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Korean is the first language for about 81 million people, mostly of Koreans descent. It is the national language of both North Korea and South Korea. In the south, the language is known as ' () and in the north, it is known as ' (). Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of Korean Wave have spread around the world through globalization and Korean Wave.
Beyond Korea, the language is recognized as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture, and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the island just north of Japan, and by the Koryo-saram in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few Extinct language relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not mutually intelligible. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in contemporary Manchuria. The hierarchy of the society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to a system of speech levels and honorifics indicative of the formality of any given situation.
Modern Korean is written in the Hangul ( in South Korea, in North Korea), an alphabet system developed during the 15th century for that purpose, although it did not become the primary script until the mid 20th century (Hanja and mixed script were the primary script until then). The script uses 24 basic letters ( jamo) and 27 complex letters formed from the basic ones.
Interest in Korean language acquisition (as a second language) has been generated by longstanding alliances, military involvement, and diplomacy, such as between South Korea–United States and China–North Korea since the end of World War II and the Korean War. Along with other languages such as Standard Chinese and Arabic, Korean is ranked at the top difficulty level for English speakers by the United States Department of Defense.
Since the establishment of two independent governments, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation and vocabulary chosen. While there tends to be strong political conflict between North and South Korea regarding these linguistic "differences," regional dialects within each country actually display greater linguistic variations than those found between North and South Korean standards. Nevertheless, these dialects remain largely mutually intelligible.
In the 15th century King Sejong the Great personally developed an featural writing system, known today as Hangul, to promote literacy among the common people. Introduced in the document Hunminjeongeum, it was called eonmun ('colloquial script') and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea.
The Korean alphabet was denounced by the yangban aristocracy, who looked down upon it for being too easy to learn. However, it gained widespread use among the common class and was widely used to print popular novels which were enjoyed by the common class. Since few people could understand official documents written in classical Chinese, Korean kings sometimes released public notices entirely written in Hangul as early as the 16th century for all Korean classes, including uneducated peasants and slaves. By the 17th century, the yangban had exchanged Hangul letters with slaves, which suggests a high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era.
In the context of growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Kabo Reform of 1894 abolished the Confucian examinations and decreed that government documents would be issued in Hangul instead of literary Chinese. Some newspapers were published in Hangul, but other publications used Korean mixed script, with Hanja for Sino-Korean vocabulary and Hangul for other elements. North Korea abolished Hanja in writing in 1949, but continues to teach them in schools. Their usage in South Korea is mainly reserved for specific circumstances such as newspapers, scholarly papers and disambiguation. Today Hanja is largely unused in everyday life but is still important for historical and linguistic studies.
In South Korea the Korean language is referred to by many names including hangugeo ('Korean language'), hangungmal ('Korean speech') and urimal ('our language'); "hanguk" is taken from the name of the Korean Empire (). The "han" (italic=no) in Hanguk and Daehan Jeguk is derived from Samhan, in reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula), while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as gugeo, literally "national language". This name is based on the same Hanja (italic=no 'nation' + 'language') that are also used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages.
In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Joseonmal, or more formally, Joseoneo. This is taken from the North Korean name for Korea (Joseon), a name retained from the Joseon period until the proclamation of the Korean Empire, which in turn was annexed by the Empire of Japan.
In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term italic=no or the short form Cháoyǔ has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, whereas Hánguóyǔ or the short form Hányǔ is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.
The hypothesis that Korean could be related to Japanese has had some supporters due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin, and Roy Andrew Miller.e.g. , Sergei Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list. Some linguists concerned with the issue between Japanese and Korean, including Alexander Vovin, have argued that the indicated similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing, especially from Ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning 'hemp'., also found in This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern Ryukyuan languages, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three dialects of the Southern Ryukyuan language group. Also, the doublet wo meaning 'hemp' is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryukyuan languages. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term.
