Gourt Home::Gourt :: Korean language
The Korean language (, see below) is the official language of both North and South Korea. The language is also one of the two official languages (the other is Standard Mandarin) in neighbouring Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 78 million Korean speakers, including large groups in the former Soviet Union, China, Australia, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and more recently, the Philippines.
The genealogical classification of Korean is debated. Many linguists place it in the Altaic language family; some others consider it to be a language isolate. Korean is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. Much vocabulary has been imported from Chinese, or created on Chinese models.
This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
Names
The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in North and South Korea.
In North Korea and Yanbian in China, the language is most often called Chosŏnmal (; with Hanja:), or more formally, Chosŏnŏ (; ).
In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal (; ), or more formally, Hangugeo (; ) or Gugeo (; ; literally "national language"). It is sometimes colloquially called Urimal ("our language"; in one word in South Korea, with a space in North Korea).
On the other hand, Korean people who moved to the former USSR (so-called Goryeoin ; literally, "Goryeo person(s)" in Korean, or Kareisky in Russian) call the language Goryeomal (; ).
Classification and related languages
Korean classification is often debated. Many Korean and Western linguists recognize a kinship to the Altaic languages. However, this is not well demonstrated, and many consider Korean a language isolate. Others believe that Japanese and Korean may be related; still others believe this is not so, and any similarities are simply due to a sprachbund effect – see here for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund.
The Korean relationship with Altaic and proto-Altaic has been much argued as of late. Korean is similar to Altaic languages in that they both have the absence of certain grammatical elements, including number, gender, articles, fusional morphology, voice, and relative pronouns (Kim Namkil). Korean especially bears some morphological resemblance to some languages of the Eastern Turkic group, namely Sakha (Yakut).
The possibility of a Korean-Japanese linguistic relationship is a delicate subject because of the complex historical relationship between the two countries. The possibility of a Baekje-Japanese linguistic relationship has been studied, with Korean linguists pointing out similarities in phonology, including a general lack of consonant-final sounds. There are plenty of apparent cognates between Baekje and Japanese, such as mir and mi, respectively, for “three”. Furthermore, there are cultural links between Baekje and Japan: the people of Baekje used two Chinese characters for their surnames, like the people of Japan today, and more notably, the Baekje elite had cordial relations with the Japanese elite, with the Baekje upper classes probably fleeing to Japan when the kingdom fell.
Goguryeo and Baekje languages are considered related, likely descended from Gojoseon (see Fuyu languages). Less is known about the relationship between the languages of Gojoseon, Goguryo, and Baekje on one hand, and the Samhan and Silla on the other, although many Korean scholars believe they were mutually intelligible, and the collective basis of what in the Goryeo period would merge to become Middle Korean (the language before the changes that the Seven-Year War brought) and eventually Modern Korean. The Jeju dialect preserves some archaic features that can also be found in Middle Korean, whose arae a is retained in dialect as a distinct vowel.
Dialects
Korean has several dialects (called mal speech, bang-eon, or saturi in Korean). The standard language (pyojuneo or pyojunmal) of South Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul, and the standard for North Korea is based on the dialect spoken around P'yŏngyang. These dialects are similar, and in fact all dialects except that of Jeju Island (see Jeju Dialect) are largely mutually intelligible. The dialect spoken there is classified as a different language by some Korean linguists. One of the most notable differences between dialects is the use of stress: speakers of Seoul Dialect use stress very little, and standard South Korean has a very flat intonation; on the other hand, speakers of Gyeongsang Dialect have a very pronounced intonation that, to Western ears, often sounds European.
