Korean
한국어 (South Korea) 조선말 (North Korea)
Names for the Korean language written vertically in Hangul. The South Korean name is on the left and the North Korean on the right.
Pronunciation	[ha(ː)n.ɡu.ɡʌ] (South Korea) [tso.sʌn.maɭ][1] (North Korea)
Native to	Korea
Ethnicity	Koreans
Native speakers	82 million (2020)[2]
Language family	Koreanic Korean
Early forms	Proto-Koreanic Old Korean Middle Korean
Standard forms	Pyojuneo (South Korea) Munhwaŏ (North Korea)
Dialects	see Korean dialects
Writing system	Hangul / Chosŏn'gŭl (Korean script) Hanja / Hancha (Additional in South Korea, Historical in North Korea)
Official status
Official language in	South Korea  North Korea
Recognised minority language in	China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County)
Regulated by	National Institute of Korean Language (국립국어원 / 國立國語院) The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science (사회과학원 어학연구소社會科學院 語學研究所) China Korean Language Regulatory Commission (중국조선어규범위원회 / 中国朝鲜语规范委员会 / 中國朝鮮語規範委員會)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	ko
ISO 639-2	kor
ISO 639-3	kor
Linguist List	kor
Glottolog	kore1280
Linguasphere	45-AAA-a
Red: Spoken by a majority Orange: Spoken by a minority Green: Local minority Korean-speaking populations

Part of a series on the
Culture of Korea
Society
History People Diaspora Language Names of Korea Religion
Arts and literature
Architecture Art Pottery Painting Dance Film North South Literature North South Poetry Manhwa Webtoon Media Television K-drama Music Traditional North South K-pop Theater
Other
Cuisine Kimchi Banchan Mythology Folklore Holidays Clothing Hanbok Tal Sports Martial arts Taekwondo Ssireum Video games
Symbols
"Arirang" Mugunghwa Paektu Mountain "Aegukka" North Korea "Aegukga" South Korea Flags Taegeuk Emblem of North Korea Emblem of South Korea World Heritage Sites 100 Cultural Symbols of Korea

Korean (South Korean: 한국어, hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말, chosŏnmal) is the native language for about 81.7 million people, mostly of Korean descent.^{[lower-alpha 1][2]} It is the official and national language of both South Korea and North Korea. The two countries have established standardized norms for Korean, and the differences between them are similar to those between Standard Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan, but political conflicts between the two countries have highlighted the differences between them. South Korean newspaper Daily NK has claimed North Korea criminalizes the use of the South's standard language with the death penalty,^[3] and South Korean education and media often portray the North's language as alien and uncomfortable.^[4]

Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture, and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the Koryo-saram in parts of Central Asia.^[5] The language has a few extinct 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.^[5] 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 Korean script (한글; Hangul in South Korea, 조선글; Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea), a system developed during the 15th century for that purpose, although it did not become the primary script until the 20th century. The script uses 24 basic letters (jamo) and 27 complex letters formed from the basic ones. When first recorded in historical texts, Korean was only a spoken language; all written records were maintained in Hanmun or classical Chinese along with invented phonetic scripts like as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. Later, written Chinese characters adapted to the Korean language, Hanja (漢字), were used to write the language for most of Korea's history and are still used to a limited extent in South Korea, most prominently in the humanities and the study of historical texts.

Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of Korean culture have spread to other countries through globalization and cultural exports. As such, interest in Korean language acquisition (as a foreign language) is also 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 Chinese and Arabic, Korean is ranked at the top difficulty level for English speakers by the United States Department of Defense.

History

Modern Korean descends from Middle Korean, which in turn descends from Old Korean, which descends from the Proto-Koreanic language, which is generally suggested to have its linguistic homeland somewhere in Manchuria.^[6][7] Whitman (2012) suggests that the proto-Koreans, already present in northern Korea, expanded into the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families.^[8]

Since the establishment of two independent governments, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation and vocabulary chosen, but these minor differences can be found in any of the Korean dialects, which are still largely mutually intelligible.

Writing systems

The oldest Korean dictionary (1920)

Chinese characters arrived in Korea (see Sino-Xenic pronunciations for further information) together with Buddhism during the Proto-Three Kingdoms era in the 1st century BC. They were adapted for Korean and became known as Hanja, and remained as the main script for writing Korean for over a millennium alongside various phonetic scripts that were later invented such as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in Hanja. However, most of the population was illiterate.

