Korejski jezik

Korejski (한국어/조선말, je službeni jezik Južnoj Koreji i Sjevernoj Koreji kao i jedan od dva službena jezika u kineskoj Yanbian korejskoj autonomnoj prefekturi. Postoji otprilike 80 miliona ljudi širom svijeta koji govore korejski. Duže od jednog milenija, korejski je pisan sa prilagođenim kineskim znakovima zvanim hanja, dopunnjenim pomoću fonetskih sistema kao što su hyangchal, gugyeol, i idu. U 15-tom vijeku, nacionalni sistem pisanja zvan Hangeul je opunomoćen od strane Sejonga, ali je proširen tek u 20-tom vijeku, zato što je yangban aristokratija davala prednost za hanja.

Pojedini historijski lingvisti klasifikuju korejski kao izolovani jezik, while others consider it to be in the controversial Altaic language family. The Korean language is agglutinative in its morphology and SOV in its syntax.

Imena

Korejska imena jezika su bazirana na imenima za Koreju koja se koriste u Sjevernoj i Južnoj Koreji.

In South Korea, the language is most often called Hangungmal (NB written as Hangugmal, pronounced Hangungmal) (한국말), consisting of Hanguk (한국, /hɐːnguk̚/), the South Korean name for Korea, and mal (말, /mal/), meaning "speech"; the /k̚/ at the end of the first word becomes /ŋ/ by the rules of consonant assimilation in Korean phonology. More formally, it may also be called Hangugeo (한국어) or Gugeo (국어); literally "national language").

In North Korea and Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China, the language is most often called Chosŏnmal (조선말), or more formally, Chosŏnŏ (조선어).

U drugu ruku, Korejanci bivšem SSSR, who refer to themselves as Koryo-saram (고려사람; also Goryeoin [고려인; 高麗人; doslovno, "Goryeo person(s)"]) call the language Goryeomal (고려말).

In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ (朝鲜语 or the short form: Cháoyǔ (朝语)) has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, while Hánguóyǔ (韩国语 or the short form: Hányǔ (韩语)) is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.