Korean Blog

Korean Language

Korean (South Korean: 한국어, hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말, chosŏnmal) is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographically Korea). The two countries have established standardized norms for Korean, and the differences between them are similar to those between Standard Chinese in mainland China and Taiwan, but political conflicts between the two countries have highlighted the differences between them. North Korea criminalizes the use of the South's standard language, and South Korean education and media often portray the North's language as alien and uncomfortable. Beyond Korea, the language is recognised as a minority language in parts of China, namely Jilin Province, and specifically Yanbian Prefecture, and Changbai County. It is also spoken by Sakhalin Koreans in parts of Sakhalin, the Russian island just north of Japan, and by the Koryo-saram in parts of Central Asia.

The language has a few extinct relatives which—along with the Jeju language (Jejuan) of Jeju Island and Korean itself—form the compact Koreanic language family. Even so, Jejuan and Korean are not mutually intelligible with each other. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in contemporary Manchuria. The hierarchy of the society from which the language originates deeply influences the language, leading to a system of speech levels and honorifics indicative of the formality of any given situation. Modern Korean is written in the Korean script (한글; Hangul in South Korea, 조선글; Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea), a system developed during the 15th century for that purpose, although it did not become the primary script until the 20th century. The script uses 24 basic letters (jamo) and 27 complex letters formed from the basic ones. When first recorded in historical texts, Korean was only a spoken language; all written records were maintained in Classical Chinese, which, even when spoken, is not intelligible to someone who speaks only Korean.

Later, Chinese characters adapted to the Korean language, Hanja (漢字), were used to write the language for most of Korea's history and are still used to a limited extent in South Korea, most prominently in the humanities and the study of historical texts. Since the turn of the 21st century, aspects of Korean culture have spread to other countries through globalization and cultural exports. As such, interest in Korean language acquisition (as a foreign language) is also generated by longstanding alliances, military involvement, and diplomacy, such as between South Korea–United States and China–North Korea since the end of World War II and the Korean War. Along with other languages such as Chinese and Arabic, Korean is ranked at the top difficulty level for English speakers by the United States Department of Defense.

History

Modern Korean descends from Middle Korean, which in turn descends from Old Korean, which descends from the Proto-Koreanic language which is generally suggested to have its linguistic homeland. Whitman (2012) suggests that the proto-Koreans, already present in northern Korea, expanded into the southern part of the Korean Peninsula at around 300 BC and coexisted with the descendants of the Japonic Mumun cultivators (or assimilated them). Both had influence on each other and a later founder effect diminished the internal variety of both language families. Since the establishment of two independent governments, North–South differences have developed in standard Korean, including variations in pronunciation and vocabulary chosen, but these minor differences can be found in any of the Korean dialects, which are still largely mutually intelligible.

Writing Systems

Chinese characters arrived in Korea (see Sino-Xenic pronunciations for further information) together with Buddhism during the Proto-Three Kingdoms era in the 1st century BC. They were adapted for Korean and became known as Hanja, and remained as the main script for writing Korean for over a millennium alongside various phonetic scripts that were later invented such as Idu, Gugyeol and Hyangchal. Mainly privileged elites were educated to read and write in Hanja. However, most of the population was illiterate. In the 15th century, King Sejong the Great personally developed an alphabetic featural writing system known today as Hangul. He felt that Hanja was inadequate to write Korean and that caused its very restricted use; Hangul was designed to either aid in reading Hanja or to replace Hanja entirely. Introduced in the document Hunminjeongeum, it was called eonmun (colloquial script) and quickly spread nationwide to increase literacy in Korea. Hangul was widely used by all the Korean classes but was often treated as amkeul ("script for women") and disregarded by privileged elites, and Hanja was regarded as jinseo ("true text"). Consequently, official documents were always written in Hanja during the Joseon era. Since few people could understand Hanja, Korean kings sometimes released public notices entirely written in Hangul as early as the 16th century for all Korean classes, including uneducated peasants and slaves. By the 17th century, the elite class of Yangban had exchanged Hangul letters with slaves, which suggests a high literacy rate of Hangul during the Joseon era. Today, Hanja is largely unused in everyday life because of its inconvenience, but it is still important for historical and linguistic studies. Neither South Korea nor North Korea opposes the learning of Hanja, but they are not officially used in North Korea anymore, and their usage in South Korea is mainly reserved for specific circumstances like newspapers, scholarly papers, and disambiguation.