There is a very close connection between the dialects of Korean and the regions of Korea, since the boundaries of both are largely determined by mountains and seas. Here is a list of traditional dialect names and locations:
| Standard dialect | Where used |
|---|---|
| Seoul | Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi (South Korea); Kaesŏng (North Korea) |
| P'yŏngan | P'yŏngyang, P'yŏngan region, Chagang (North Korea) |
| Regional dialect | Where used |
| Chungcheong | Daejeon, Chungcheong region (South Korea) |
| Gangwon | Gangwon-do (South Korea)/Kangwŏn (North Korea) |
| Gyeongsang | Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, Gyeongsang region (South Korea) |
| Hamgyŏng | Rasŏn, Hamgyŏng region, Ryanggang (North Korea) |
| Hwanghae | Hwanghae region (North Korea) |
| Jeju | Jeju Island/Province (South Korea) |
| Jeolla | Gwangju, Jeolla region (South Korea) |
Sounds
Consonants
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosives and affricates | plain | ㅂ | ㄷ | ㅈ | ㄱ | |
| tense | ㅃ | ㄸ | ㅉ | ㄲ | ||
| aspirate | ㅍ | ㅌ | ㅊ | ㅋ | ||
| Fricatives | plain | ㅅ | ㅎ | |||
| tense | ㅆ | |||||
| Nasal stops | ㅁ | ㄴ | ㅇ | |||
| Flap consonant | ㄹ | |||||
Example words for consonants:
| phoneme | IPA | Romanized | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| ㅂ | bal | 'foot' | |
| ㅃ | ppal | 'sucking' | |
| ㅍ | pal | 'arm' | |
| ㅁ | mal | 'horse' | |
| ㄷ | dal | 'moon' | |
| ㄸ | ttal | 'daughter' | |
| ㅌ | tal | 'riding' | |
| ㄴ | nal | 'day' | |
| ㅈ | jal | 'well' | |
| ㅉ | jjal | 'squeezing' | |
| ㅊ | chal | 'kicking' | |
| ㄱ | gal | 'going' | |
| ㄲ | kkal | 'spreading' | |
| ㅋ | kal | 'knife' | |
| ㅇ | bang | 'room' | |
| ㅅ | sal | 'flesh' | |
| ㅆ | ssal | 'rice' | |
| ㄹ | baram | 'wind' | |
| ㅎ | hal | 'doing' |
The IPA symbol <> (a subscript double straight quotation mark) is used to denote the tensed consonants . Its official use in the Extended 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.
Sometimes the tense consonants are indicated with the apostrophe-like symbol <>, but this is inappropriate, as IPA <> represents the ejective consonants, with their piston-like upward glottal movement and non-pulmonic air pressure, which the Korean tense consonants do not share.
Vowels
Monophthongs
Korean has 8 different vowel qualities and a length distinction. Two more vowels, the close-mid front rounded vowel and the close front rounded vowel , can still be heard in the speech of some older speakers, but they have been largely replaced by the diphthongs and respectively. In a 2003 survey of 350 speakers from Seoul, nearly 90% pronounced the vowel 'ㅟ' as . Length distinction is almost completely lost; length distinction for all vowels can still be heard from older speakers, but almost all younger speakers either do not distinguish length consistently or do not distinguish it at all. The distinction between and is another decreasing element in the speech of some younger speakers, mostly in the area of Seoul, whereas in other dialectal areas the two vowels can be distinctly heard. For those speakers who do not make the difference seems to be the dominant form. Long is actually for most speakers.| sijang | 'hunger' | sijang | 'market' | ||||
| begae | 'pillow' | beda | 'cut' | ||||
| taeyang | 'sun' | taedo | 'attitude' | ||||
| mal | 'horse' | mal | 'speech' | ||||
| bori | 'barley' | bosu | 'salary' | ||||
| guri | 'copper' | subak | 'watermelon' | ||||
| beol | 'punishment' | beol | 'bee' | ||||
| eoreun | 'seniors' | eumsik | 'food' |
Diphthongs and glides
and are considered to be components of diphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.| dwi | 'back' | uisa | 'doctor' | ||||||||
| yesan | 'budget' | gwe | 'box' | ||||||||
| yaegi | 'story' | wae | 'why' | ||||||||
| yagu | 'baseball' | gwail | 'fruits' | ||||||||
| gyosa | 'teacher' | ||||||||||
| yuri | 'glass' | ||||||||||
| yeogi | 'here' | mwo | 'what' |
Source: Handbook of the International Phonetic Association
Phonology
becomes an alveolo-palatal before or . This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a sentence, /s/ is changed to /t/. Example: David (다윗)becomes a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a velar before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, or at the end of a syllable or next to another , disappears at the beginning of a word before in normal speech, and otherwise becomes in normal speech.
All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased at the end of a word.
Plosive stops become nasal stops before nasal stops.
Some of these phonetic assimilation rules can be seen in the following:
- is pronounced as
- as
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying morphology.