In the 15th century King Sejong the Great personally developed an alphabetic featural writing system known today as Hangul.^[9][10] He felt that Hanja was inadequate to write Korean and that caused its very restricted use; Hangul was designed to either aid in reading Hanja or to replace Hanja entirely. Introduced in the document Hunminjeongeum, it was called eonmun (colloquial script) and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea. Hangul was widely used by all the Korean classes but was often treated as amkeul ("script for women") and disregarded by privileged elites, and Hanja was regarded as jinseo ("true text"). Consequently, official documents were always written in Hanja during the Joseon era. Since few people could understand Hanja, 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 elite class of Yangban had exchanged Hangul letters with slaves, which suggests a high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era.^[11]

Today Hanja is largely unused in everyday life because of its inconvenience but it is still important for historical and linguistic studies. Neither South Korea nor North Korea opposes the learning of Hanja, but they are no longer officially used in North Korea and their usage in South Korea is mainly reserved for specific circumstances such as newspapers, scholarly papers and disambiguation.

Names

The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in both South Korea and North Korea. The English word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first Korean dynasty known to Western nations. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram or Koryo-in (literally, "Koryo/Goryeo persons"), and call the language Koryo-mal'. Some older English sources also use the spelling "Corea" to refer to the nation, and its inflected form for the language, culture and people, "Korea" becoming more popular in the late 1800s.^[12]

In South Korea the Korean language is referred to by many names including hanguk-eo ("Korean language"), hanguk-mal ("Korean speech") and uri-mal ("our language"); "hanguk" is taken from the name of the Korean Empire (대한제국; 大韓帝國; Daehan Jeguk). The "han" (韓) 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),^[13][14] while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally "national language". This name is based on the same Han characters (國語 "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 Joseon-mal, or more formally, Joseon-o. This is taken from the North Korean name for Korea (Joseon), a name retained from the Joseon dynasty 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 Cháoxiǎnyǔ 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.

Classification

Korean is a member of the Koreanic family along with the Jeju language. Some linguists have included it in the Altaic family, but the core Altaic proposal itself has lost most of its prior support.^[15] The Khitan language has several vocabulary items similar to Korean that are not found in other Mongolian or Tungusic languages, suggesting a Korean influence on Khitan.^[16]

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^[17] and Roy Andrew Miller.^[18] Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list.^[19] 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.^[20] A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning "hemp".^[21] 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.^[22] (See Classification of the Japonic languages or Comparison of Japanese and Korean for further details on a possible relationship.)

Hudson & Robbeets (2020) suggested that there are traces of a pre-Nivkh 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.^[23]

Phonology

Korean syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), consisting of an optional onset consonant, glide /j, w, ɰ/ and final coda /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l/ surrounding a core vowel.

Vowels

Short vowel chart

Long vowel chart

Monophthongs	ㅏ   /a/NOTE ㅓ   /ʌ/ ㅗ   /o/ ㅜ   /u/ ㅡ   /ɯ/ ㅣ   /i/ /e/ ㅔ,  /ɛ/ ㅐ, /ø/ ㅚ,  /y/ ㅟ
Vowels preceded by intermediaries, or diphthongs	ㅑ   /ja/ ㅕ   /jʌ/ ㅛ   /jo/ ㅠ   /ju/ /je/ ㅖ,  /jɛ/ ㅒ,  /we/ ㅞ,  /wɛ/ ㅙ,  /wa/ ㅘ,  /ɰi/ ㅢ,  /wʌ/ ㅝ

^NOTE ㅏ is closer to a near-open central vowel ([ɐ]), though ⟨a⟩ is still used for tradition.

Grammar

Korean is an agglutinative language. The Korean language is traditionally considered to have nine parts of speech. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The sentence structure or basic form of a Korean sentence is subject–object–verb (SOV), but the verb is the only required and immovable element and word order is highly flexible, as in many other agglutinative languages.

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 honorifics, whereas that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.

Vocabulary

The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. However, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words (of Chinese origin).^[33] To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages.^[34] More recent loanwords are dominated by English.