Names

The Korean names for the language are based on the names for Korea used in both South Korea and North Korea. The English word "Korean" is derived from Goryeo, which is thought to be the first Korean dynasty known to Western nations. Korean people in the former USSR refer to themselves as Koryo-saram and/or Koryo-in (literally, "Koryo/Goryeo person(s)"), and call the language Koryo-mal'. Some older English sources also use the spelling "Corea" to refer to the nation, and its inflected form for the language, culture and people, "Korea" becoming more popular in the late 1800s. In South Korea, the Korean language is referred to by many names including hanguk-eo ("Korean language"), hanguk-mal ("Korean speech") and uri-mal ("our language"); "hanguk" is taken from the name of the Korean Empire (대한제국; 大韓帝國; Daehan Jeguk). The "han" (韓) in Hanguk and Daehan Jeguk is derived from Samhan, in reference to the Three Kingdoms of Korea (not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula), while "-eo" and "-mal" mean "language" and "speech", respectively. Korean is also simply referred to as guk-eo, literally "national language". This name is based on the same Han characters (國語 "nation" + "language") that are also used in Taiwan and Japan to refer to their respective national languages. In North Korea and China, the language is most often called Joseon-mal, or more formally, Joseon-o. This is taken from the North Korean name for Korea (Joseon), a name retained from the Joseon dynasty until the proclamation of the Korean Empire, which in turn was annexed by the Empire of Japan. In mainland China, following the establishment of diplomatic relations with South Korea in 1992, the term Cháoxiǎnyǔ or the short form Cháoyǔ has normally been used to refer to the standard language of North Korea and Yanbian, whereas Hánguóyǔ or the short form Hányǔ is used to refer to the standard language of South Korea.

Classification

Korean is a member of the Koreanic family along with the Jeju language. Some linguists have included it in the Altaic family, but the core Altaic proposal itself has lost most of its prior support. The Khitan language has several vocabulary items similar to Korean that are not found in other Mongolian or Tungusic languages, suggesting a Korean influence on Khitan. The hypothesis that Korean could be related to Japanese has had some supporters due to some overlap in vocabulary and similar grammatical features that have been elaborated upon by such researchers as Samuel E. Martin and Roy Andrew Miller. Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1991) found about 25% of potential cognates in the Japanese–Korean 100-word Swadesh list. Some linguists concerned with the issue between Japanese and Korean, including Alexander Vovin, have argued that the indicated similarities are not due to any genetic relationship, but rather to a sprachbund effect and heavy borrowing, especially from Ancient Korean into Western Old Japanese. A good example might be Middle Korean sàm and Japanese asá, meaning "hemp". This word seems to be a cognate, but although it is well attested in Western Old Japanese and Northern Ryukyuan languages, in Eastern Old Japanese it only occurs in compounds, and it is only present in three dialects of the Southern Ryukyuan language group. Also, the doublet wo meaning "hemp" is attested in Western Old Japanese and Southern Ryukyuan languages. It is thus plausible to assume a borrowed term. (See Classification of the Japonic languages or Comparison of Japanese and Korean for further details on a possible relationship.) Hudson & Robbeets (2020) suggested that there are traces of a pre-Nivkh substratum in Korean. According to the hypothesis, ancestral varieties of Nivkh (also known as Amuric) were once distributed on the Korean peninsula before the arrival of Koreanic speakers.

Phonology

Korean syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), consisting of an optional onset consonant, glide /j, w, ɰ/ and final coda /p, t, k, m, n, ŋ, l/ surrounding a core vowel.

