Korean Language

Spoken by nearly 70 million people, Korean ranks among the major languages of the world. Although most speakers of Korean live on the Korean Peninsula and its adjacent islands, more than three million are scattered throughout the world on every continent.

The origin of the Korean language is as obscure as the origin of the Korean people. In the 19th century when Western scholars "discovered" the Korean language, this was the first question they raised. These scholars proposed various theories linking the Korean language with Ural-Altaic, Japanese, Chinese, Tibetan, Dravidian Ainu, Indo-European and other languages. Among these, only the relationship between Korean and Altaic (which groups the Turkic, Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus languages) on the one hand and between Korean and Japanese on the other have continuously attracted the attention of comparative linguists in the 20th century.

Altaic, Korean and Japanese exhibit similarities not only in their general structure, but also share common features such as vowel harmony and lack of conjunctions, although the vowel harmony in old Japanese has been the object of dispute among specialists in the field. Moreover, it has been found that these languages have various common elements in their grammar and vocabulary. Although much work remains to be done, research seems to show that Korean is probably related to both Altaic and Japanese.

According to early historical records, two groups of languages were spoken in Manchuria and on the Korean Peninsula at the dawn of the Christian era: the Northern or Buyo group and the southern or Han group. Around the middle of the seventh century the kingdom of Silla conquered the kingdoms of Baekje in the southwest and Goguryo in the north, and its language became dominant on the peninsula. As a result, the linguistic unification of the peninsula was achieved on the basis of the Silla language.

After the peninsula was unified, the Goryo Dynasty was founded in the 10th century, and the capital was moved to Gaesong in the center of the Korean Peninsula. The dialect of Gaesong became the standard for the national language. When the Choson Dynasty was founded at the end of the 14th century, the capital was moved to Seoul. However, since Seoul is geographically close to Gaesong, this had no significant effect on the development of the language.

Korean Script

The Korean script which is now generally called Hangul was invented in 1443 under Sejong (r.1418 - 50), the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, who called it Hunminjeongum (proper sounds to instruct the people). However, the script was not promulgated until the appearance in a document which was also called Hunminjeongum in 1446

The motivation behind the invention of Korean script, according to Sejong's preface to the above book, was to enable the Korean people to write their own language in their own way. Until the introduction of Hunminjeongum, only Chinese characters were used to write, by the upper classes. There also seems to have been a secondary motivation behind the development of Korean script, that of representing the "correct" sounds of Chinese characters.

In producing the Korean script, Sejong and the scholars who assisted him probably referred to several writing systems such as Chinese old seal characters, the Uighur script and the Mongolian scripts, but the system of the Korean script is based upon their phonological studies. Above all, they developed a theory of tripartite division of the syllable into initial, medial and final, as opposed to the bipartite division of traditional Chinese phonology.

The initial sounds (consonants) are represented by 16 letters of which there are five basic forms. According to the explanations of the original Hunminjeongum text,

(k) depicts the root of the tongue blocking the throat;

(n) depicts the outline of the tongue touching the upper palate;

(m) depicts the outline of the mouth;

(s) depicts the outline of the incisor; and

(g) depicts the outline of the throat.

The other initial letters were derived by adding strokes to the basic letters. No letters were invented for the final sounds, the initial letters being used for that purpose. The original Hunminjeongum text also explains that the medial sounds (vowels) are represented by 11 letters of which there are three basic forms:

(a) is a depiction of Heaven;

(eu) is a depiction of Earth; and,

(i) is a depiction of man. By combining these three signs the other medial letters are formed.

After the promulgation of the Korean alphabet, its popularity gradually increased, especially in modern times, to the point where it replaced Chinese characters as the main system of writing in Korea. One of the characteristics of the Korean script is the syllabic grouping of the initial, medial and final letters. However, Korean script is essentially different from such syllabic writing systems as Japanese Kana. It is an alphabetic system which is characterized by syllabic grouping. Some examples are the following:

(na-mu) "tree."

(sa-ram) "man," and

(son-nim) "guest".

Standard Language and Dialects

Modern Korean is divided into six dialects: Central, Northwest, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest and Jeju. Except for the Jeju dialect, these are similar enough for speakers of the various dialects to understand each other. This is due to the fact that Korea has been a centralized state for more than a thousand years with the language of the capital exercising a steady influence on the language spoken throughout the country.

The language of the capital was established as the basis for modern standard Korean in 1936, as a result of the deliberations of a committee organized by the Korean Language Research Society. The language of the political and cultural center of a nation usually becomes the standard language through a gradual process. In Korea, however, the case was somewhat different, since the guidelines for the national standard language were determined by a small but dedicated group of scholars during the Japanese occupation. They worked to preserve their own language in the face of an oppressive regime which sought the eventual extinction of the Korean language.