One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial , and initial before or . For example,
- "labour" - north: rodong (로동), south: nodong (노동)
- "history" - north: ryŏksa (력사), south: yeoksa (역사)
- "female" - north: nyŏja (녀자), south: yeoja (여자)
Phonotactics
Korean syllables may not start or end with consonant clusters, except in a few cases. Consequently, consonant clusters in Korean are usually limited to clusters of two consonants where two syllables have been joined.Only seven consonant allophones are found at the end of syllables: and . Syllable-final stops are all unreleased.
Vowel harmony
| Positive/Yang Vowels | ㅏ (a) | ㅑ (ya) | ㅗ (o) | ㅛ (yo) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ㅐ (ae) | ㅘ (wa) | ㅚ (oe) | ㅙ (wae) | |
| Negative/Yin Vowels | ㅓ (eo) | ㅕ (yeo) | ㅜ (u) | ㅠ (yu) |
| ㅔ (e) | ㅝ (wo) | ㅟ (wi) | ㅞ (we) | |
| Neutral/Centre Vowels | ㅡ (eu) | ㅣ (i) | ㅢ (ui) | |
There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. The vowel ŭ is considered partially a neutral and negative vowel. The vowel classes loosely follow the mid (negative) and front (positive) vowels; they also follow orthography. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding diminutive and negative vowels sounding crude.
Some examples:
- Onomatopoeia:
- 퐁당퐁당 (pongdangpongdang) and 풍덩풍덩 (pungdeongpungdeong), water splashing
- Adjectives/Adverbs:
- 모락모락 (morangmorak) and 무럭무럭 (mureongmureok) can both be translated as "rapidly" or "densely", but they are not interchangeable:
- 연기가 모락모락 난다. (yeongiga morangmorak nanda) Smoke rises up.
- 나무가 무럭무럭 자란다. (namuga mureongmureok jaranda) The tree grows well.
- 모락모락 (morangmorak) and 무럭무럭 (mureongmureok) can both be translated as "rapidly" or "densely", but they are not interchangeable:
- Emphasised Adjectives:
- 노랗다 (norata) means plain yellow, while its negative, 누렇다 (nureota) means very yellow
- 파랗다 (parata) means plain blue, while its negative, 퍼렇다 (peoreota) means deep blue
- Particles at the end of verbs:
- 잡다 (japda) (to catch) → 잡았다 (Jabatda) (caught)
- 접다 (jeopda) (to fold) → 접었다 (Jeobeotda) (folded)
- Interjections:
- 아이고 (aigo) and 어이구 (eoigu) meaning "oh my!"
- 아하 (aha) and 어허 (eoheo) meaning "indeed" and "well" respectively
Grammar
Korean is an agglutinative language. The basic form of a Korean sentence is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV), and modifiers precede the modified word. As a side note, a sentence can break the SOV word order, however, it must end with the verb. The following is an example of contrast between the Korean and English word order. In English, one would say, "I'm going to the store to buy some food." But in Korean the sentence and would be: *"I food to-buy in-order-to store-to going-am."
In Korean, "unnecessary" words (see theme and rheme) can be left out of a sentence as long as the context makes the meaning clear. A typical exchange might translate word-for word to the following:
- H: "가게에 가세요?" (gage-e gaseyo?)
- G: "예." (ye.)
- H: *"store-to going?"
- G: "yes."
which in English would translate to:
- H: "Going to the store?"
- G: "Yes."
Unlike most European languages, Korean does not conjugate verbs using agreement with the subject, and nouns have no gender. Instead, verb conjugations depend upon the verb tense and on the relation between the people speaking. When talking to or about friends, you would use one conjugate ending, to your parents, another, and to nobility/honoured persons, another. This loosely echoes the T-V distinction of most Indo-European languages.
Speech levels and honorifics
The relationship between a speaker or writer and his or her subject and audience is paramount in Korean, and the grammar reflects this. The relationship between speaker/writer and subject is reflected in honorifics, while that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
Honorifics
When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer has to use special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if he/she is 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 he/she is a younger stranger, student, employee or the like. On rare occasions (like when someone wants to pick a fight), a speaker might speak to a superior or stranger in a way normally only used for, say, animals, but it would be foolhardy to do so without seriously considering the consequences to one's physical safety first.
