Zainichi Korean is a variety of

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

as spoken by Zainichi Koreans ( ethnic Korean citizens or residents of

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

). The speech is based on the southern dialects of

, as the majority of first-generation immigrants came from the southern part of the peninsula, including

Gyeonggi Province Gyeonggi Province (, ) is the most populous province in South Korea. Seoul, the nation's largest city and capital, is in the heart of the area but has been separately administered as a provincial-level ''special city'' since 1946. Incheon, ...

, Jeolla Province and

Jeju Province Jeju Province (; ), officially Jeju Special Self-Governing Province (Jeju language, Jeju: ; ), is the southernmost Provinces of South Korea, province of South Korea, consisting of eight inhabited and 55 uninhabited islands, including Marado, Udo ...

. Due to isolation from other Korean speech-communities and the influence of Japanese, Zainichi Korean language exhibits strong differences from the standard Korean of either North or South Korea.

Languages among Zainichi Koreans

The majority of Zainichi Koreans use Japanese in their everyday speech, even among themselves. The Korean language is used only in a limited number of social contexts: towards first-generation immigrants, as well as in '' Chosŏn Hakkyo'', (, or ; , "Korean School"), pro-

Pyongyang Pyongyang () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is sometimes labeled as the "Capital of the Revolution" (). Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. Accordi ...

ethnic schools supported by Chongryon. Since most Zainichi Koreans learn Korean as their second language, they tend to speak it with a heavy Japanese accent. This variety of speech is called Zainichi Korean language, a name which, even when used by Zainichi Koreans themselves, often carries a critical connotation.''Io'', a magazine published by , had a report titled ''(Zainichi Korean language is strange in these ways)'', criticizing this variety of Korean, which ''can't be'' called '' urimal'' (literally "our language") anymore"

/ref>

Phonology

Vowels

While

Standard Korean A number of Korean dialects are spoken in Korea and by the Korean diaspora. The peninsula is very mountainous and each dialect's "territory" corresponds closely to the natural boundaries between different geographical regions of Korea. Most of t ...

distinguishes eight

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s, Zainichi Korean distinguishes only five, as in Japanese. :

Initial consonants

In syllable-initial position, standard Korean distinguishes among plain, aspirated, and tense

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s, such as , , and . Zainichi Korean, on the other hand, distinguishes only between unvoiced and voiced

s ( and ), as in Japanese. : There are no

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

s after

nasal consonants In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...

. Thus , in Standard, becomes , not . As in the North Korean standard, initial or never change their values. in South Korea is in North Korea, or among Zainichi Koreans.

Final consonants

Seven consonants occur in the final position of Standard Korean

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

s, namely , , , , , , and . In Zainichi Korean those sounds are treated differently. :

Grammar

Zainichi Korean grammar also shows influence from Japanese. Some

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

s are used differently from the Standard Korean. For instance, "to ride a car" is expressed as () in standard Korean, which can be interpreted as "car-(direct object) ride". In Zainichi Korean, the same idea is expressed as (; "car-into ride"), just like Japanese (). Standard Korean distinguishes (, referring to a continuous state) and (, referring to a continuous action). For instance, "to be sitting" is (), not ' (), as the latter would mean "being in the middle of the action of sitting, but has not completed the action yet". Zainichi Korean, however, does not distinguish these two, as Japanese does not either; it uses form for both continuous state and continuous action.

Writing system

Zainichi Korean is not typically written; standard Korean is used as the

literary language Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...

. For example, a speaker who pronounces the word (; "however") as (), will still spell the word in the former form. In much the same way, Standard Korean speakers retain the

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived from Ancient Greek ('write'), and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other emic units. The study of graphemes ...

difference between and , even though they may pronounce the two identically.

References

External links

*

(Zainichi Korean language) {{DEFAULTSORT:Zainichi Korean Language Korean dialects Languages of Japan Zainichi Korean culture