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The Korean alphabet, known as Hangul, . Hangul may also be written as following South Korea's standard Romanization. ( ) in South Korea and Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, is the modern official writing system for the Korean language. The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. It has been described as a syllabic alphabet as it combines the features of alphabetic and syllabic writing systems, although it is not necessarily an abugida. Hangul was created in 1443 CE by King Sejong the Great in an attempt to increase literacy by serving as a complement (or alternative) to the logographic Sino-Korean ''Hanja'', which had been used by Koreans as its primary script to write the Korean language since as early as the Gojoseon period (spannin ...
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Jeju Language
Jeju (Jeju: , ; ko, 제주어, or , ), often called Jejueo or Jejuan in English-language scholarship, is a Koreanic language traditionally spoken on Jeju Island, South Korea. While often classified as a divergent Jeju dialect ( ko, 제주방언, links=no, ) of the Korean language, the variety is referred to as a language in local government and increasingly in both South Korean and foreign academia. Jeju is not mutually intelligible with the mainland dialects of South Korea. The consonants of Jeju are similar to those of Seoul Korean, but Jeju has a larger and more conservative vowel inventory. Jeju is a head-final, agglutinative, suffixing language like Korean. Nouns are followed by particles that may function as case markers. Verbs inflect for tense, aspect, mood, evidentiality, relative social status, formality, and other grammatical information. Korean and Jeju differ significantly in their verbal paradigms. For instance, the continuative aspect marker of Jeju and ...
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Korean Language
Korean (South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Koreans, Korean descent. It is the official language, official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographically Korea), but over the past years of political division, the North–South differences in the Korean language, two Koreas have developed some noticeable vocabulary differences. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin, Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County, Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the in parts of Central Asia. The language has a few Extinct language, extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic l ...
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Gojoseon
Gojoseon () also called Joseon (), was the first kingdom on the Korean Peninsula. According to Korean mythology, the kingdom was established by the legendary founder named Dangun. Gojoseon possessed the most advanced culture in the Korean Peninsula at the time and was an important marker in the progression towards the more centralized states of later periods. The addition of ''Go'' (, ), meaning "ancient", is used in historiography to distinguish the kingdom from the Joseon dynasty founded in 1392 CE. According to the '' Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms'', Gojoseon was established in 2333 BCE by Dangun, who was said to be born between a heavenly prince Hwanung and a bear-woman Ungnyeo. While Dangun is a mythological figure from the legends for whom no concrete evidences have been found so far, some interpret the legend of Dangun as the reflections of the sociocultural situations involving the kingdom's early developments. Regardless, the account of Dangun has played an ...
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Korea Under Japanese Rule
Between 1910 and 1945, Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business officials began a process of integrating Korea's politics and economy with Japan. The Korean Empire, proclaimed in 1897, became a protectorate of Japan with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905; thereafter Japan ruled the country indirectly through the Japanese Resident-General of Korea. Japan formally annexed the Korean Empire with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910, without the consent of the former Korean Emperor Gojong, the regent of the Emperor Sunjong. Upon its annexation, Japan declared that Korea would henceforth be officially named Chōsen. This name was recognized internationally until the end of Japanese colonial rule. The territory was administered by the Governor-General of Chōsen based in Keijō (Seoul). Japanese rule prior ...
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South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. South Korea claims to be the sole legitimate government of the entire peninsula and List of islands of South Korea, adjacent islands. It has a Demographics of South Korea, population of 51.75 million, of which roughly half live in the Seoul Capital Area, the List of metropolitan areas by population, fourth most populous metropolitan area in the world. Other major cities include Incheon, Busan, and Daegu. The Korean Peninsula was inhabited as early as the Lower Paleolithic period. Its Gojoseon, first kingdom was noted in Chinese records in the early 7th century BCE. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea into Unified Silla, Silla and Balhae in the ...
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Revised Romanization Of Korean
Revised Romanization of Korean () is the official Korean language romanization system in South Korea. It was developed by the National Academy of the Korean Language from 1995 and was released to the public on 7 July 2000 by South Korea's Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Proclamation No. 2000-8. The new system addressed problems in the implementation of the McCune–Reischauer system, such as the phenomena where different consonants and vowels became indistinguishable in the absence of special symbols. To be specific, under the McCune–Reischauer system, Korean consonants  ''(k)'',  ''(t)'',  ''(p)'' and  ''(ch)'' and  ''(kʼ)'',  ''(tʼ)'',  ''(pʼ)'' and  ''(chʼ)'' became indistinguishable when the apostrophe was removed. In addition, Korean vowels  ''(ŏ)'' and  ''(o)'', as well as  ''(ŭ)'' and  ''(u)'', became indistinguishable when the breve was removed. Especially in internet use, where omission of apostrop ...