One way of using honorifics is to use special nouns in place of regular nouns with "honorific" ones. A common example is using 진지 (jinji) instead of 밥 (bap) for "food". More often, special nouns are used when speaking about relatives. Thus, the speaker/writer may address his own grandmother as 할머니 (halmeoni) but refer to someone else's grandmother as 할머님 (halmeonim). The honorific suffix -님 (-nim) is affixed to many kinship terms to make them honorific; thus, 형님 (hyeongnim) is the formal term for an older sibling of the same sex (derived from 형 hyeong), the informal term for man's older brother. Similarly, 누님 (nunim) is the formal term for a man's older sister (derived from 누나 nuna) and 오라버님 (orabeonim) is the formal term for a woman's older brother (derived from 오라버니 orabeoni, another formal variant of 오빠 oppa).
All verbs can be converted into an honorific form by adding the infix -시- (-si-, pronounced shi) after the stem and before the verb ending. Thus, 가다 (gada, "go") becomes 가시다 (gasida). A few verbs have special honorific equivalents. Therefore 계시다 (gyesida) is the honorific form of 있다 (itda, "exist"); 드시다 (deusida) and 잡수시다 (japsusida) is the honorific form of 먹다 (meokda, "eat"); and 주무시다 (jumushida) is the honorific form of 자다 (jada, "sleep").
Pronouns in Korean have their own set of polite equivalents: thus, 저 (jeo) is the humble form of 나 (na, "I"); 저희 (jeohui) is the humble form of 우리 (uri, "we"); and 당신 (dangsin, "friend," but only used as a form of address and more polite than "chingu", the usual word for "friend" (Note: dangsin is also sometimes used as the Korean equivalent of "dear," so use at your own risk); also, whereas uses of other humble forms are straightforward, "dangsin" must be used only in specific social contexts, such as between two married couples — "dangsin" can often be used in an ironic sense when used between strangers) is the honorific form of 너 (neo, "you" (singular). Note: in general, Koreans avoid using the second person singular pronoun, especially when using honorific forms, and either i) use the person's name, kinship term, or title in place of "you" in English, ii) use plural 여러분 yeoreobun where applicable, or iii) avoid using a pronoun, relying on context to supply meaning instead).
Speech levels
There are no fewer than 7 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. Unlike "honorifics" — which are used to show respect towards a subject — speech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience. The names of the 7 levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb 하다 (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix 체 ('che', Hanja: 體), which means "style."
The highest 5 levels use final verb endings and are generally grouped together as jondaemal (존대말), while the lowest 2 levels (해요체 haeyoche and 해체 haeche) use non-final endings and are called 반말 (banmal, "half-words") in Korean. (The haeyoche in turn is formed by simply adding the non-final ending -요 (-yo) to the haeche form of the verb.)
| Speech Level | Non-Honorific Present Indicative of "hada" | Honorific Present Indicative of "hada" | Level of Formality | When Used |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hasoseoche (하소서체) | hanaida (하나이다) | hasinaida (하시나이다) | Extremely formal and polite | Traditionally used when addressing a king, queen, or high official; now used only in historical dramas and the Bible |
| Hapsyoche (합쇼체) | hamnida (합니다) | hasimnida (하십니다) | Formal and polite | Used commonly between strangers, among male co-workers, by TV announcers, and to customers |
| Haoche (하오체) | hao (하오) | hasyo (하쇼), hasio (하시오) | Formal, of neutral politeness | Spoken form only used nowadays among some older people. Young people sometimes use it as an Internet dialect after it was popularized by historical dramas. |
| Hageche (하게체) | hane (하네) | hasine (하시네) | Formal, of neutral politeness | Generally only used by some older people when addressing younger people, friends, or relatives |
| Haerache (해라체) | handa (한다) | hasinda (하신다) | Formal, of neutral politeness or impolite | Used to close friends, relatives of similar age, or younger people; also used almost universally in books, newspapers, and magazines; also used in reported speech ("She said that...") |
| Haeyoche (해요체) | haeyo (해요) | haseyo (하세요) (common), hasyeoyo (하셔요) (rare) | Informal and polite | Used mainly between strangers, especially those older or of equal age. Traditionally used more by women than men, though in Seoul many men prefer this form to the Hapshoche (see above). |
| Haeche (해체) | hae (해) (in speech), hayeo (하여) (in writing) | hasyeo(하셔) | Informal, of neutral politeness or impolite | Used most often between close friends and relatives, and when addressing younger people. It is never used between strangers unless the speaker wants to pick a fight. |
Vocabulary
The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. More than 50% of the vocabulary (up to 70% by some estimates), however, especially scholarly terminology, are Sino-Korean words, either
- directly borrowed from Chinese written language,
- coined in Korea using Chinese characters, or
- borrowed from the Japanese language where they had been coined using Chinese characters.
