023,weblink live, In 2018, it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities.NEWS, Pickles, Matt, 2018-07-11,weblink K-pop drives boom in Korean language lessons, BBC News, 2018-07-12, en-GB, 16 July 2018,weblink live,

Testing

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.NEWS, 2004-10-10, Korea Marks 558th Hangul Day, The Chosun Ilbo,weblink 2008-01-09,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080219042456weblink">weblink 2008-02-19, 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.NEWS, Korean language test-takers pass 1 mil., The Korea Times,weblink Yun Suh-young, 25 January 2013, 2013-01-20, 29 October 2013,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20131029202537weblink">weblink live, 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.WEB,weblink 해외시험장, TOPIK 한국어능력시험, 2017-10-24, 25 October 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20171025022701weblink">weblink dead, ko, This is also evident in TOPIK's website, where the examination is introduced as intended for Korean heritage students.

Example text

From Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Korean (Hankuko):WEB, Universal Declaration of Human Rights – Korean (Hankuko),weblink OHCHR, live,weblink Jul 27, 2023, {{Fs interlinear|모든 인간은 태어날 때부터 자유로우며 그 존엄과 권리에 있어 동등하다. 인간은 천부적으로 이성과 양심을 부여받았으며 서로 형제애의 정신으로 행동하여야 한다.|Modeun ingan-eun tae-eonal ttaebuteo jayuroumyeo geu jon-eomgwa gwonrie iss-eo dongdeunghada. Ingan-eun cheonbujeog-euro iseong-gwa yangsim-eul bu-yeobad-ass-eumyeo seoro hyungje-ae-ui jeongsin-euro haengdongha-yeo-ya 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.''WEB, Universal Declaration of Human Rights,weblink live,weblink 2021-03-16, 2022-01-07, United Nations, |indent=2|lang=ko}}

See also

• Outline of Korean language
• Korean count word
• Korean Cultural Center (KCC)
• Korean dialects
• Korean language and computers
• Korean as a foreign language
• Korean mixed script
• Korean particles
• Korean proverbs
• (Wiktionary:Category:Korean language|Korean words)
• Korean sign language
• Korean romanization
  • McCune–Reischauer
  • Revised romanization of Korean
  • SKATS
  • Yale romanization of Korean
• List of English words of Korean origin
• Vowel harmony
• History of Korean
• Korean films
  • Cinema of North Korea
  • Cinema of South Korea

Notes

{{notelist}}

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

• BOOK, Argüelles, Alexander, Alexander Argüelles, Kim, Jong-Rok, 2000, A Historical, Literary and Cultural Approach to the Korean Language, Seoul, South Korea, Hollym,
• BOOK, Argüelles, Alexander, Alexander Argüelles, Kim, Jongrok, 2004, A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation, Hyattsville, Maryland, Dunwoody Press,
• BOOK, Argüelles, Alexander, Alexander Argüelles, 2007, Korean Newspaper Reader, Hyattsville, Maryland, Dunwoody Press,
• BOOK, Argüelles, Alexander, Alexander Argüelles, 2010, North Korean Reader, Hyattsville, Maryland, Dunwoody Press,
• JOURNAL, Brown, L., 2015, Expressive, Social and Gendered Meanings of Korean Honorifics, Korean Linguistics, 17, 2, 242–266, 10.1075/kl.17.2.04bro,
• BOOK, Chang, Suk-jin, Korean, Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1996, 978-1-55619-728-4, 4, London Oriental and African Language Library,
• BOOK, Cho, Young A., Gender Differences in Korean Speech, Korean Language in Culture and Society, Ho-min, Sohn, University of Hawaii Press, 2006, 189,
• BOOK, Cho, Sungdai, Whitman, John, Korean: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 978-0-521-51485-9,
• BOOK, Hulbert, Homer B., 1905, A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India, Seoul, Methodist Publishing House,
• BOOK, Lee, Ki-Moon, Ramsey, S. Robert, A History of the Korean Language, 2011, Cambridge University Press, 978-0-521-66189-8,
• JOURNAL, Martin, Samuel E., 1966, Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean, Language, 42, 2, 185–251, 10.2307/411687, 411687,
• BOOK, Martin, Samuel E., 1990, Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean, Baldi, Philip, Philip Baldi, Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology, Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, 45, 483–509,
• BOOK, Martin, Samuel E., 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, 978-0-8048-3771-2, 2006,
• BOOK, Miller, Roy Andrew, 1971, Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages, Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press, 0-226-52719-0,
• BOOK, Miller, Roy Andrew, 1996, Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic, Oslo, Norway, Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture, 974-8299-69-4,
• JOURNAL, Ramstedt, G. J., 1928, Remarks on the Korean language, Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne, 58,
• BOOK, Rybatzki, Volker, 2003, Middle Mongol, Juha, Janhunen, The Mongolic languages, London, England, Routledge, 0-7007-1133-3, 47–82,
• BOOK, Starostin, Sergei A., Dybo, Anna V., Mudrak, Oleg A., 2003, Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages, Leiden, South Holland, Brill Academic Publishers, 90-04-13153-1, In 3 volumes.
• BOOK, Sohn, Ho-Min, The Korean Language,weblink Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 978-0521369435, 2001, 1999,
• BOOK, Sohn, Ho-Min, Korean Language in Culture and Society, Twayne Publishers, Boston, MA, 2006, 978-0-8248-2694-9,
• BOOK, Song, J.-J., 2005, The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context, London, England, Routledge,
• BOOK, Trask, R. L., 1996, Historical linguistics, Hodder Arnold,
• WEB, Vovin, Alexander, 2008, Man'yōshÅ« to Fudoki ni Mirareru Fushigina Kotoba to Jōdai Nihon Retto ni Okeru Ainugo no Bunpu, Strange Words in the Man'yoshÅ« and the Fudoki and the Distribution of the Ainu Language in the Japanese Islands in Prehistory, paper, International Research Center for Japanese Studies,weblink 17 January 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140211234350weblink">weblink 11 February 2014,
• BOOK, Vovin, Alexander, 2010, Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin, Honolulu, HI, University of Hawai'i Press,
• THESIS, Whitman, John B., 1985, PhD, The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Unpublished Harvard University PhD dissertation.
• BOOK, Yeon, Jaehoon, Lucien, Brown, 2011, Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar, London, England, Routledge,

External links

• 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 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330224954weblink |date=30 March 2019 }}
• U.S. Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course
• asianreadings.com, Korean readings with hover prompts
• Linguistic map of Korea
• dongsa.net, Korean verb conjugation tool
• weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180809000215weblink">Hanja Explorer, a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary
• {{Curlie|Science/Social_Sciences/Linguistics/Languages/Natural/Korean}}

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