LEARN KOREAN - a simple guide

INTRODUCTION TO HISTORY OF KOREAN

KOREAN (South Korean: 한국어/韓國語 hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말/朝鮮말 chosŏnmal) is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people. It is the official and national language of both Koreas: North Korea and South Korea, with different standardized official forms used in each country. It is a recognised minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin province, China. It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin, Russia, and Central Asia.

Pronunciation :

[ha(ː)n.ɡu.ɡʌ] (South Korea)
[tso.sɔn.mal] (North Korea)

Native to : Korea

Ethnicity : Koreans

Native speakers : 77.2 million (2010)

Language Family : Koreanic , Korean

Early forms : Proto Koreanic , OldKorean , Middle Korean.

Standard Forms : Pyojuneo (South Korea) , Munhwa'ŏ (North Korea)

Dialects : Korean dialects.

Writing system : Hangul/Chosŏn'gŭl (Korean Script) , Korean Braille, Hanja/Hancha (Chinese Characters).

Official status :

Official language in : South Korea,
North Korea , China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County) .

Recognised minority language in :
Russia (Primorsky Krai)[citation needed], China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County).

Regulated by :

National Institute of the Korean Language (국립국어원/國立國語院) (Republic of Korea),

The Language Research Institute, Academy of Social Science (사회과학원 어학연구소/社會科學院 語學研究所) (Democratic People's Republic of Korea),

China Korean Language Regulatory Commission (중국조선어규범위원회/中国朝鲜语规范委员会) (People's Republic of China).

HISTORY :

Historical and modern linguists classify Korean as a language isolate, it does have a few extinct relatives which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language spoken in the Jeju province and considered somewhat distinct) form the Koreanic Language . The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in Manchuria.

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.[8][9] 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.

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 through 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.