Korean language

Korean (한국어/조선말, 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 Mandarin) in neighbouring Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 80 million Korean speakers, including large groups in the former Soviet Union, China, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and more recently, South Africa and the Philippines.

Korean's relationship to other languages is yet to be precisely determined. Studies of vocabulary and grammar have tried to link the language to the Altaic languages, which include Turkish and various others spread across Asia. Structural similarities with Japanese have also been highlighted, though the words and pronunciation are very different. A link with Japanese persists as a hypothesis partly because the Japanese and Korean peoples share deep cultural roots. A final view is that Korean has no relationship to any other surviving language; it is an isolate, with its nearest relatives long-dead.

Korean is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax. Like Japanese and Vietnamese, Korean has borrowed much vocabulary from Chinese or created vocabulary on Chinese models.

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 (조선말; with Hanja:朝鮮말), or more formally, Chosŏnŏ (조선어; 朝鮮語).

In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal (한국말; 韓國말), or more formally, Hangugeo (한국어; 韓國語) or Gugeo (국어; 國語; literally "national language"). It is sometimes colloquially called Urimal ("our language"; 우리말 in one word in South Korea, 우리 말 with a space in North Korea).

On the other hand, Korean people in the former USSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (also Goryeoin [고려인; 高麗人; literally, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal (고려말; 高麗말).

Classification

The classification of the modern Korean language is uncertain, and due to the lack of any one generally accepted theory, it is sometimes described conservatively as a language isolate.

Since the publication of the article of Ramstedt in 1926, many linguists support the hypothesis that Korean can be classified as an Altaic language, or as a relative of proto-Altaic. Korean is similar to Altaic languages in that they both lack 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). Vinokurova, a scholar of the Sakha language, noted that like in Korean, and unlike in other Turkic languages or a variety of other languages surveyed, adverbs in Sakha are derived from verbs with the help of derivational morphology; however, she did not suggest this implied any relation between the two languages.

It is also considered likely that Korean is related in some way to Japanese, since the two languages have a similar grammatical structure. Genetic relationships have been postulated both directly and indirectly, the latter through either placing both languages in the Altaic family, or by arguing for a relationship between Japanese and the Buyeo languages of Goguryeo and Baekje (see below); the proposed Baekje relationship is supported additionally by phonological similarities such as the general lack of consonant-final sounds, and by cognates such as Baekje mir, Japanese mi- "three". Furthermore, there are known cultural links between Baekje and Japan, it even being likely that the Baekje upper classes fled to Japan when the kingdom fell. Census records from early Japan show that most Japanese aristocratic clans traced their lineage to the Korean peninsula. A fact confirmed by the current Japanese Emperor in a speech marking his 68th birthday when he stated, "I, on my part, feel a certain kinship with Korea, given the fact that it is recorded in the Chronicles of Japan that the mother of Emperor Kammu was of the line of King Muryong of Paekche," and "I believe it was fortunate to see such culture and skills transmitted from Korea to Japan." [1]

Others argue, however, that the similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect. See East Asian languages for morphological features shared among languages of the East Asian sprachbund, and Japanese language classification for further details on the possible relationship.

Of the ancient languages attested in the Korean Peninsula, modern Korean is believed to be a descendent of the languages of Samhan and Silla; it is unknown whether these are related to the Buyeo languages, though 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 the dialect as a distinct vowel.

There are also fringe theories proposing various other relationships; for example, a few linguists such as Homer B. Hulbert have also tried to relate Korean to the Dravidian languages through the similar syntax in both.

Dialects

Dialects of Korean

Korean has several dialects (called mal [literally "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 are in fact all mutually intelligible, except the dialect of Jeju Island (see Jeju Dialect). The dialect spoken in Jeju 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.

It is also worth noting that 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, such as South Jeolla dialect /kur/ vs. Standard Korean /ip/ "mouth" or Gyeongsang dialect /ʨʌŋ.gu.ʥi/ vs. Standard Korean /puːʨʰu/ "garlic chives." This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Buyeo languages hypothesis.

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

The Korean consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plosives and affricates	plain	ㅂ p	ㄷ t	ㅈ ʨ	ㄱ k
	tense	ㅃ p͈	ㄸ t͈	ㅉ ʨ͈	ㄲ k͈
	aspirate	ㅍ pʰ	ㅌ tʰ	ㅊ ʨʰ	ㅋ kʰ
Fricatives	plain		ㅅ s			ㅎ h
	tense		ㅆ s͈
Nasal stops		ㅁ m	ㄴ n		ㅇ ŋ
Flap consonant			ㄹ ɾ