Hudson & Robbeets (2020) suggested that there are traces of a pre-Nivkh languages substratum in Korean. According to the hypothesis, ancestral varieties of Nivkh (also known as Amuric) were once distributed on the Korean Peninsula before the arrival of Koreanic speakers.
is aspirated and becomes an alveolo-palatal before or for most speakers (but see North–South differences in the Korean language). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, changes to (example: beoseot (버섯) 'mushroom').
may become a bilabial before or , a palatal before or , a [[velar|velar consonant]] before , a voiced between voiced sounds, and a elsewhere.
become voiced between voiced sounds.
frequently denasalize at the beginnings of words.
becomes alveolar flap between vowels, and or at the end of a syllable or next to another . A written syllable-final 'ㄹ', when followed by a vowel or a glide (''i.e.'', when the next character starts with 'ㅇ'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes .
Traditionally, was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before , and otherwise became . However, the inflow of western Konglish changed the trend, and now word-initial (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either or .
All (plosives, affricates, fricatives) at the end of a word are pronounced with no audible release, .
Plosive sounds become nasals before nasal sounds.
Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word.
The traditional prohibition of word-initial became a morphological rule called "initial law" (두음법칙) in the pronunciation standards of South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial in the pronunciation standards of North Korea. For example,
ㅏ is closer to a near-open central vowel (), though is still used for tradition.
ㅓ is generally pronounced as [ə] when it becomes a long vowel.
However, in Korea, with the exception of older generations in certain regions, most people neither pronounce nor distinguish clearly between the two monophthongs 'ㅐ' (ae) and 'ㅔ' (e). Similarly, 'ㅟ' and 'ㅚ' are sometimes pronounced as wi and we respectively. The demographic that maintains monophthongal realizations of 'ㅟ' and 'ㅚ' is reportedly limited to elderly speakers in the Gyeonggi, Gangwon, and Chungcheong provinces. The official standard pronunciation guidelines acknowledge this variation by permitting both monophthongal and diphthongal pronunciations of these vowels.
In South Korea, while the distinction between long and short vowels is not clearly pronounced in contemporary speech, this distinction is maintained in standard language norms for reasons of tradition and semantic differentiation.
Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-을/-를), -euro/-ro (-으로/-로), -eseo/-seo (-에서/-서), -ideunji/-deunji (-이든지/-든지) and -iya/-ya (-이야/-야).
| + Korean particles ! After a consonant !! After a ㄹ (rieul) !! After a vowel | ||
| -ui (-의) | ||
| -neun (-는) | ||
| -ga (-가) | ||
| -reul (-를) | ||
| -wa (-와) | ||
| -ro (-로) | ||
Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.
Question
Response
The relationship between a speaker/writer and their subject and audience is paramount in Korean grammar. The relationship between the speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in , whereas that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.
Honorifics in traditional Korea were strictly hierarchical. The caste and estate systems possessed patterns and usages much more complex and stratified than those used today. The intricate structure of the Korean honorific system flourished in traditional culture and society. Honorifics in contemporary Korea are now used for people who are psychologically distant. Honorifics are also used for people who are superior in status, such as older people, teachers, and employers.
The three levels with high politeness (very formally polite, formally polite, casually polite) are generally grouped together as jondaesmal (존댓말), whereas the two levels with low politeness (formally impolite, casually impolite) are banmal (반말) in Korean. The remaining two levels (neutral formality with neutral politeness, high formality with neutral politeness) are neither polite nor impolite.
Nowadays, younger-generation speakers no longer feel obligated to lower their usual regard toward the referent. It is common to see younger people talk to their older relatives with banmal. This is not out of disrespect, but instead it shows the intimacy and the closeness of the relationship between the two speakers. Transformations in social structures and attitudes in today's rapidly changing society have brought about change in the way people speak.
To have a more complete understanding of the intricacies of gender in Korean, three models of language and gender that have been proposed: the deficit model, the dominance model, and the cultural difference model. In the deficit model, male speech is seen as the default, and any form of speech that diverges from that norm (female speech) is seen as lesser than. The dominance model sees women as lacking in power due to living within a patriarchal society. The cultural difference model proposes that the difference in upbringing between men and women can explain the differences in their speech patterns. It is important to look at the models to better understand the misogynistic conditions that shaped the ways that men and women use the language. Korean's lack of grammatical gender makes it different from most European languages. Rather, gendered differences in Korean can be observed through formality, intonation, word choice, etc.
