Korean 
Hankukmal
| Haeremae | "welcome" |
Korean is the language of the Korean Peninsula in northeast Asia.There are many theories about the origin of the Korean Language. According to the so-called Southern theory, Korean belongs to the Austronesian It is believed that the ancestors of the Korean people arrived in the Korean peninsula and in Manchuria around 4,000 BC. They displaced, or assimilated the earlier Paleosiberian-speaking settlers. Many small Korean tribal states were established in Manchuria and the Korean peninsula between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. The ancient Korean language was divided into two dialects: Puyo and Han. Puyo was spoken in Manchuria and nothern Korea, while Han was spoken in southern Korea. When the Korean peninsula was unified in the 7th century AD, the Han dialect became dominant. At the end of the 14th century, a Han-speaking group unified the peninsula, leading to the spread of its dialect throughout the Korean Peninsula. As a result, Modern Korean is
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There are two standard varieties of modern Korean: the Seoul dialect spoken in South Korea, and the Pyongyang dialect spoken in North Korea. Despite the small size of the Korean Peninsula, there are many regional dialects within these two major divisions, all of them mutually intelligible. South Korean regional dialects include Jeju-do, Jeolla-do, Chungcheongnam-do and others. The North Korean regional dialects include Hamkyong, Hwanghae and others. |
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Vowels
Consonants
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Korean has two classes of words: inflected and uninflected. Inflected words include all classes of verbs. Uninflected words include nouns, adjectives, pronouns, particles, and interjections. Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Levels of speech
If the speaker wants to express politeness towards the referent of the subject, the honorific marked si is inserted between verbal bases and endings. Below is an example of three levels of politeness towards the referent of the subject, here the teacher.
Word order
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The use of Chinese characters brought a large number of loanwords into the Korean language. More than 50% of Korean vocabulary is made up of borrowings from Chinese. Despite the Japanese occupation, there are surprisingly few Japanese borrowings, mostly limited to the spoken language. Korean has also borrowed from Western European languages, particularly from English. Below are the Korean numerals 1-10 in transliteration
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The alphabetic script (Hangul) for writing Korean was invented in the 15th century by King Sejong. Before that, Korean was written with Chinese characters which were ill-suited for representing the sounds and structure of Korean. Words of Chinese origin have traditionally been written with Chinese characters, called Hanja, even after the invention of Hangul. The use of Hanja is still common in South Korea, but is officially discouraged in North Korea. Hangul has 24 letters: 10 vowels and 14 consonants.
Korean letters are formed with strokes from top to bottom and left to right. Vowels and consonants combine into syllables that consist of letters arranged in a square block, rather than linearly. Thus, the syllable han ([h] + [a] +[n]) is written as South Korea uses an official romanization system, called the McCune Reischauer orthography. Click here to learn more about Hangul. Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Korean.
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Korean words in English English has borrowed a few words from Korean, mostly connected with food and sports. Below are two examples.
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Click here to find out where Korean is taught in the United States. Online resources for the study of Korean |
| How difficult is it to learn Korean? Korean is considered to be a Category III language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English. |
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