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Korean (
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
n: , ''hangugeo'';
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
n: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the
native language A first language, native tongue, native language, mother tongue or L1 is the first language or dialect that a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term ''native language'' or ''mother tongu ...
for about 80 million people, mostly of
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
descent. It is the
official An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...
and
national language A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
of both
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
and
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
(geographically
Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
), but over the past years of political division, the two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a
minority language A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...
in parts of
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, namely
Jilin Province Jilin (; alternately romanized as Kirin or Chilin) is one of the three provinces of Northeast China. Its capital and largest city is Changchun. Jilin borders North Korea ( Rasŏn, North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Chagang) and Russia (Prim ...
, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County. It is also spoken by
Sakhalin Koreans Sakhalin Koreans are Russian citizens and residents of Korean descent living on Sakhalin Island, who can trace their roots to the immigrants from the Gyeongsang and Jeolla provinces of Korea during the late 1930s and early 1940s, the latter ...
in parts of
Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, r=Sakhalín, p=səxɐˈlʲin; ja, 樺太 ''Karafuto''; zh, c=, p=Kùyèdǎo, s=库页岛, t=庫頁島; Manchu: ᠰᠠᡥᠠᠯᡳᠶᠠᠨ, ''Sahaliyan''; Orok: Бугата на̄, ''Bugata nā''; Nivkh: ...
, the
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
n island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of
Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...
. The language has a few
extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
relatives which—along with the
Jeju language Jeju (Jeju: , ; ko, 제주어, or , ), often called Jejueo or Jejuan in English-language scholarship, is a Koreanic language traditionally spoken on Jeju Island, South Korea. While often classified as a divergent Jeju dialect ( ko, 제주방 ...
(Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with each other. The
linguistic homeland In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and '' Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is th ...
of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in contemporary
Northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of t ...
. The hierarchy of the society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to a system of speech levels and
honorifics An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an Honorary title (academic), ho ...
indicative of the formality of any given situation. Modern Korean is written in the
Korean script The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's Revised Romanization of Korean, standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system f ...
( in South Korea, 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 A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
; all written records were maintained in
Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...
, which, even when spoken, is not intelligible to someone who speaks only Korean. Later,
Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
adapted to the Korean language, ''
Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...
'' (), 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 Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...
and the study of historical texts. Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of
Korean culture The traditional culture of Korea is the shared cultural and historical heritage of Korea and southern Manchuria before the division of Korea in 1945. Manchuria refers to the ancient geographical and historical region in Northeast Asia, includ ...
have spread to other countries through
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
and cultural exports. As such, interest in Korean language acquisition (as a
foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a given country, and that native speakers from that country must usually acquire through conscious learning - be this through language lessons at schoo ...
) is also generated by longstanding alliances, military involvement, and diplomacy, such as between South Korea–United States, China–North Korea and North Korea–Russia since the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. Along with other languages such as
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
and
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
, Korean is ranked at the top difficulty level for English speakers by the
U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...
.


History

Modern Korean descends from
Middle Korean Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 91 ...
, which in turn descends from
Old Korean Old Korean () is the first historically documented stage of the Korean language, typified by the language of the Unified Silla period (668–935). The boundaries of Old Korean periodization remain in dispute. Some linguists classify the sparsely ...
, which descends from the
Proto-Koreanic language Koreanic is a small language family consisting of the Korean and Jeju languages. The latter is often described as a dialect of Korean, but is distinct enough to be considered a separate language. Alexander Vovin suggests that the Yukjin dialec ...
which is generally suggested to have its
linguistic homeland In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and '' Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is th ...
. Whitman (2012) suggests that the proto-Koreans, already present in northern Korea, expanded into the southern part of the
Korean Peninsula Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families. Since the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, through 70 years of separation, 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 A number of Korean dialects are spoken on the Korean Peninsula. The peninsula is very mountainous and each dialect's "territory" corresponds closely to the natural boundaries between different geographical regions of Korea. Most of the dialects ...
, which are still largely
mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
.