Assimilation and Allophony

The IPA symbol ⟨◌͈⟩ (a subscript double straight quotation mark, shown here with a placeholder circle) is used to denote the tensed consonants /p͈/, /t͈/, /k͈/, /t͡ɕ͈/, /s͈/. Its official use in the extensions to the IPA is for 'strong' articulation, but is used in the literature for faucalized voice. The Korean consonants also have elements of stiff voice, but it is not yet known how typical this is of faucalized consonants. They are produced with a partially constricted glottis and additional subglottal pressure in addition to tense vocal tract walls, laryngeal lowering, or other expansion of the larynx. /s/ is aspirated [sʰ] and becomes an alveolo-palatal [ɕʰ] before [j] or [i] for most speakers (but see North–South differences in the Korean language). This occurs with the tense fricative and all the affricates as well. At the end of a syllable, /s/ changes to /t/ (example: beoseot (버섯) 'mushroom'). /h/ may become a bilabial [ɸ] before [o] or [u], a palatal [ç] before [j] or [i], a velar [x] before [ɯ], a voiced [ɦ] between voiced sounds, and a [h] elsewhere. /p, t, t͡ɕ, k/ become voiced [b, d, d͡ʑ, ɡ] between voiced sounds. /m, n/ frequently denasalize at the beginnings of words. /l/ becomes alveolar flap [ɾ] between vowels, and [l] or [ɭ] at the end of a syllable or next to another /l/. A written syllable-final 'ㄹ', when followed by a vowel or a glide (i.e., when the next character starts with 'ㅇ'), migrates to the next syllable and thus becomes [ɾ]. Traditionally, /l/ was disallowed at the beginning of a word. It disappeared before [j], and otherwise became /n/. However, the inflow of western loanwords changed the trend, and now word-initial /l/ (mostly from English loanwords) are pronounced as a free variation of either [ɾ] or [l]. All obstruents (plosives, affricates, fricatives) at the end of a word are pronounced with no audible release, [p̚, t̚, k̚]. Plosive sounds /p, t, k/ become nasals [m, n, ŋ] before nasal sounds. Hangul spelling does not reflect these assimilatory pronunciation rules, but rather maintains the underlying, partly historical morphology. Given this, it is sometimes hard to tell which actual phonemes are present in a certain word. The traditional prohibition of word-initial /ɾ/ became a morphological rule called "initial law" (두음법칙) in the pronunciation standards of South Korea, which pertains to Sino-Korean vocabulary. Such words retain their word-initial /ɾ/ in the pronunciation standards of North Korea. For example:

• "labor" (勞動) – north: rodong (로동), south: nodong (노동)
• "history" (歷史) – north: ryeoksa (력사), south: yeoksa (역사)
• "female" (女子) – north: nyeoja (녀자), south: yeoja (여자)

Vowels

NOTE:ㅏ is closer to a near-open central vowel ([ɐ]), though ⟨a⟩ is still used for tradition.

Morphophonemics

Grammatical morphemes may change shape depending on the preceding sounds. Examples include -eun/-neun (-은/-는) and -i/-ga (-이/-가). Sometimes sounds may be inserted instead. Examples include -eul/-reul (-을/-를), -euro/-ro (-으로/-로), -eseo/-seo (-에서/-서), -ideunji/-deunji (-이든지/-든지) and -iya/-ya (-이야/-야). However, -euro/-ro is somewhat irregular, since it will behave differently after a ㄹ (rieul consonant).

Some verbs may also change shape morphophonemically.

Grammar

Korean is an agglutinative language. The Korean language is traditionally considered to have nine parts of speech. Modifiers generally precede the modified words, and in the case of verb modifiers, can be serially appended. The sentence structure or basic form of a Korean sentence is subject–object–verb (SOV), but the verb is the only required and immovable element and word order is highly flexible, as in many other agglutinative languages.

