South Korean Language And Writing

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Korean is spoken by about 81.8 million people mainly in South Korea and North Korea. The relationship between Korean and other languages is not known for sure, though some linguists believe it to be a member of the Altaic family of languages. Grammatically Korean is very similar to Japanese and about 70% of its vocabulary comes from Chinese.

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There are about 50.2 million Korean speakers in South Korea, and about 25.7 million in North Korea. Other countries with significant numbers of Korean speakers include China (2.7 milion), the USA (1.1 million), Japan (998, 000), Uzbekistan (250, 000), Saudi Arabia (173, 000), Canada (153, 000) and Australia (109, 000) [source].

History Of Korean Language

Chinese writing has been known in Korea for over 2, 000 years. It was used widely during the Chinese occupation of northern Korea from 108 BC to 313 AD. By the 5th century AD, the Koreans were starting to write in Classical Chinese - the earliest known example of this dates from 414 AD. In the 10th and 11th centuries AD they devised three different systems for writing Korean with Chinese characters:

System first appears in the 11th century, however there is evidence to suggest that it was used from the 7th century AD, or possibly earlier. These systems were similar to those developed in Japan and were probably used as models by the Korean.

Together with special symbols to indicate Korean verb endings and other grammatical markers, and was used to in official and private documents for many centuries. The

How To Say Korean In Korean

The Koreans borrowed a huge number of Chinese words, gave Korean readings and/or meanings to some of the Chinese characters and also invented about 150 new characters, most of which are rare or used mainly for personal or place names.

The Korean alphabet was invented in 1444 and promulgated it in 1446 during the reign of King Sejong (r.1418-1450), the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty. The alphabet was originally called

, was coined by a Korean linguist called Ju Si-gyeong (1876-1914). In North Korea the alphabet is known as 조선글 (josoen guel).

A Question For Koreans Here

The shapes of the consonants are based on the shape the mouth made when the corresponding sound is made, and the traditional direction of writing (vertically from right to left) most likely came from Chinese, as did the practice of writing syllables in blocks.

Even after the invention of the Korean alphabet, most Koreans who could write continued to write either in Classical Chinese or in Korean using the

Systems. The Korean alphabet was associated with people of low status, i.e. women, children and the uneducated. During the 19th and 20th centuries a mixed writing system combining Chinese characters (

A Quick Guide To Hangul, The Korean Alphabet

Have not been used at all in any North Korean publications, with the exception of a few textbooks and specialized books. In the late 1960s the teaching of

Was reintroduced in North Korean schools however and school children are expected to learn 2, 000 characters by the end of high school.

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Beauty Of Hangul. Introduction To The Most Scientific…

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Korean, known in the language itself as Kugo, is the language of the Korean Peninsula in northeast Asia. In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) there are 20 million speakers and in the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) there are 42 million speakers. Korean is also spoken by almost 2 million people in China, mainly in provinces bordering North Korea. There are approximately half a million speakers in Japan and Russia, as well as significant numbers in the United States (over 600, 000) with large communities on the west coast and in New York. Other communities are found in Singapore, Thailand, Guam, and Paraguay. The total number of speakers is 72 million (Grimes 1992).

Korean has been listed as a critical language by the American State Department because of our strategic business and security interests in the Korean-speaking world, as well as a heritage language due to the number of American citizens of Korean heritage. North Korea was declared a palpable threat in 2003 after they tested nuclear weapons despite the disapproval of the United Nations. South Korea is one of our largest East Asian trading partners. In 2007 the United States exported $$ 34, 644.8million to South Korea, an amount on par with some of our English-speaking trade partners. This amount has increased by 582% since 1985. In 2007 the United States has imported $47, 562.3 million in goods from these countries, an increase of 475% since 1985.

Hangul Is The Native Alphabet Of The Korean Language, As... News Photo

According to the 2000 census there are 900, 000 Korean speakers in the United States. In 2006, 7, 145 higher education students were studying Korean and in 2000 202 students in grades 7-12. (Source: http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?LangID=76&menu=004)

Although classified as a language isolate, many theories have been proposed to explain the origin of Korean. The most prominent of these link Korean to the Altaic languages of central Asia, a family that includes Turkish, Mongolian, and the Tungusic (for example, Manchu) languages of Siberia. Others would argue for the inclusion of Uralic languages (Hungarian and Finnish) and Japanese in this macro family. Although not definitively proven, this affiliation is accepted by most Korean linguists and deemed likely by Western linguists as well. The competing theory associates Korean with the Dravidian languages of southern India, or to Austronesian languages.

Determining Korean's linguistic affiliation is complicated by a long history of contact with the Japanese and Chinese languages. Not surprisingly, Korean shares certain linguistic features with each of these languages.

Why Korean Is The World's Most Interesting Language

Officially, there are two standard varieties of Korean in Korea: the Seoul dialect in South Korea and the Phyong'yang dialect in North Korea. The dialects are distinguished and regulated by each country's national language policy.

Regional dialects roughly correspond to province boundaries. Thus, South Korean regional dialects are Kyonsang, Chungchong, Cholla, and Cheju Island. The North Korean regional dialects are Hamkyong, Pyongan, Hwanghae. Some of the dialects are not easily mutually intelligible.

The Korean language is part of a northern Asian language known as Altaic, that includes Turkish, Mongolian and Japanese, suggesting early Northern migrations and trade. Korean was also heavily influenced by Chinese, but have adopted its own writing system in the 16th century.

Best Korean Language Facts

Korean is among the world's most misunderstood and misrepresented languages because its origins are obscure and the subject of ongoing scholarly debate. Evidence suggests that Korean and Japanese belong to the Altaic language family, which also includes Turkish and Mongolian. Chinese, although it belongs to a completely different language family, influenced Korean greatly. Many believe that the language emerged from a single cultural source. But just as the Korean people of today did not descend from a single homogeneous race, the Korean language of today did not evolve from a single language. Various groups who populated the Korean peninsula in ancient times merged into a homogeneous people with a single language during the unifications of the sixth to the fourteenth century. By the fifteenth century, Korean had emerged as the language we now know.   

The modern Korean writing system, han'gul, was devised in 1443 during the reign of King Sejong, perhaps the greatest monarch of the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910). Before han'gul, other Korean scripts used a complex system of Chinese characters to represent the sounds of Korean. But because of the differences between Chinese and Korean,