However, one can still find stronger contrasts between genders within Korean speech. Some examples of this can be seen in: (1) the softer tone used by women in speech; (2) a married woman introducing herself as someone's mother or wife, not with her own name; (3) the presence of gender differences in titles and occupational terms (for example, a sajang is a company president, and yŏsajang is a female company president); (4) females sometimes using more and rising tones in statements, also seen in speech from children.
Between two people of asymmetric status in Korean society, people tend to emphasize differences in status for the sake of solidarity. Koreans prefer to use kinship terms, rather than any other terms of reference. In traditional Korean society, women have long been in disadvantaged positions. Korean social structure traditionally was a patriarchically dominated family system that emphasized the maintenance of family lines. That structure has tended to separate the roles of women from those of men.
Cho and Whitman (2019) explore how categories such as male and female and social context influence Korean's features. For example, they point out that usage of jagi (자기 you) is dependent on context. Among middle-aged women, jagi is used to address someone who is close to them, while young Koreans use jagi to address their lovers or spouses regardless of gender.
Korean society's prevalent attitude towards men being in public (outside the home) and women living in private still exists today. For instance, the word for husband is bakkannyangban (바깥양반 'outside nobleman'), but a husband introduces his wife as ansaram (안사람 an 'inside' 'person'). Also in kinship terminology, oe (외 'outside' or 'wrong') is added for maternal grandparents, creating oeharabeoji and oehalmeoni (외할아버지, 외할머니 'grandfather and grandmother'), with different lexicons for males and females and patriarchal society revealed. Further, in interrogatives to an addressee of equal or lower status, Korean men tend to use haennya (했냐? 'did it?')' in aggressive masculinity, but women use haenni (했니? 'did it?')' as a soft expression. However, there are exceptions. Korean society used the question endings -ni () and -nya (), the former prevailing among women and men until a few decades ago. In fact, -nya () was characteristic of the Jeolla and Chungcheong dialects. However, since the 1950s, large numbers of people have moved to Seoul from Chungcheong and Jeolla, and they began to influence the way men speak. Recently, women also have used the -nya (). As for -ni (), it is usually used toward people to be polite even to someone not close or younger. As for -nya (), it is used mainly to close friends regardless of gender.
Like the case of "actor" and "actress", it also is possible to add a gender prefix for emphasis: biseo (비서 'secretary') is sometimes combined with yeo (여 'female') to form yeobiseo (여비서 'female secretary'); namja (남자 'man') often is added to ganhosa (간호사 'nurse') to form namja ganhosa (남자 간호사 'male nurse').
Another crucial difference between men and women is the tone and pitch of their voices and how they affect the perception of politeness. Men learn to use an authoritative falling tone; in Korean culture, a deeper voice is associated with being more polite. In addition to the deferential speech endings being used, men are seen as more polite as well as impartial, and professional. While women who use a rising tone in conjunction with -yo () are not perceived to be as polite as men. The -yo () also indicates uncertainty since the ending has many prefixes that indicate uncertainty and questioning while the deferential ending has no prefixes to indicate uncertainty. The -hamnida () ending is the most polite and formal form of Korea, and the -yo () ending is less polite and formal, which reinforces the perception of women as less professional.
Hedges and euphemisms to soften assertions are common in women's speech. Women traditionally add nasal sounds neyng, neym, ney-e in the last syllable more frequently than men. Often, l is added in women's for female stereotypes and so igeolo (이거로 'this thing') becomes igeollo (이걸로 'this thing') to communicate a lack of confidence and passivity.
Women use more linguistic markers such as exclamation eomeo (어머 'oh') and eojjeom (어쩜 'what a surprise') than men do in cooperative communication.
In South Korea, it is widely believed that North Korea wanted to emphasize the use of unique Korean expressions in its language and eliminate the influence of foreign languages. However, according to researchers such as Jeon Soo-tae, who has seen first-hand data from North Korea, the country has reduced the number of difficult foreign words in a similar way to South Korea.
In 2021, Moon Sung-guk of Kim Il Sung University in North Korea wrote in his thesis that Kim Jong Il had said that vernacularized Sino-Korean vocabulary should be used as it is, not modified. "A language is in constant interaction with other languages, and in the process it is constantly being developed and enriched," he said. According to the paper, Kim Jong Il argued that academic terms used in the natural sciences and engineering, such as (; 'computer') and (; 'hard disk') should remain in the names of their inventors, and that the word (; 'chocolate') should not be replaced because it had been used for so long.
South Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the 표준국어대사전 (Standard Korean Language Dictionary), and North Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> 조선말대사전 (Korean Language Dictionary).
| 1 | 일 | 一 | il | 하나 | hana |
| 2 | 이 | 二 | i | 둘 | dul |
| 3 | 삼 | 三 | sam | 셋 | set |
| 4 | 사 | 四 | sa | 넷 | net |
| 5 | 오 | 五 | o | 다섯 | daseot |
| 6 | 육, 륙 | 六 | yuk, ryuk | 여섯 | yeoseot |
| 7 | 칠 | 七 | chil | 일곱 | ilgop |
| 8 | 팔 | 八 | pal | 여덟 | yeodeol |
| 9 | 구 | 九 | gu | 아홉 | ahop |
| 10 | 십 | 十 | sip | 열 | yeol |
Sino-Korean vocabulary consists of:
Therefore, just like other words, Korean has Korean numerals. English is similar, having native English words and Latinate equivalents such as water-aqua, fire-flame, sea-marine, two-dual, sun-solar, star-stellar. However, unlike English and Latin which belong to the same Indo-European languages family and bear a certain resemblance, Korean and Chinese are genetically unrelated and the two sets of Korean words differ completely from each other. All Sino-Korean are monosyllabic as in Chinese, whereas native Korean morphemes can be polysyllabic. The Sino-Korean words were deliberately imported alongside corresponding Chinese characters for a written language and everything was supposed to be written in Hanja, so the coexistence of Sino-Korean would be more thorough and systematic than that of Latinate words in English.
The exact proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary is a matter of debate. Sohn (2001) stated 50–60%. In 2006 the same author gives an even higher estimate of 65%. Jeong Jae-do, one of the compilers of the dictionary Urimal Keun Sajeon, asserts that the proportion is not so high. He points out that Korean dictionaries compiled during the colonial period include many unused Sino-Korean words. In his estimation, the proportion of Sino-Korean vocabulary in the Korean language might be as low as 30%. The dictionary mentioned is
Because of such a prevalence of English in modern South Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or "Konglish" (콩글리시), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the South Korean dialect of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary). However, due to North Korea's isolation, such influence is lacking in North Korean speech.
Below are charts of the letters of the Korean alphabet and their Revised Romanization (RR) and canonical International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) values:
| + Consonants |
| + Vowels |
The letters of the Korean alphabet are not written linearly like most alphabets, but instead arranged into blocks that represent . So, while the word bibimbap (Korean rice dish) is written as eight characters in a row in the Latin alphabet, in Korean it is written , as three "syllabic blocks" in a row. Mukbang ( 'eating show') is seven characters after romanization but only two "syllabic blocks" before.
Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese (except when Japanese is written exclusively in hiragana, as in children's books). The Punctuation mark used for Korean punctuation are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, like traditional Chinese. However, the syllabic blocks are now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom, like English.
One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of the Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, but speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect maintain the pitch accent of Middle Korean. Some dialects are conservative, maintaining Middle Korean sounds (such as z, β, ə), which have been lost from the standard language, and others are highly innovative.
, , and suggest that the modern Seoul dialect is currently undergoing tonogenesis based on the finding that in recent years lenis consonants (ㅂㅈㄷㄱ), aspirated consonants (ㅍㅊㅌㅋ) and fortis consonants (ㅃㅉㄸㄲ) were shifting from a distinction via voice onset time to that of pitch change; however, disagree with the suggestion that the consonant distinction shifting away from voice onset time is due to the introduction of tonal features, and instead proposes that it is a prosodically conditioned change.
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 a basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects. For example, "garlic chives" translated into Gyeongsang dialect is (), but in Standard Korean, it is (). This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is today. See also the Japanese–Koreanic languages hypothesis.