Question: "Did [you] go to the store?" ("you" implied in conversation) 가게에 가셨어요? gage-e ga-syeo-sseo-yo store + [location marker (에)] [go (verb root) (가)] + [honorific (시)] + [conjugated (contraction rule)(어)] + [past (ㅆ)] + [conjunctive (어)] + [polite marker (요)]
Response: "Yes." 예. (or 네.) ye (or ne) yes

The relationship between a speaker/writer and their subject and audience is paramount in Korean grammar. The relationship between the speaker/writer and subject referent is reflected in honorifics, whereas that between speaker/writer and audience is reflected in speech level.

Honorifics

When talking about someone superior in status, a speaker or writer usually uses special nouns or verb endings to indicate the subject's superiority. Generally, someone is superior in status if they are an older relative, a stranger of roughly equal or greater age, or an employer, teacher, customer, or the like. Someone is equal or inferior in status if they are a younger stranger, student, employee, or the like. Nowadays, there are special endings which can be used on declarative, interrogative, and imperative sentences, and both honorific or normal sentences. Honorifics in traditional Korea were strictly hierarchical. The caste and estate systems possessed patterns and usages much more complex and stratified than those used today. The intricate structure of the Korean honorific system flourished in traditional culture and society. Honorifics in contemporary Korea are now used for people who are psychologically distant. Honorifics are also used for people who are superior in status. For example, older people, teachers, and employers.

Speech Levels

There are seven verb paradigms or speech levels in Korean, and each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. Unlike honorifics—which are used to show respect towards the referent (the person spoken of)—speech levels are used to show respect towards a speaker's or writer's audience (the person spoken to). The names of the seven levels are derived from the non-honorific imperative form of the verb 하다 (hada, "do") in each level, plus the suffix 체 ("che", Hanja: 體), which means "style". The three levels with high politeness (very formally polite, formally polite, casually polite) are generally grouped together as jondaenmal (존댓말), whereas the two levels with low politeness (formally impolite, casually impolite) are banmal (반말) in Korean. The remaining two levels (neutral formality with neutral politeness, high formality with neutral politeness) are neither polite nor impolite. Nowadays, younger-generation speakers no longer feel obligated to lower their usual regard toward the referent. It is common to see younger people talk to their older relatives with banmal (반말). This is not out of disrespect, but instead it shows the intimacy and the closeness of the relationship between the two speakers. Transformations in social structures and attitudes in today's rapidly changing society have brought about change in the way people speak.

Gender

In general, Korean lacks grammatical gender. As one of the few exceptions, the third-person singular pronoun has two different forms: 그 geu (male) and 그녀 geu-nyeo (female). Before 그녀 was invented in need of translating 'she' into Korean, 그 was the only third-person singular pronoun and had no grammatical gender. Its origin causes 그녀 never to be used in spoken Korean but appearing only in writing. To have a more complete understanding of the intricacies of gender in Korean, three models of language and gender that have been proposed: the deficit model, the dominance model, and the cultural difference model. In the deficit model, male speech is seen as the default, and any form of speech that diverges from that norm (female speech) is seen as lesser than. The dominance model sees women as lacking in power due to living within a patriarchal society. The cultural difference model proposes that the difference in upbringing between men and women can explain the differences in their speech patterns. It is important to look at the models to better understand the misogynistic conditions that shaped the ways that men and women use the language. Korean's lack of grammatical gender makes it different from most European languages. Rather, gendered differences in Korean can be observed through formality, intonation, word choice, etc. However, one can still find stronger contrasts between genders within Korean speech. Some examples of this can be seen in:

1. the softer tone used by women in speech;
2. a married woman introducing herself as someone's mother or wife, not with her own name;
3. the presence of gender differences in titles and occupational terms (for example, a sajang is a company president, and yŏsajang is a female company president);
4. females sometimes using more tag questions and rising tones in statements, also seen in speech from children.

