Korean language information

Korean
Korean
한국어 (South Korea); 조선말 (North Korea)
	Names for the Korean language written vertically in Hangul. The South Korean name is on the left and the North Korean on the right.
Pronunciation	[ha(ː)n.ɡu.ɡʌ] (South Korea); [tso.sʌn.maɭ] (North Korea)
Native to	Korea
Ethnicity	Koreans
Native speakers	81 million (2022)
Language family	Koreanic Korean;
Early forms	Proto-Koreanic Old Korean Middle Korean ; ;
Standard forms	Pyojuneo (South Korea); Munhwaŏ (North Korea);
Dialects	see Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl (Korean script); Hanja / Hancha (an auxiliary word for prevention of confusion(South Korea), Historical in North Korea)
Official status
Official language in	South Korea; North Korea
Recognised minority; language in	China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)
Regulated by	National Institute of Korean Language; (국립국어원 / 國立國語院); The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science; (사회과학원 어학연구소社會科學院語學研究所); China Korean Language Regulatory Commission; (중국조선어규범위원회 / 中国朝鲜语规范委员会 / 中國朝鮮語規範委員會);
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ko
ISO 639-2	kor
ISO 639-3	kor
Glottolog	kore1280
Linguasphere	45-AAA-a
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Korean (South Korean: 한국어, hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말, chosŏnmal) is the native language for about 81 million people, mostly of Korean descent.^[a]^[2] 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,^[3] and South Korean education and media often portray the North's language as alien and uncomfortable.^[4]

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 Koryo-saram in parts of Central Asia.^[5] 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.^[5] 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 (한글; Hangul in South Korea, 조선글; Chosŏn'gŭl 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 (漢字), 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.

^ Hermann, Winfred (1994). Lehrbuch der Modernen Koreanischen Sprache. Berlin: Buske. p. 26. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
^ ^a ^b Korean at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^ "Daily NK obtains the full text of the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act". 23 March 2023. Archived from the original on 26 April 2023. Retrieved 27 April 2023.
^ ""북한말, 낯설고 과격하기만 하다고요? 그건 착각입니다"". 노컷뉴스. 24 August 2019. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
^ ^a ^b Hölzl, Andreas (29 August 2018). A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An ecological perspective. Language Science Press. p. 25. ISBN 9783961101023. Archived from the original on 6 November 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2020.

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).

[1] Hermann, Winfred (1994). Lehrbuch der Modernen Koreanischen Sprache. Berlin: Buske. p. 26. Retrieved 27 April 2023.

[e27-2] Korean at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)

[dailyNK-4] "Daily NK obtains the full text of the Pyongyang Cultural Language Protection Act". 23 March 2023. Archived from the original on 26 April 2023. Retrieved 27 April 2023.

[nocutnews-5] ""북한말, 낯설고 과격하기만 하다고요? 그건 착각입니다"". 노컷뉴스. 24 August 2019. Archived from the original on 28 April 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2023.

[Hölzl-6] Hölzl, Andreas (29 August 2018). A typology of questions in Northeast Asia and beyond: An ecological perspective. Language Science Press. p. 25. ISBN 9783961101023. Archived from the original on 6 November 2023. Retrieved 13 December 2020.

Korean language information

and 29 Related for: Korean language information

Korean language

Koreanic languages

Korean dialects

South Korean standard language

Korean Sign Language

North Korean standard language

Korea

Zainichi Korean language

Korean Language Society

Outline of the Korean language

North Korea

List of Korean surnames

Demographics of South Korea

Old Korean

Korean language and computers

National Institute of Korean Language

South Korea

Korean War

Korean language in China

Jeju language

Comparison of Japanese and Korean

Korean drama

2024 South Korean legislative election

Middle Korean

Koreans

Names of Korea

South Korean won

Hanja

Revised Romanization of Korean

Korean
한국어 (South Korea) 조선말 (North Korea)
Names for the Korean language written vertically in Hangul. The South Korean name is on the left and the North Korean on the right.
Pronunciation	[ha(ː)n.ɡu.ɡʌ] (South Korea) [tso.sʌn.maɭ]^[1] (North Korea)
Native to	Korea
Ethnicity	Koreans
Native speakers	81 million (2022)^[2]
Language family	Koreanic Korean
Early forms	Proto-Koreanic Old Korean Middle Korean
Standard forms	Pyojuneo (South Korea) Munhwaŏ (North Korea)
Dialects	see Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl (Korean script) Hanja / Hancha (an auxiliary word for prevention of confusion(South Korea), Historical in North Korea)
Official status
Official language in	South Korea North Korea
Recognised minority language in	China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)
Regulated by	National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원 / 國立國語院) The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science (사회과학원 어학연구소社會科學院語學研究所) China Korean Language Regulatory Commission (중국조선어규범위원회 / 中国朝鲜语规范委员会 / 中國朝鮮語規範委員會)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	`ko`
ISO 639-2	`kor`
ISO 639-3	`kor`
Glottolog	`kore1280`
Linguasphere	`45-AAA-a`

This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

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