Example words for consonants:

phoneme	IPA	Romanized	English
ㅂ p	[pal]	bal	'foot'
ㅃ p͈	[p͈alda]	ppalda	'to suck'
ㅍ pʰ	[pʰal]	pal	'arm'
ㅁ m	[mal]	mal	'horse'
ㄷ t	[tal]	dal	'moon'
ㄸ t͈	[t͈al]	ttal	'daughter'
ㅌ tʰ	[tʰada]	tada	'to ride'
ㄴ n	[nal]	nal	'day'
ㅈ ʨ	[ʨal]	jal	'well'
ㅉ ʨ͈	[ʨ͈ada]	jjada	'to squeeze; to be salty;'
ㅊ ʨʰ	[ʨʰada]	chada	'to kick'
ㄱ k	[kada]	gada	'to go'
ㄲ k͈	[k͈alda]	kkalda	'to spread; to lay out'
ㅋ kʰ	[kʰal]	kal	'knife'
ㅇ ŋ	[paŋ]	bang	'room'
ㅅ s	[sal]	sal	'flesh'
ㅆ s͈	[s͈al]	ssal	'uncooked grains of rice'
ㄹ l	[paɾam]	baram	'wind'
ㅎ h	[hada]	hada	'to do'

The IPA symbol <͈> (a subscript double straight quotation mark) is used to denote the tensed consonants /p͈, t͈, k͈͈, ʨ͈, s͈/. 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 <ʼ>, but this is inappropriate, as IPA <ʼ> 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

The Korean vowels

Monophthongs

Korean has 8 different vowel qualities and a length distinction. Two more vowels, the close-mid front rounded vowel /ø/ and the close front rounded vowel /y/, can still be heard in the speech of some older speakers, but they have been largely replaced by the diphthongs [we] and [wi] respectively. In a 2003 survey of 350 speakers from Seoul, nearly 90% pronounced the vowel 'ㅟ' as [wi]. 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 /e/ and /ɛ/ 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 [e] seems to be the dominant form. Long /ʌː/ is actually [əː] for most speakers.

i	[ɕiˈʥaŋ]	sijang (시장)	'hunger'	iː	[ˈɕiːʥaŋ]	sijang	'market'
e	[peˈɡɛ]	begae (베개)	'pillow'	eː	[ˈpeːda]	beda	'cut'
ɛ	[tʰɛˈjaŋ]	taeyang (태양)	'sun'	ɛː	[ˈtʰɛːdo]	taedo	'attitude'
a	[ˈmal]	mal (말)	'horse'	aː	[ˈmaːl]	mal	'speech'
o	[poˈɾi]	bori (보리)	'barley'	oː	[ˈpoːsu]	bosu	'salary'
u	[kuˈɾi]	guri (구리)	'copper'	uː	[ˈsuːbak]	subak	'watermelon'
ʌ	[ˈpʌl]	beol (벌)	'punishment'	əː	[ˈpəːl]	beol	'bee'
ɯ	[ˈəːɾɯn]	eoreun (어른)	'seniors'	ɯː	[ˈɯːmɕik]	eumsik	'food'

Diphthongs and glides

/j/ and /w/ are considered to be components of diphthongs rather than separate consonant phonemes.

				wi	[twi]	dwi	'back'	ɯi	[ˈɯisa]	uisa	'doctor'
je	[ˈjeːsan]	yesan	'budget'	we	[kwe]	gwe	'box'
jɛ	[ˈjɛːgi]	yaegi	'story'	wɛ	[wɛ]	wae	'why'
ja	[ˈjaːgu]	yagu	'baseball'	wa	[kwaːˈil]	gwail	'fruit'
jo	[ˈkjoːsa]	gyosa	'teacher'
ju	[juˈɾi]	yuri	'glass'
jə	[jəːgi]	yeogi	'here'	wʌ	[mwʌ]	mwo	'what'

Source: Handbook of the International Phonetic Association

Phonology

/s/ becomes an alveolo-palatal [ɕ] before [j] or [i] for most speakers (but see #Differences in the language between North Korea and South Korea). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (Example: beoseot (버섯) 'mushroom').

/h/ becomes a bilabial [ɸ] before [o] or [u], a palatal [ç] before [j] or [i], a velar [x] before [ɯ], a voiced [ɦ] between voiced sounds, and a [h] elsewhere.

/p, t, ʨ, k/ become voiced [b, d, ʥ, g] between voiced sounds.

/l/ becomes alveolar flap [ɾ] between vowels, [l] or [ɭ] at the end of a syllable or next to another /l/, disappears at the beginning of a word before [j] in normal speech, and otherwise becomes [n] in normal speech.

All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased [p̚, t̚, k̚] at the end of a word.

Plosive stops /p, t, k/ become nasal stops [m, n, ŋ] before nasal stops.

Some of these phonetic assimilation rules can be seen in the following:

• /ʨoŋlo/ is pronounced as [ʨoŋ.no]
• /hankukmal/ as [han.guŋ.mal]

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 [r], and initial [n] before [i] or [j]. 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: [p̚, m̚, t̚, n̚, l, k̚] and [ŋ̚]. Syllable-final stops are all unreleased.

Vowel harmony

Korean Vowel Harmony

Positive/"light"/Yang Vowels	ㅏ (a)	ㅑ (ya)	ㅗ (o)	ㅛ (yo)
	ㅐ (ae)	ㅘ (wa)	ㅚ (oe)	ㅙ (wae)
Negative/"heavy"/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)

Traditionally, the Korean language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Korean, as in most Altaic languages, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes (such as postpositions) change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. It is not as prevalent in modern usage, although it remains strong in onomatopoeia, adjectives and adverbs, interjections, and conjugation. There are also other traces of vowel harmony in Korean.