Vocabulary

The core of the Korean vocabulary is made up of native Korean words. However, a significant proportion of the vocabulary, especially words that denote abstract ideas, are Sino-Korean words (of Chinese origin). To a much lesser extent, some words have also been borrowed from Mongolian and other languages. More recent loanwords are dominated by English. In South Korea, it is widely believed that North Korea wanted to emphasize the use of unique Korean expressions in its language and eliminate the influence of foreign languages. However, according to researchers such as Jeon Soo-tae, who has seen first-hand data from North Korea, the country has reduced the number of difficult foreign words in a similar way to South Korea. In 2021, Moon Sung-guk of Kim Il Sung University in North Korea wrote in his thesis that Kim Jong Il had said that vernacularized Sino-Korean vocabulary should be used as it is, not modified. "A language is in constant interaction with other languages, and in the process it is constantly being developed and enriched," he said. According to the paper, Kim Jong Il argued that academic terms used in the natural sciences and engineering, such as 콤퓨터(compyutŏ; computer) and 하드디스크(hadǔdisǔkǔ; hard disk) should remain in the names of their inventors, and that the vocabulary of 쵸콜레트(ch'okoletǔ; chocolate) should not be replaced because it had been used for so long. South Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the "표준국어대사전"("Standard Korean Language Dictionary"), and North Korea defines its vocabulary standards through the "조선말대사전"("Korean Language Dictionary").

Sino-Korean

Sino-Korean vocabulary consists of:

• words directly borrowed from written Chinese, and
• compounds coined in Korea or Japan and read using the Sino-Korean reading of Chinese characters.

Western Loanwords

The vast majority of loanwords other than Sino-Korean come from modern times, approximately 90% of which are from English. Many words have also been borrowed from Western languages such as German via Japanese (아르바이트 (areubaiteu) "part-time job", 알레르기 (allereugi) "allergy", 기브스 (gibseu or gibuseu) "plaster cast used for broken bones"). Some Western words were borrowed indirectly via Japanese during the Japanese occupation of Korea, taking a Japanese sound pattern, for example "dozen" > ダース dāsu > 다스 daseu. Most indirect Western borrowings are now written according to current "Hangulization" rules for the respective Western language, as if borrowed directly. There are a few more complicated borrowings such as "German(y)" (see names of Germany), the first part of whose endonym Deutschland [ˈdɔʏtʃlant] the Japanese approximated using the kanji 獨逸 doitsu that were then accepted into the Korean language by their Sino-Korean pronunciation: 獨 dok + 逸 il = Dogil. In South Korean official use, a number of other Sino-Korean country names have been replaced with phonetically oriented "Hangeulizations" of the countries' endonyms or English names. For more information: Korean exonyms. Because of such a prevalence of English in modern South Korean culture and society, lexical borrowing is inevitable. English-derived Korean, or "Konglish" (콩글리쉬), is increasingly used. The vocabulary of the South Korean dialect of the Korean language is roughly 5% loanwords (excluding Sino-Korean vocabulary). However, due to North Korea's isolation, such influence is lacking in North Korean speech. Korean uses words adapted from English in ways that may seem strange or unintuitive to native English speakers. For example, fighting (화이팅 / 파이팅 hwaiting / paiting) is a term of encouragement, like 'come on'/'go (on)' in English. Something that is 'service' (서비스 seobiseu) is free or 'on the house'. A building referred to as an 'apart' (아파트 apateu) is an 'apartment' (but in fact refers to a residence more akin to a condominium) and a type of pencil that is called a 'sharp' (샤프) is a mechanical pencil. Like other borrowings, many of these idiosyncrasies, including all the examples listed above, appear to be imported into Korean via Japanese, or influenced by Japanese. Many English words introduced via Japanese pronunciation have been reformed, as in 멜론 (melon) which was once called 메론 (meron) as in Japanese.

Writing Systems

Korean writing systems
Hangul Chosŏn'gŭl (in North Korea)
Hanja Gukja (Yakja) Gugyeol Idu (Hyangchal)
Mixed script
Braille
Transcription McCune–Reischauer Romanization of Korean (North) Revised Romanization (South) Kontsevich (Cyrillic) Kholodovich system (Cyrillic)
Transliteration Yale (scholar) ISO/TR 11941 SKATS (coding)