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North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and Tumen rivers, and South Korea to the south at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. North Korea's border with South Korea is a disputed border as both countries claim the entirety of the Korean Peninsula. The country's western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eastern border is defined by the Sea of Japan. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the capital and largest city. In 1910, Korea was annexed by the Empire of Japan. In 1945, after the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II, Korea was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the north occupied by the Soviet Union and the south occupied by the U ...
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Sino-Korean Vocabulary
Sino-Korean vocabulary or Hanja-eo () refers to Korean words of Chinese origin. Sino-Korean vocabulary includes words borrowed directly from Chinese, as well as new Korean words created from Chinese characters, and words borrowed from Sino-Japanese vocabulary. Many of these terms were borrowed during the height of Chinese-language literature on Korean culture. Anywhere from 30-60 percent of Korean words are of Chinese character origin. Many of these words have also been truncated or altered for the Korean language. History The use of Chinese and Chinese characters in Korea dates back to at least 194 BCE. While Sino-Korean words were widely used during the Three Kingdoms period, they became even more popular during the Silla period. During this time, male aristocrats changed their given names A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and different ...
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Hanja
Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom. (, ) refers to Sino-Korean vocabulary, which can be written with Hanja, and (, ) refers to Classical Chinese writing, although "Hanja" is also sometimes used to encompass both concepts. Because Hanja never underwent any major reforms, they are mostly resemble to '' kyūjitai'' and traditional Chinese characters, although the stroke orders for some characters are slightly different. For example, the characters and as well as and . Only a small number of Hanja characters were modified or are unique to Korean, with the rest being identical to the traditional Chinese characters. By contrast, many of the Chinese characters currently in use in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore have been simplified, and contain fewer strokes than the corresponding Hanja characters. In J ...
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Sejong The Great
Sejong of Joseon (15 May 1397 – 8 April 1450), personal name Yi Do ( Korean: 이도; Hanja: 李祹), widely known as Sejong the Great ( Korean: 세종대왕; Hanja: 世宗大王), was the fourth ruler of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Initially titled Grand Prince Chungnyeong ( Korean: 충녕대군; Hanja: 忠寧大君), he was born as the third son of King Taejong and Queen Wongyeong. In 1418, he was designated as heir after his eldest brother, Crown Prince Yi Je, was stripped of his status. Today, King Sejong is regarded as one of the greatest leaders in Korean history. Despite ascending to the throne after his father's voluntary abdication in 1418, Sejong was a mere figurehead while Taejong continued to hold the real power and govern the country up till his death in 1422. Sejong was the sole monarch for the next 28 years, although after 1439 he became increasingly ill, and starting from 1442, his eldest son, Crown Prince Yi Hyang (the future King Munjong), acted as re ...
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Featural Writing System
In a featural writing system, the shapes of the symbols (such as letters) are not arbitrary but encode distinctive feature, phonological features of the phonemes that they represent. The term featural was introduced by Geoffrey Sampson to describe the Hangul, Korean alphabet and Pitman shorthand. Joe Martin introduced the term featural notation to describe writing systems that include symbols to represent individual features rather than phonemes. He asserts that "alphabets have no symbols for anything smaller than a phoneme". A ''featural'' script represents finer detail than an alphabet. Here, symbols do not represent whole phonemes, but rather the elements (features) that make up the phonemes, such as voice (phonetics), voicing or its place of articulation. Theoretically, each feature could be written with a separate letter; abjads or abugidas, or indeed syllabary, syllabaries, could be featural, but the only prominent system of this sort is the Korean alphabet, also known as ...
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Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literary language writing"), is the language of the classic literature from the end of the Spring and Autumn period through to the either the start of the Qin dynasty or the end of the Han dynasty, a written form of Old Chinese (上古漢語, ''Shànɡɡǔ Hànyǔ''). Classical Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese that evolved from the classical language, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. Literary Chinese was used for almost all formal writing in China until the early 20th century, and also, during various periods, in Japan, Ryukyu, Korea and Vietnam. Among Chinese speakers, Literary Chinese has been largely replaced by written vernacular Chinese, a style of writing that is similar to modern spoken ...
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