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.^[35]

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 콤퓨터 (compyutŏ; computer) and 하드디스크 (hadǔdisǔkǔ; hard disk) should remain in the names of their inventors, and that the word 쵸콜레트 (ch'okoletǔ; chocolate) should not be replaced because it had been used for so long.^[36]

South Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the "표준국어대사전"("Standard Korean Language Dictionary"), and North Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the "조선말대사전"("Korean Language Dictionary").

Writing system

Korean writing systems
Hangul
Hanja
Gukja (Yakja) Gugyeol Idu (Hyangchal)
Mixed script
Braille
Transcription
McCune–Reischauer Romanization of Korean (North) Revised Romanization (South) Bok Moon Kim romanization Kontsevich (Cyrillic) Kholodovich romanization (Cyrillic)
Transliteration
Yale (scholar) ISO/TR 11941 SKATS (coding)

The Latin alphabet used in romanization on road signs, for foreigners in South Korea

Before the creation of the modern Korean alphabet, known as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea and as Hangul in South Korea, people in Korea (known as Joseon at the time) primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing systems that predate Hangul by hundreds of years, including idu, hyangchal, gugyeol, and gakpil.^{[41][42][43][44]} Few people in the lower classes had the opportunity to receive an education, and they found it extremely difficult to learn how to write in Chinese characters due to the fundamental disparities between the Korean and Chinese languages and the sheer amount of characters that needed to be taught. To assuage that problem, King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people.^[45]

The Korean alphabet was denounced and looked down upon by the yangban aristocracy, who deemed it too easy to learn,^[46][47] but it gained widespread use among the common class^[48] and was widely used to print popular novels which were enjoyed by the common class.^[49] With growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Gabo Reformists' push, and the promotion of Hangul in schools,^[50] in 1894, Hangul displaced Hanja as Korea's national script.^[51] Hanja are still used to a certain extent in South Korea, where they are sometimes combined with Hangul, but that method is slowly declining in use even though students learn Hanja in school.^[52]

Dialects

Regional dialects of Korean

Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal (말) [literally 'speech'], saturi (사투리), or bang'eon (방언). South Korean authors claim that the standard language (pyojun-eo or pyojun-mal) of both South Korea and North Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul (which, as Hanyang, was the capital of Joseon-era Korea for 500 years), however since 1966 North Korea officially states that its standard is based on the Pyongyang speech.^[53][54] All dialects of Korean are similar to each other and largely mutually intelligible (with the exception of dialect-specific phrases or non-Standard vocabulary unique to dialects), though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be generally considered a separate language.^[55][56] One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of the Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, whereas 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, whereas others are highly innovative.

Kang Yoonjung & Han Sungwoo (2013), Kim Mi-Ryoung (2013), and Cho Sunghye (2017) 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;^[57][58][59] however, Choi Jiyoun, Kim Sahyang & Cho Taehong (2020) 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.^[60]

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, for example "garlic chives" translated into Gyeongsang dialect /t͡ɕʌŋ.ɡu.d͡ʑi/ (정구지; jeongguji) but in Standard Korean, it is /puːt͡ɕʰu/ (부추; buchu). This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present.^[61] See also the Japanese–Koguryoic languages hypothesis.

The differences among northern and southern dialects have become so significant that many North Korean defectors reportedly have had great difficulty communicating with South Koreans after having initially settled into South Korea. In response to the diverging vocabularies, an app called Univoca was designed to help North Korean defectors learn South Korean terms by translating them into North Korean ones.^[62] More information can be found on the page North-South differences in the Korean language.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, some South Korean linguists and North Korean defectors have argued that South Korean media and education overemphasize or exaggerate the differences between North Korean and South Korean languages. At the 2014 National Conference of the Korean Language and Literature Association, Yonsei University professor Hong Yun-pyo argued that language differences between North and South Korea were exaggerated in the context of the Cold War.^[63]

According to Hong, after the Korean War, words like dongmu(동무; comrade, friend) and inmin(인민; people) that had been in common use in South Korea before that disappeared, and if anyone used them, they could be reported to the authorities, which was important evidence of espionage. The language differences between the North and South continued to be exaggerated. The language of the North, the North Korean language, was used to promote anti-communist ideology. He even said that research on North Korean in South Korea "has not been done with actual language materials."