Like Japanese, Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from the Chinese.
To much lesser extent, words have also been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. In modern times, some words have also been borrowed from Japanese, Western languages such as German and more recently English. Concerning daily usage vocabulary except what can be written in hanja, more words have possibly been borrowed from English than from any other language.
North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean, and either of those over foreign borrowings. Thus, many concepts that in South Korean may have several Sino-Korean, foreign or native Korean terms tend to lack the foreign term in North Korean.
Writing system
The Korean language was originally written using "Hanja", or Chinese characters; it is now mainly written in Hangul, the Korean alphabet, optionally mixing in Hanja to write Sino-Korean words. South Korea still teaches 1800 Hanja characters to its children, while the North abolished the use of hanja decades ago.
Hangul consists of 24 letters — 14 consonants and 10 vowels that are written in syllabic blocks of 2 to 5 components. Unlike the Chinese writing system (including Japanese Kanji), Hangul is not an ideographic system.
Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:
| IPA | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hangul | ㅂ | ㄷ | ㅈ | ㄱ | ㅃ | ㄸ | ㅉ | ㄲ | ㅍ | ㅌ | ㅊ | ㅋ | ㅅ | ㅎ | ㅆ | ㅁ | ㄴ | ㅇ | ㄹ |
| IPA | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hangul | ㅣ | ㅔ | ㅐ | ㅏ | ㅗ | ㅜ | ㅓ | ㅡ | ㅢ | ㅖ | ㅒ | ㅑ | ㅛ | ㅠ | ㅕ | ㅟ | ㅞ | ㅙ | ㅘ | ㅝ |
See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese and Japanese. Korean punctuation marks are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns from top to bottom, right to left, but is now usually written in rows from left to right, top to bottom.
Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea
The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.Kanno, Hiroomi (ed.) / Society for Korean Linguistics in Japan (1987). Chōsengo o manabō (『朝鮮語を学ぼう』), Sanshūsha, Tokyo. ISBN 4-384-01506-2
Pronunciation
In North Korea, palatalization of is optional, and can be pronounced as in 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 Hangul, the last of which represents what the Hangul would be if one writes the word as pronounced.
| Word | Meaning | Pronunciation | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North (RR/MR) | North (Hangul) | South (RR/MR) | South (Hangul) | ||
| 넓다 | wide | neoptta (nŏpta) | 넙따 | neoltta (nŏlta) | 널따 |
| 읽고 | to read (continuative form) | ikko (ikko) | 익꼬 | ilkko (ilko) | 일꼬 |
| 압록강 | Amnok River | amrokgang (amrokkang) | 암록강 | amnokgang (amnokkang) | 암녹강 |
| 독립 | independence | dongrip (tongrip) | 동립 | dongnip (tongnip) | 동닙 |
| 관념 | idea / sense / conception | gwallyeom (kwallyŏm) | 괄렴 | gwannyeom (kwannyŏm) | 관념 |
| 혁신적* | innovative | hyeoksinjeok (hyŏksinchŏk) | 혁씬쩍 | hyeoksinjeok (hyŏksinjŏk) | 혁씬적 |
Spelling
Some words are spelt differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.| Word spelling | Meaning | Pronunciation (RR/MR) | Remarks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| North | South | |||
| 해빛 | 햇빛 | sunshine | haetbit (haetpit) | The "sai siot" ('ㅅ' used for indicating sound change) is almost never written out in the North. |
| 벗꽃 | 벚꽃 | cherry blossom | beotkkot (pŏtkkot) | |
| 못읽다 | 못 읽다 | cannot read | monnikda (monnikta) | Spacing. |
| 한나산 | 한라산 | Hallasan | hallasan (hallasan) | When a ㄴ-ㄴ combination is pronounced as ll, the original Hangul spelling is kept in the North, while the Hangul is changed in the South. |
| 규률 | 규율 | rules | gyuyul (kyuyul) | In words where the original hanja is spelt "렬" or "률" and follows a vowel, the initial ㄹ is not pronounced in the North, making the pronunciation identical with that in the South where the ㄹ is dropped in the spelling. |