Before the creation of the modern Korean alphabet, known as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea and as Hangul in South Korea, people in Korea (known as Joseon at the time) primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside native phonetic writing systems that predate Hangul by hundreds of years, including idu, hyangchal, gugyeol, and gakpil. Few people in the lower classes had the opportunity to receive an education, and they found it extremely difficult to learn how to write in Chinese characters due to the fundamental disparities between the Korean and Chinese languages and the sheer amount of characters that needed to be taught. To assuage that problem, King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) created the unique alphabet known as Hangul to promote literacy among the common people. The Korean alphabet was denounced and looked down upon by the yangban aristocracy, who deemed it too easy to learn, but it gained widespread use among the common class and was widely used to print popular novels which were enjoyed by the common class. With growing Korean nationalism in the 19th century, the Gabo Reformists' push, and the promotion of Hangul in schools, in 1894, Hangul displaced Hanja as Korea's national script. Hanja are still used to a certain extent in South Korea, where they are sometimes combined with Hangul, but that method is slowly declining in use even though students learn Hanja in school.

Symbol Chart

The letters of the Korean alphabet are not written linearly like most alphabets, but instead arranged into blocks that represent syllables. So, while the word bibimbap (Korean rice dish) is written as eight characters in a row in the Latin alphabet, in Korean it is written 비빔밥, as three "syllabic blocks" in a row. Mukbang (먹방 'eating show') is seven characters after romanization but only two "syllabic blocks" before. Modern Korean is written with spaces between words, a feature not found in Chinese or Japanese (except when Japanese is written exclusively in hiragana, as in children's books). The marks used for Korean punctuation are almost identical to Western ones. Traditionally, Korean was written in columns, from top to bottom, right to left, like traditional Chinese. However, the syllabic blocks are now usually written in rows, from left to right, top to bottom, like English.

Dialects

Korean has numerous small local dialects (called mal (말) [literally 'speech'], saturi (사투리), or bang'eon (방언). The standard language (pyojun-eo or pyojun-mal) of both South Korea and North Korea is based on the dialect of the area around Seoul (which, as Hanyang, was the capital of Joseon-era Korea for 500 years), though the standard language of North Korea has been propagandized by Kim Il Sung as the language of Pyongyang since 1966, reflecting the ideology of the North Korean regime. All dialects of Korean are similar to each other and largely mutually intelligible (with the exception of dialect-specific phrases or non-Standard vocabulary unique to dialects), though the dialect of Jeju Island is divergent enough to be sometimes classified as a separate language. One of the more salient differences between dialects is the use of tone: speakers of the Seoul dialect make use of vowel length, whereas speakers of the Gyeongsang dialect maintain the pitch accent of Middle Korean.

Some dialects are conservative, maintaining Middle Korean sounds (such as z, β, ə) which have been lost from the standard language, whereas others are highly innovative. Kang Yoon-jung et al. (2013), Kim Mi-ryoung (2013), and Cho Sung-hye (2017) suggest that the modern Seoul dialect is currently undergoing tonogenesis, based on the finding that in recent years lenis consonants (ㅂㅈㄷㄱ), aspirated consonants (ㅍㅊㅌㅋ) and fortis consonants (ㅃㅉㄸㄲ) were shifting from a distinction via voice onset time to that of pitch change; however, Choi Ji-youn et al. (2020) disagree with the suggestion that the consonant distinction shifting away from voice onset time is due to the introduction of tonal features, and instead proposes that it is a prosodically conditioned change. There is substantial evidence for a history of extensive dialect levelling, or even convergent evolution or intermixture of two or more originally distinct linguistic stocks, within the Korean language and its dialects.

Many Korean dialects have basic vocabulary that is etymologically distinct from vocabulary of identical meaning in Standard Korean or other dialects, for example "garlic chives" translated into Gyeongsang dialect /t͡ɕʌŋ.ɡu.d͡ʑi/ (정구지; jeongguji) but in Standard Korean, it is /puːt͡ɕʰu/ (부추; buchu). This suggests that the Korean Peninsula may have at one time been much more linguistically diverse than it is at present. See also the Japanese–Koguryoic languages hypothesis. The differences among northern and southern dialects have become so significant that many North Korean defectors reportedly have had great difficulty communicating with South Koreans after having initially settled into South Korea. In response to the diverging vocabularies, an app called Univoca was designed to help North Korean defectors learn South Korean terms by translating them into North Korean ones. More information can be found on the page North-South differences in the Korean language. Meanwhile, in South Korea, some South Korean linguists and North Korean defectors have argued that South Korean media and education overemphasize or exaggerate the differences between North Korean and South Korean languages.