There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. The vowel eu is considered partially a neutral and negative vowel. The vowel classes loosely follow the negative and 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), light and heavy water splashing
• 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!"
  • 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 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: "네." (ne.)

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 referent 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 usually uses 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 first seriously considering the consequences to one's physical safety.

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 the referent of 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.)

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, or
• coined in Japan or Korea using Chinese characters.

Korean has two number systems: one native, and one borrowed from the Chinese.

To a much lesser extent, words have also occasionally been borrowed from Mongolian, Sanskrit, and other languages. Conversely, the Korean language itself has also contributed some loanwords to other languages, most notably the Tsushima dialect of Japanese.

In modern times, many words have been borrowed from Japanese and Western languages such as German (areubaiteu ‘part-time job’, allereugi ‘allergy’) 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. Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example ‘dozen’ > ダース dāsu > 다스 daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current hangulization rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as ‘German(y)’ (see Names for Germany), the first part of whose endonym [ˈd̥ɔɪ̯ʧʷ.la̠ntʰ] the Japanese approximated using the Kanji 獨逸 doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: 獨 dok + 逸 il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented hangulizations of the countries' endonyms or English names.

North Korean vocabulary shows a tendency to prefer native Korean over Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings. By contrast, South Korean may have several Sino-Korean or foreign borrowings which tend to be absent in North Korean.

Writing system

See also: Hangul consonant and vowel tables

In ancient times, the languages of the Korean peninsula were written using Chinese characters, using hyangchal or idu. Knowledge of such systems were lost, and the Korean language was not written at all; the aristocracy wrote Classical Chinese for their writing.

Korean 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 a logographic system.

Below is a chart of the Korean alphabet's symbols and their canonical IPA values:

Consonants

IPA	p	t	ʨ	k	p͈	t͈	ʨ͈	k͈	pʰ	tʰ	ʨʰ	kʰ	s	h	s͈	m	n	ŋ	w	r	j
Hangul	ㅂ	ㄷ	ㅈ	ㄱ	ㅃ	ㄸ	ㅉ	ㄲ	ㅍ	ㅌ	ㅊ	ㅋ	ㅅ	ㅎ	ㅆ	ㅁ	ㄴ	ㅇ		ㄹ

Vowels

IPA	i	e	ɛ	a	o	u	ʌ	ɯ	ɰi	je	jɛ	ja	jo	ju	jʌ	wi	we	wɛ	wa	wʌ
Hangul	ㅣ	ㅔ	ㅐ	ㅏ	ㅗ	ㅜ	ㅓ	ㅡ	ㅢ	ㅖ	ㅒ	ㅑ	ㅛ	ㅠ	ㅕ	ㅟ	ㅞ	ㅙ	ㅘ	ㅝ

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 between North Korea and South Korea

The Korean language used in the North and the South exhibits differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

Pronunciation

In North Korea, palatalization of /si/ is optional, and /ʨ/ can be pronounced as [z] 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	amnokkang (amnokkang)	암녹깡
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

* Similar pronunciation is used in the North whenever the hanja "的" is attached to a Sino-Korean word ending in ㄴ, ㅁ or ㅇ. (In the South, this rule only applies when it is attached to any single-character Sino-Korean word.)

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.

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	"Enemy" and "head of state" are homophones in the South. Possibly to avoid referring to Kim Il-sung / Kim Jong-il as the enemy, the second syllable of "enemy" is written and pronounced 쑤 in the North.
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.
페	pe (p'e)	폐	pye (p'ye), pe (p'e)	lungs	All hanja pronounced as pye (p'ye) or pe (p'e) in the South are pronounced as pe (p'e) in the North. The spelling is also accordingly different.

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:

Original name	North Korea transliteration		English name	South Korea transliteration
	Spelling	Pronunciation		Spelling	Pronunciaton
Ulaanbaatar	울란바따르	ullanbattareu (ullanbattarŭ)	Ulan Bator	울란바토르	ullanbatoreu (ullanbat'orŭ)
København	쾨뻰하븐	koeppenhabeun (k'oeppenhabŭn)	Copenhagen	코펜하겐	kopenhagen (k'op'enhagen)
al-Qāhirah	까히라	kkahira (kkahira)	Cairo	카이로	kairo (k'airo)

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)	한국어	han-gugeo(han'gugeo)	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 standard, although 『 』 and 「 」 are sometimes used in popular novels.

See also

• Hangul
• Common phrases in Korean
• Korean romanization
  • Revised romanization of Korean
  • McCune-Reischauer
  • Yale Romanization#Korean
  • SKATS
• 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

Bliblography

• Sohn, H.-M. (1999). The Korean Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Song, J.J. (2005).The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London: Routledge.

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
• Beginners Guide
• Korean Language Guide