Writing systems

Chinese characters Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
arrived in Korea (see
Sino-Xenic pronunciations Sino-Xenic or Sinoxenic pronunciations are regular systems for reading Chinese characters in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, originating in medieval times and the source of large-scale borrowings of Chinese words into the Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese ...
for further information) together with
Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
during the Proto-Three Kingdoms era in the 1st century BC. They were adapted for Korean and became known as
Hanja Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, wh ...
, 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 Gugyeol, also ''kwukyel'', is a system for rendering texts written in Classical Chinese into understandable Korean. It was chiefly used during the Joseon Dynasty, when readings of the Chinese classics were of paramount social importance. Thus, ...
and
Hyangchal ''Hyangchal'' (, literally "vernacular letters", "local letters", or "corresponded sound") is an archaic writing system of Korea and was used to transcribe the Korean language in Chinese characters. Using the ''hyangchal'' system, Chinese chara ...
. 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 Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do (Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great (Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initial ...
personally developed an
alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...
ic
featural writing system In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to describe the Korean alpha ...
known today as
Hangul The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The let ...
. 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 Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and re ...
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 letthera with slaves, which suggests aa high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era. 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 not officially used in North Korea anymore, and their usage in South Korea is mainly reserved for specific circumstances like newspapers, scholarly papers, and disambiguation.


Names

The Korean names for the language are based on the
names for Korea There are various names of Korea in use today, all derived from ancient kingdoms and dynasties. The modern English name "Korea" is an exonym derived from the name Goryeo, also spelled ''Koryŏ'', and is used by both North Korea and South Korea in ...
used in both South Korea and North Korea. The English word "Korean" is derived from
Goryeo Goryeo (; ) was a Korean kingdom founded in 918, during a time of national division called the Later Three Kingdoms period, that unified and ruled the Korean Peninsula until 1392. Goryeo achieved what has been called a "true national unificati ...
, which is thought to be the first Korean dynasty known to Western nations. Korean people in the
former USSR The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
refer to themselves as and/or (literally, " Koryo/Goryeo person(s)"), 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, 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 The Korean Empire () was a Korean monarchical state proclaimed in October 1897 by Emperor Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. The empire stood until Japan's annexation of Korea in August 1910. During the Korean Empire, Emperor Gojong oversaw the Gwa ...
(). The "" () in and is derived from Samhan, in reference to the
Three Kingdoms of Korea Samhan or the Three Kingdoms of Korea () refers to the three kingdoms of Goguryeo (고구려, 高句麗), Baekje (백제, 百濟), and Silla (신라, 新羅). Goguryeo was later known as Goryeo (고려, 高麗), from which the modern name ''Kor ...
(not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula), 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 Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
( "nation" + "language") that are also used in
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, 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 Joseon (; ; Middle Korean: 됴ᇢ〯션〮 Dyǒw syéon or 됴ᇢ〯션〯 Dyǒw syěon), officially the Great Joseon (; ), was the last dynastic kingdom of Korea, lasting just over 500 years. It was founded by Yi Seong-gye in July 1392 and re ...
until the proclamation of the
Korean Empire The Korean Empire () was a Korean monarchical state proclaimed in October 1897 by Emperor Gojong of the Joseon dynasty. The empire stood until Japan's annexation of Korea in August 1910. During the Korean Empire, Emperor Gojong oversaw the Gwa ...
, which in turn was annexed by the
Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...
. In
mainland China "Mainland China" is a geopolitical term defined as the territory governed by the People's Republic of China (including islands like Hainan or Chongming), excluding dependent territories of the PRC, and other territories within Greater 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 Yanbian (; Chosŏn'gŭl: , ''Yeonbyeon''), officially known as the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, is an autonomous prefecture in the east of Jilin Province, China. Yanbian is bordered to the north by Heilongjiang Province, on the west by ...
, whereas ''Hánguóyǔ'' or the short form ''Hányǔ'' is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.