Hong had numerous meetings with North Korean scholars for academic conferences and dictionary compilations, but he rarely encountered communication difficulties; rather, he was more likely to encounter communication difficulties with speakers of the Gyeongsang or Jeolla dialects.

Journalist Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector, and Park No-pyeong, a North Korean defector who worked as a professor in North Korea, claimed that there are exaggerations, such as claiming that vocabulary that is unfamiliar to South Koreans but also unfamiliar to North Koreans is common in North Korea, or claiming vocabulary that is different from the North Korean standard as the standard in North Korea. For example, he said that there are rumors in South Korea that the word jeon-gu(전구; bulb) is called bural(불알; balls) in North Korea, which is not true.^[64][65] Most North Korean defectors spoke the dialect of their homeland, not the standard North Korean language, which has some similarities to the standard South Korean language, and it is believed that many did not even know the standard North Korean language when they arrived in South Korea.^[66]

In South Korea, the idea that there are linguistic differences between the languages of North and South Korea gained traction until the mid-to-late 2010s. However, as exploration of the actual language of North Korea has progressed, it has been argued that any differences in communication between the two Koreas stem from "cultural" differences, such as economic conditions and traditional ways of expression in certain regions.^[4]

For example, North Korean defectors who have fled the country tend to have more direct communication habits that reveal their true feelings compared to South Korean language etiquette, which is prominent in defectors' hometowns but rare in other areas where defection is rare, such as Pyongyang.^[67]

Aside from the standard language, there are few clear boundaries between Korean dialects, and they are typically partially grouped according to the regions of Korea.^[68][69]

Recently, both North and South Korea's usage rate of the regional dialect have been decreasing due to social factors. In North Korea, the central government is urging its citizens to use Munhwaŏ (the standard language of North Korea, literally 'Cultural language'), to prevent the use of foul language by the people: Kim Jong Un said in a speech "if your language in life is cultural and polite, you can achieve harmony and comradely unity among people."^[70] In South Korea, due to relocation in the population to Seoul to find jobs and the usage of standard language in education and media, the prevalence of regional dialects has decreased.^[71] Moreover, internationally, due to the increasing popularity of K-pop, the Seoul standard language has become more widely taught and used.

The North Korean government has become increasingly wary of the Korean Wave, and as such, has been very wary of slangs that reflect South Korean culture since 2020.^[72] In January 2023, North Korea adopted a law that could lead to public execution for excessive use of South Korean slang, which the North's government labeled as "puppet language" or "koeroemal (괴뢰말)." The word oppa(오빠, originally used by a woman who was the younger sibling in a sibling relationship to refer to a man who was older than her, but in South Korea, also became a way for a younger woman to refer to her male lover in a romantic relationship) was a prime example of this.^[3]

North–South differences

The language used in the North and the South exhibit differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.^[84]

Geographic distribution

Korean is spoken by the Korean people in both South Korea and North Korea, and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, the United States, Japan, and Russia. Currently, Korean is the fourth most popular foreign language in China, following English, Japanese, and Russian.^[89] Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Koreans may speak it with native fluency.

Foreign language

For native English-speakers, Korean is generally considered to be one of the most difficult foreign languages to master despite the relative ease of learning Hangul. For instance, the United States' Defense Language Institute places Korean in Category IV with Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Arabic, requiring 64 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 26 weeks for Category I languages like Italian, French, and Spanish) to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which they have "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense."^[92][93] Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies places Korean in Category IV, the highest level of difficulty.^[94]

The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students, who in 2007 were estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities.^[95] However, Sejong Institutes 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 rising popularity of South Korean music and television shows.^[96] In 2018, it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities.^[97]

Example text

From Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Korean (Hankuko):^[101]

See also

• Outline of Korean language
• Korean count word
• Korean Cultural Center (KCC)
• Korean dialects
• Korean language and computers
• Korean mixed script
• Korean particles
• Korean proverbs
• Korean sign language
• Korean romanization
  • McCune–Reischauer
  • Revised romanization of Korean
  • SKATS
  • Yale romanization of Korean
• List of English words of Korean origin
• Vowel harmony
• History of Korean
• Korean films
  • Cinema of North Korea
  • Cinema of South Korea

