Korean languages
10 things about "Korean languages" :
... 7 Korean 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 ... ... 8 Korean language - Definition The Korean language is the most widely used language in Korea, and is the official language of both North and South Korea. The language is also spoken widely in neighbouring ... ... 9 Declan's Korean Language Learning Page Declan's Korean Language Page - information and links on learning the Korean language. Sections on the history of the Korean alphabet and writing system, Hangul, and a synopsis of ... ... 10 Korean Language Learning Tutorial, Korean Software, Korean Dictionary ... Hundreds of Korean language related products and information including Movies, Language Learning & Tutorials, Computer Training, Microsoft Korean Windows & Office, Handheld ... ... - This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language. See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system.
| Korean 한국어, 조선말 Hangugeo, Chosŏnmal |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | South Korea, North Korea, United States, Japan, People's Republic of China, CIS | |
| Total speakers: | 78 million[1] | |
| Ranking: | 17 | |
| Language family: | language isolate or Altaic language (controversial) | |
| Writing system: | Exclusive use of Hangul (N. Korea), mix of Hangul and hanja (S. Korea), or Cyrillic alphabet (lesser used in Goryeomal) | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: |  North Korea South KoreaYanbian (  People's Republic of China) United States (minority and auxiliary) |
|
| Regulated by: | South Korea: The National Institute of the Korean Language 국립국어원 North Korea: |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | ko | |
| ISO 639-2: | kor | |
| ISO 639-3: | kor | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Korean (한국어/조선말, see below) is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers,[1] with large groups in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, the United States, CIS (post-Soviet states), and more recently the Philippines. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean way. In the 15th century a national writing system was developed by Sejong the Great, nowadays called Hangul.
The genealogical classification of the Korean language is debated. Some linguists place it in the Altaic language family, while others consider it to be a language isolate. It is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.
