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.

Sounds

Consonants

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Example words for consonants:

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The IPA symbol (a subscript wedge) is used to denote the tensed consonants {{IPA|/b?, d?, ??, d?s, z?/}}. Its official IPA usage is for voiced consonants, which the tensed stops in Korean are not. The use of this diacritic along with the symbols for voiced consonants indicates that the glottal constriction is greater than that found in modal voicing. This is called stiff voice. The Korean tensed stops are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure, elements of stiff voice, which is how they are sometimes analysed.

Related Topics:
IPA - Voiced - Stiff voice - Glottis

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Sometimes the tense consonants are indicated with the apostrophe-like symbol , but this is inappropriate, as IPA represents the ejective consonants, with their glottal movement and non-pulmonic air pressure, which the Korean tense consonants do not have.

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There is ongoing debate as to whether the "tense" consonants are fortis or lenis, partially because those are poorly defined terms, and much of the academic literature is in a state of confusion.

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Vowels

Monophthongs

Korean has 8 different vowel qualities and a length distinction. Two more vowels, the close-mid front rounded vowel {{IPA|/ø/}} and the close front rounded vowel {{IPA|/y/}}, can still be heard in the speech of some older speakers, but they have been largely replaced by the diphthongs {{IPA|}} and {{IPA|}} respectively. In a 2003 survey of 350 speakers from Seoul, nearly 90% pronounced the vowel '?' as {{IPA|}}. Length distinction is also decreasing; length distinction for all vowels can still be heard from older speakers, but many younger speakers do not always distinguish lengths consistently. The distinction between {{IPA|/e/}} and {{IPA|/?/}} is another decreasing element in the speech of younger speakers, except when enunciated carefully. {{IPA|}} seems to be the dominant form. Long {{IPA|/??/}} is actually {{IPA|}} for most speakers.

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Diphthongs and glides

Source: Handbook of the International Phonetic Association

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Phonology

All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) are unreleased {{IPA|}} at the end of a word.

Related Topics:
Obstruent - Unreleased

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Plosive stops {{IPA|/p, t, k/}} become nasal stops {{IPA|}} before nasal stops.

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Some of these phonetic assimilation rules can be seen in the following:

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• {{IPA|/t?o?lo/}} is pronounced as {{IPA|}}
• {{IPA|/hankukmal/}} as {{IPA|}}

Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying morphology.

Related Topics:
Hangul - Morphology

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One difference between the pronunciation standards of North and South Korea is the treatment of initial {{IPA|}}, and initial {{IPA|}} before {{IPA|}} or {{IPA|}}. For example,

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• "labour" - north: rodong (??), south: nodong (??)
• "history" - north: ry?ksa (??), south: yeoksa (??)
• "lady" - north: ny?ja (??), south: yeoja (??)

Vowel harmony

Traditionally, the Korean language has had strong vowel harmony; that is, in pre-modern Korean, as in most Altaic languages, not only did the inflectional and derivational affixes (such as postpositions) change in accordance to the main root vowel, but native words also adhered to vowel harmony. It is not as prevalent in modern usage, although it remains strong in onomatopoeia, adjectives and adverbs, interjections, and conjugation. There are also other traces of vowel harmony in Korean.

Related Topics:
Vowel harmony - Postposition - Onomatopoeia - Adjective - Adverb - Interjections - Conjugation

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There are three classes of vowels in Korean: positive, negative, and neutral. The vowel ŭ is considered partially a neutral and negative vowel. The vowel classes loosely follow the mid (negative) and front (positive) vowels; they also follow orthography. Exchanging positive vowels with negative vowels usually creates different nuances of meaning, with positive vowels sounding diminuitive and negative vowels sounding crude.

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Some examples:

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• Onomatopoeia:
• ???? (pongdangpongdang) and ???? (pungdeongpungdeong), water splashing
• Adjectives/Adverbs:
• ???? (morangmorak) and ???? (mureongmureok) can both be translated as "rapidly" or "densely", but they are not interchangeable:
• ??? ???? ??. (yeongiga morangmorak nanda) Smoke rises up.
• ??? ???? ???. (Namuga mureongmureok jaranda) The tree grows well.
• Emphasised Adjectives:
• ??? (norata) means plain yellow, while its negative, ??? (nureota) means very yellow
• ??? (parata) means plain blue, while its negative, ??? (peoreota) means deep blue
• Particles at the end of verbs:
• ?? (Japda) (to catch) → ??? (Jabatda) (caught)
• ?? (Jeopda) (to fold) → ??? (Jeobeotda) (folded)
• Interjections:
• ??? (Aigo) and ??? (Eoigu) meaning "oh my!"
• ?? (Aha) and ?? (Eoheo) meaning "indeed" and "well" respectively