Korean language

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 Yanbian, China. Worldwide, there are around 78 million Korean speakers, including large groups in the former Soviet Union, Australia, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and more recently the Philippines. The language is strongly associated with the Korean people.

Classification and related languages

Korean classification is often debated. Many Korean and Western linguists recognize a kinship to the Altaic languages. However, this is not well demonstrated, and many consider Korean a language isolate. Others believe that Japanese and Korean may be related.

Related Topics:
Altaic languages - Language isolate - Japanese

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The Korean relationship with Altaic and proto-Altaic have been much argued as of late. Korean is similar to Altaic languages in that they both have the absence of certain grammatical elements, including number, gender, articles, fusional morphology, voice, and relative pronouns (Kim Namkil). Korean especially bears some morphological resemblance to some languages of the Eastern Turkic group, namely Yakut.

Related Topics:
Altaic - Number - Gender - Articles - Relative pronoun - Morphological - Yakut

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The possibility of a Korean-Japanese linguistic relationship is a delicate subject because of the complex historical relationship between the two countries. The possibility of a Baekje-Japanese linguistic relationship has been studied, with Korean linguists pointing out similarities in phonology, including a general lack consonant-final sounds. There are plenty of cognates between Baekje and Japanese, such as mir and mi, respectively, for "three". Furthermore, there are cultural links between Baekje and Japan: the people of Baekje used two Chinese characters for their surnames, like the people of Japan today.

Related Topics:
Baekje - Phonology - Cognates

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Goguryeo and Baekje languages are considered related, likely descended from Go-Joseon. (See Fuyu languages.) Less is known about the relationship between the languages of Go-Joseon, Goguryo, and Baekje on one hand, and the Samhan and Silla on the other, although many Korean scholars believe they were mutually intelligable, and the collective basis of modern Korean.

Related Topics:
Go-Joseon - Fuyu languages - Samhan - Silla

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