안녕 ! —Ahn-nyoung!— or "Hi!" We are now entering the Korean language! And let's get one thing straight, once and for all, right from the start of our Langventure into this particular East Asian language:
Korean is NOT Chinese and Korean is NOT Japanese.
Linguists actually consider it to be the largest language isolate in the world, which in simpler words means that it has no obvious or even deducible "genetic" relationship with any other language. Think about it as a language family of one. That said, due to the historical connections between the Chinese and Koreans, more than a half of Korean words do have Chinese origin. BUT their grammars and scripts are completely different.
As to Japanese, it kinda sounds fairly similar to Korean unless you are a native speaker in either. They also share some grammatical constructs, but they are far from being the same language and, surely, bear no resemblance visually. Yes, by looking at it, you can always tell which one is which.
So there you have it: close to Chinese in vocabulary, close to Japanese in grammar and the way it sounds, but still Korean is its own language! And it looks pretty much unique visually! There is no doubt, once you learn that these circles and sticks are Korean characters, you'll never be able to un-see or not recognize them as of Korean origin ever again.
OK, now that we cleared it up on a world level, let's do the similar clarifying on the level of the big country of Korea. This is where some history is necessary, although you must already know that Korea was under Japanese rule between 1910 and 1945 after which formerly a single nation divided in two: North Korea and South Korea.
Time passed, and since the two new countries assumed different political approaches and had different allies who they borrowed vocabulary from, over the time their languages started to differ, too, that shows in their vocabularies, pronunciations, and even grammatical rules. This is not to say that they are radically distinct —they can understand each other like an American can understand a British— but the accent gives up the North/South "affiliation" and sometimes it takes an effort to "decipher" one another. Fortunately, the North and South Korean has the same script!
Have to mention, that the sequence of letters in the Korean alphabet —called hangul, by the way— will not be the same for the Korean language spoken in the South and in the North, nor the pronunciation of some of these characters. There are various dialects in Korea, but as a standard one it became the dialect spoken in Seoul for the South Korea and the one spoken in Pyongyang for the North Korea.
Actually, there is a more fun way to learn about the differences between North Korean and South Korean! Let my friend Billy make it perfectly clear in his awesome video devoted to exactly that question (6:05):
These differences between the two dialects of the Korean language got me thinking: If I decided to learn Korean and found a course to study it, which language am I learning: the one from the South or the North? Turns out, chances are it is the South Korean dialect.
You see, in South Korea the language is more open to the adoption of foreign words and phrases —I mean, a great deal of English has been introduced into common vocabulary, and same goes for Japanese—, whereas in North Korea it is more traditional and insulated. Also, South Koreans have easier access to the social media than their Northern peers, and this puts the Southern version of Korean more out there.
So, these are the two, as they call them, standard dialects:
- In South Korea — 표준어, or Pyojun-eo — also called Seoul dialect, or Gyeonggi dialect;
- In North Korea — 문화어, or Munhwaŏ — also called Pyongan dialect.
Besides those two, there are some other regional dialects, or to say in Korean, satoori (사투리). Here comes a bite of geography: as Korea is a mountainous country, some regions were quite isolated and didn't have much influence from neighboring areas. That allowed for the strong development of regional dialects —yes, satoori.
The main ones are the following:
- Hamgyong dialect, or Northeastern Korean;
- Hwanghae dialect;
- Gangwon dialects that include its eastern coast's Yeongdong dialect and its western coast's Yeongseo dialect (less distinctive);
- Chungcheong dialects;
- Gyeongsang dialects, also called Southeastern dialect;
- Jeolla dialect, also called Southwestern dialect;
- and Jeju language, that sometimes is considered a separate Koreanic language.
It just might be interesting and helpful to find out more about those differences in the curious ways Korean dialects work. And Billy again has a fun video on the matter (at least on the dialects from South Korea). Give your ears a chance to catch some Korean sounds as well as learn more about how Jeju is so peculiar. Try it out, no regrets (8:25):
Recap? Sure!
- Korean is NOT Chinese (even though about 60% of vocabulary comes from Chinese).
- Korean is NOT Japanese (even though the way it sounds is similar to Japanese).
- Korean has a very specific script (which is the next Episode is all about).
- Korean spoken in the South Korea and North Korea differ.
- Korean you are learning or about to learn comes from South Korea (Seoul dialect) unless you deliberately searched for another satoori.
- Korean is awesome!
OK, the last one might be biased. :P
The Korean language has more surprises and tricks up its sleeve: the one-man-made script that makes Koreans so proud, grammar that is claimed to be easy, and more. See you in the next Episode of this Langventure to dive into the Korean mysteries together!
잘가! Jal-ga! See you!
"Korean is so special! Just like this article! Like-like!!!"
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