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 modified Hangul (what the Korean characters would be if one were to write the word as pronounced).
| 읽고 | il go | to read (continuative form) | il ko | il ko | (일) 코 | il kko | il kko | (일) 꼬 |
| 압록강 | am nokgang | Yalu River | am rokgang | am rokkang | 암(록) 깡 | am nokkang | am nokkang | 암녹깡 |
| 독립 | dong nip | independence | dong rip | tong rip | 동(립) | dong nip | tong nip | 동닙 |
| 관념 | gwa nnyeom | idea / sense / conception | gwa llyeom | kwa llyŏm | 괄렴 | gwa nnyeom | kwa nnyŏm | (관) 념 |
| 혁신적* | hyeoksin jeok | innovative | hyeoksin jjeok | hyŏksin tchŏk | (혁) 씬쩍 | hyeoksin jeok | hyŏksin jŏk | (혁) 씬(적) |
* In the North, similar pronunciation is used 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.
| 해빛 | 햇빛 | sunshine | haeppit (haepit) | 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 | modikda (modikta) | Spacing. |
| 한나산 | 한라산 | Hallasan | hallasan (hallasan) | When a ㄴㄴ combination is pronounced as ll, the original Hangul spelling is kept in the North, whereas 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. |
| 력량 | ryeongryang (ryŏngryang) | 역량 | yeongnyang (yŏngnyang) | strength | Initial r's are dropped if followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean. |
| 로동 | rodong (rodong) | 노동 | nodong (nodong) | work | Initial r's are demoted to an n if not followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean. |
| 원쑤 | wonssu (wŏnssu) | 원수 | wonsu (wŏnsu) | mortal enemy | "Mortal enemy" and "Wonsu" are homophones in the South. Possibly to avoid referring to Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un as the enemy, the second syllable of "enemy" is written and pronounced 쑤 in the North. |
| 라지오 | rajio (rajio) | 라디오 | radio (radio) | radio | In South Korea, the expression rajio is considered a Japanese expression that was introduced during the Japanese colonial rule and does not properly represent the pronunciation of Korean. |
| 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 | In the case where ye comes after a consonant, such as in hye and pye, it is pronounced without the palatal approximate. North Korean orthography reflects this pronunciation nuance. |
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:
| 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) |
| 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). |
| 문화주택 | munhwajutaek (munhwajut'aek) | 아파트 | apateu (ap'at'ŭ) | Apartment | 아빠트 ( appateu/appat'ŭ) is also used in the North. |
| 조선어 | joseoneo (chosŏnŏ) | 한국어 | hangugeo (han'gugŏ) | Korean language | The Japanese pronunciation of 조선말 was used throughout Korea and Manchuria during Japanese imperial rule, but after liberation, the government in the South chose the name 대한민국 ( daehanminguk) which was derived from the name immediately prior to Japanese imperial rule, and claimed by government-in-exile from 1919. The syllable 한 ( han) was drawn from the same source as that name (in reference to the Han people). Read more.
조선어 ( joseoneo/chosŏnŏ) is officially used in the North. |
| 곽밥 | gwakbap (kwakpap) | 도시락 | dosirak (tosirak) | lunch box | |
| 동무 | dongmu (tongmu) | 친구 | chingu (ch'in'gu) | Friend | 동무 was originally a non-ideological word for "friend" used all over the Korean peninsula, but North Koreans later adopted it as the equivalent of the Communist term of address "comrade". As a result, to South Koreans today the word has a heavy political tinge, and so they have shifted to using other words for friend like chingu (친구) or beot (벗). Today, beot (벗) is closer to a term used in literature, and chingu (친구) is the widest-used word for friend. Such changes were made after the Korean War and the ideological battle between the anti-Communist government in the South and North Korea's communism. |
In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Language Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences (). In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of Korean Language, which was created by presidential decree on 23 January 1991.
The institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as the King Sejong Institute. Unlike that organization, however, the TOPIK Korea Institute operates within established universities and colleges around the world, providing educational materials. In countries around the world, Korean embassies and cultural centers () administer TOPIK examinations.
The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students; in 2007, these students were estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities. However, in the United States have noted a sharp rise in the number of people of other ethnic backgrounds studying Korean between 2009 and 2011, which they attribute to Korean Wave of K-Pop and Korean drama. In 2018, it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities.
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