Classification

Korean is a member of the Koreanic family along with the
Jeju language Jeju (Jeju: , ; ko, 제주어, or , ), often called Jejueo or Jejuan in English-language scholarship, is a Koreanic language traditionally spoken on Jeju Island, South Korea. While often classified as a divergent Jeju dialect ( ko, 제주방 ...
. Some linguists have included it in the
Altaic Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...
family, but the core Altaic proposal itself has lost most of its prior support. The
Khitan language Khitan or Kitan ( in large script or in small, ''Khitai''; , ''Qìdānyǔ''), also known as Liao, is a now-extinct language once spoken in Northeast Asia by the Khitan people (4th to 13th century). It was the official language of the Liao Empir ...
has several vocabulary items similar to Korean that are not found in other Mongolian or Tungusic languages, suggesting a Korean influence on Khitan. The hypothesis that Korean could be related to
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
has had some supporters due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin and
Roy Andrew Miller Roy Andrew Miller (September 5, 1924 – August 22, 2014) was an American linguist best known as the author of several books on Japanese language and linguistics, and for his advocacy of Korean and Japanese as members of the proposed Altai ...
.
Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (russian: Серге́й Анато́льевич Ста́ростин; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguist and philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypotheti ...
(1991) found about 25% of potential
cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s in the Japanese–Korean 100-word
Swadesh list The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness ...
. 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 A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
'' effect and heavy borrowing, especially from
Ancient Korean Old Korean () is the first historically documented stage of the Korean language, typified by the language of the Unified Silla period (668–935). The boundaries of Old Korean periodization remain in dispute. Some linguists classify the sparsely ...
into Western
Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Jap ...
. A good example might be
Middle Korean Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 91 ...
''sàm'' and Japanese ''asá'', meaning "
hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial or medicinal use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest growing plants o ...
". This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and
Northern Ryukyuan languages The Northern Ryukyuan languages are a group of languages spoken in the Amami Islands, Kagoshima Prefecture and the Okinawa Islands, Okinawa Prefecture of southwestern Japan. It is one of two primary branches of the Ryukyuan languages, which are t ...
, 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 Doublet is a word derived from the Latin ''duplus'', "twofold, twice as much", **
Yale romanization of Korean The Yale romanization of Korean was developed by Samuel Elmo Martin and his colleagues at Yale University about half a decade after McCune–Reischauer. It is the standard romanization of the Korean language in linguistics. The Yale system pla ...
*
List of English words of Korean origin This is a list of words of Korean origin which have entered into English usage. General Culture and martial arts Food Clothing Ideology and religion Other See also *Lists of English loanwords by country or language of origin Ref ...
*
Vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
*
History of Korean The traditional periodization of Korean distinguishes: * Old Korean (, to 918), the earliest attested stage of the language, through to the fall of Unified Silla. Many authors include the few inscriptions from Silla in the Three Kingdoms period. ...
*
Korean films Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language ** Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju languag ...
**
Cinema of South Korea The cinema of South Korea refers to the film industry of South Korea from 1945 to present. South Korean films have been heavily influenced by such events and forces as the Japanese occupation of Korea, the Korean War, government censorship, t ...
**
Cinema of North Korea The cinema of North Korea began with the division of Korea and has been sustained since then by the ruling Kim dynasty. Kim Il-sung and his successor Kim Jong-il were both cinephiles and sought to produce propaganda films based on the ''Juch ...


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * * * * (Volume 4 of the ''London Oriental and African Language Library''). * * * * * * * * * * * * In 3 volumes. * * * * * * Unpublished Harvard University PhD dissertation. *


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

U.S. Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course

asianreadings.com
Korean readings with hover prompts


dongsa.net
Korean verb conjugation tool
Hanja Explorer
a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary * {{Authority control Agglutinative languages Languages attested from the 4th century Languages of Korea Languages of North Korea Languages of South Korea National symbols of Korea Subject–object–verb languages