| 페 | 폐 | lungs | pe (p'e) | All hanja pronounced as pe (p'e) is written 페 in the North and 폐 in the South. |
Spelling and pronunciation
Some words have different spellings and pronunciations in the North and the South, some of which were given in the "Phonology" section above:| Word | Meaning | Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North spelling | North pronun. | South spelling | South pronun. | ||
| 력량 | ryeongryang (ryŏngryang) | 역량 | yeongnyang (yŏngnyang) | strength | Korean words originally starting in r or n have their r or n dropped in the South Korean version if the sound following it is an i or y sound. |
| 로동 | rodong (rodong) | 노동 | nodong (nodong) | work | Korean words originally starting in r have their r changed to n in the South Korean version if the sound following it is a sound other than i or y. |
| 원쑤 | wonssu (wŏnssu) | 원수 | wonsu (wŏnsu) | enemy | |
| 라지오 | rajio (rajio) | 라디오 | radio (radio) | radio | |
| 우 | u (u) | 위 | wi (wi) | on; above | |
| 안해 | anhae (anhae) | 아내 | anae (anae) | wife | |
| 꾸바 | kkuba (kkuba) | 쿠바 | kuba (k'uba) | 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. |
Grammar
Some grammatical constructions are also different:| Word | Meaning | Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North spelling | North pronun. | South spelling | South pronun. | ||
| 되였다 | doeyeotda (toeyŏtta) | 되었다 | doeeotda (toeŏtta) | past tense of 되다 (doeda/toeda), "to become" | All similar grammar forms of verbs or adjectives that end in ㅣ in the stem (i.e. ㅣ, ㅐ, ㅔ, ㅚ, ㅟ and ㅢ) in the North use 여 instead of the South's 어. |
| 고마와요 | gomawayo (komawayo) | 고마워요 | gomawoyo (komawŏyo) | thanks | ㅂ-irregular verbs in the North use 와 (wa) for all those with a positive ending vowel; this only happens in the South if the verb stem has only one syllable. |
| 할가요 | halgayo (halkayo) | 할까요 | halkkayo (halkkayo) | Shall we do? | Although the hangul differ, the pronunciations are the same (i.e. with the tensed ㄲ sound). |
Vocabulary
Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:| Word | Meaning | Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North spelling | North pronun. | South spelling | South pronun. | ||
| 문화주택 | munhwajutaek (munhwajut'aek) | 아파트 | apateu (ap'at'ŭ) | flat ("apartment") | 아빠트 (appateu/appat'ŭ) is also used in the North. |
| 조선말 | joseonmal (chosŏnmal) | 한국말 | han-gungmal (han'gungmal) | Korean language | |
| 곽밥 | gwakbap (kwakpap) | 도시락 | dosirak (tosirak) | lunch box |
Others
In the North, 《 and 》 are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones, “ and ”, are sometimes used.See also
- Hangul
- Common phrases in Korean
- Korean romanization
- Korean numerals
- Korean count word
- Korean language and computers
- List of English words of Korean origin
- Altaic hypothesis
- List of Korea-related topics
- Korean profanity
References
External links
- Korean language overview
- Ethnologue report for Korean
- Ministry of Education's KOSNET
- KOREAN through ENGLISH at Ministry of Culture and Tourism
- Linguistic map of Korea
- Comparison of South and North Korean vocabulary
Agglutinative languages | Language isolates | Korean language | Languages of China | Languages of Korea | Languages of North Korea | Altaic languages
ኮሪይኛ | لغة كورية | Coreanu | Корейски език | Coreà | Korejština | Koreanische Sprache | ކޮރެޔާ ބަސް | Korea keel | Idioma coreano | Korea lingvo | Coréen | Cóiréis | 한국어 | Koreana linguo | Bahasa Korea | ᑯᕆᐊᑎᑐᑦ | Lingua coreana | კორეული ენა | Kòrejańsczi jãzëk | Koreek | Korejiešu valoda | Korėjiečių kalba | Koreaans | Te reo Kōrea | Bahasa Korea | Солонгос | Koreaans | 朝鮮語 | Koreansk språk | Koreansk språk | Corean | کوريائي | Język koreański | Língua coreana | Limba coreeană | Корейский язык | Korean language | Korean kieli | Koreanska | ภาษาเกาหลี | Tiếng Triều Tiên | FakaKolea | ᎪᎵᎥ | Korece | 朝鮮語
"Korean language"