Notes

References

Further reading

• Argüelles, Alexander; Kim, Jong-Rok (2000). A Historical, Literary and Cultural Approach to the Korean Language. Seoul, South Korea: Hollym.
• Argüelles, Alexander; Kim, Jongrok (2004). A Handbook of Korean Verbal Conjugation. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
• Argüelles, Alexander (2007). Korean Newspaper Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
• Argüelles, Alexander (2010). North Korean Reader. Hyattsville, Maryland: Dunwoody Press.
• Brown, L. (2015). "Expressive, Social and Gendered Meanings of Korean Honorifics". Korean Linguistics. 17 (2): 242–266. doi:10.1075/kl.17.2.04bro.
• Chang, Suk-jin (1996). Korean. London Oriental and African Language Library. Vol. 4. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-55619-728-4.
• Cho, Young A. (2006). "Gender Differences in Korean Speech". In Sohn, Ho-min (ed.). Korean Language in Culture and Society. University of Hawaii Press. p. 189.
• Cho, Sungdai; Whitman, John (2020). Korean: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51485-9.
• Hulbert, Homer B. (1905). A Comparative Grammar of the Korean Language and the Dravidian Dialects in India. Seoul: Methodist Publishing House.
• Lee, Ki-Moon; Ramsey, S. Robert (2011). A History of the Korean Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-66189-8.
• Martin, Samuel E. (1966). "Lexical Evidence Relating Japanese to Korean". Language. 42 (2): 185–251. doi:10.2307/411687. JSTOR 411687.
• Martin, Samuel E. (1990). "Morphological clues to the relationship of Japanese and Korean". In Baldi, Philip (ed.). Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology. Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs. Vol. 45. pp. 483–509.
• Martin, Samuel E. (2006). A Reference Grammar of Korean: A Complete Guide to the Grammar and History of the Korean Language – 韓國語文法總監. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8048-3771-2.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1971). Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52719-0.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1996). Languages and History: Japanese, Korean and Altaic. Oslo, Norway: Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture. ISBN 974-8299-69-4.
• Ramstedt, G. J. (1928). "Remarks on the Korean language". Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. 58.
• Rybatzki, Volker (2003). "Middle Mongol". In Janhunen, Juha (ed.). The Mongolic languages. London, England: Routledge. pp. 47–82. ISBN 0-7007-1133-3.
• Starostin, Sergei A.; Dybo, Anna V.; Mudrak, Oleg A. (2003). Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Leiden, South Holland: Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13153-1. In 3 volumes.
• Sohn, Ho-Min (2001) [1999]. The Korean Language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521369435.
• Sohn, Ho-Min (2006). Korean Language in Culture and Society. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 978-0-8248-2694-9.
• Song, J.-J. (2005). The Korean Language: Structure, Use and Context. London, England: Routledge.
• Trask, R. L. (1996). Historical linguistics. Hodder Arnold.
• Vovin, Alexander (2008). "Man'yōshū to Fudoki ni Mirareru Fushigina Kotoba to Jōdai Nihon Retto ni Okeru Ainugo no Bunpu" [Strange Words in the Man'yoshū and the Fudoki and the Distribution of the Ainu Language in the Japanese Islands in Prehistory] (PDF) (paper). International Research Center for Japanese Studies. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 February 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2011.
• Vovin, Alexander (2010). Koreo-Japonica: A Re-evaluation of a Common Genetic Origin. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press.
• Whitman, John B. (1985). The Phonological Basis for the Comparison of Japanese and Korean (PhD thesis). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Unpublished Harvard University PhD dissertation.
• Yeon, Jaehoon; Brown, Lucien (2011). Korean: A Comprehensive Grammar. London, England: Routledge.

External links

• Linguistic and Philosophical Origins of the Korean Alphabet (Hangul)
• Sogang University free online Korean language and culture course
• Beginner's guide to Korean for English speakers Archived 30 March 2019 at the Wayback Machine
• U.S. Foreign Service Institute Korean basic course
• asianreadings.com, Korean readings with hover prompts
• Linguistic map of Korea
• dongsa.net, Korean verb conjugation tool
• Hanja Explorer, a tool to visualize and study Korean vocabulary
• Korean language at Curlie