At the 2014 National Conference of the Korean Language and Literature Association, Yonsei University professor Hong Yun-pyo argued that language differences between North and South Korea were exaggerated in the context of the Cold War. According to Hong, after the Korean War, words like dongmu(동무; comrade, friend) and inmin(인민; people) that had been in common use in South Korea before that disappeared, and if anyone used them, they could be reported to the authorities, which was important evidence of espionage. The language differences between the North and South continued to be exaggerated. The language of the North, the North Korean language, was used to promote anti-communist ideology. He even said that research on North Korean in South Korea "has not been done with actual language materials." Hong had numerous meetings with North Korean scholars for academic conferences and dictionary compilations, but he rarely encountered communication difficulties; rather, he was more likely to encounter communication difficulties with speakers of the Gyeongsang or Jeolla dialects. Journalist Joo Sung-ha, a North Korean defector, and Park No-pyeong, a North Korean defector who worked as a professor in North Korea, claimed that there are exaggerations, such as claiming that vocabulary that is unfamiliar to South Koreans but also unfamiliar to North Koreans is common in North Korea, or claiming vocabulary that is different from the North Korean standard as the standard in North Korea. For example, he said that there are rumors in South Korea that the word jeon-gu(전구; bulb) is called bural(불알; balls) in North Korea, which is not true. Most North Korean defectors spoke the dialect of their homeland, not the standard North Korean language, which has some similarities to the standard South Korean language, and it is believed that many did not even know the standard North Korean language when they arrived in South Korea.

In South Korea, the idea that there are linguistic differences between the languages of North and South Korea gained traction until the mid-to-late 2010s. However, as exploration of the actual language of North Korea has progressed, it has been argued that any differences in communication between the two Koreas stem from "cultural" differences, such as economic conditions and traditional ways of expression in certain regions. For example, North Korean defectors who have fled the country tend to have more direct communication habits that reveal their true feelings compared to South Korean language etiquette, which is prominent in defectors' hometowns but rare in other areas where defection is rare, such as Pyongyang. Aside from the standard language, there are few clear boundaries between Korean dialects, and they are typically partially grouped according to the regions of Korea. Recently, both North and South Korea's usage rate of the regional dialect have been decreasing due to social factors. In North Korea, the central government is urging its citizens to use Munhwaŏ (the standard language of North Korea, literally 'Cultural language'), to prevent the use of foul language by the people: Kim Jong Un said in a speech "if your language in life is cultural and polite, you can achieve harmony and comradely unity among people." In South Korea, due to relocation in the population to Seoul to find jobs and the usage of standard language in education and media, the prevalence of regional dialects has decreased. Moreover, internationally, due to the increasing popularity of K-pop, the Seoul standard language has become more widely taught and used. The North Korean government has become increasingly wary of the Korean Wave, and as such, has been very wary of slangs that reflect South Korean culture since 2020. In January 2023, North Korea adopted a law that could lead to public execution for excessive use of South Korean slangs. The word oppa(오빠, It was originally used by a woman who was the younger sibling in a sibling relationship to refer to a man who was older than her, but in South Korea, it also became a way for a younger woman to refer to her male lover in a romantic relationship.) was a prime example of this.

North–South Differences

The language used in the North and the South exhibit differences in pronunciation, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

Pronunciation

In North Korea, palatalization of /si/ is optional, and /t͡ɕ/ can be pronounced [z] between vowels. Words that are written the same way may be pronounced differently (such as the examples below). The pronunciations below are given in Revised Romanization, McCune–Reischauer and modified Hangul (what the Korean characters would be if one were to write the word as pronounced).

• 읽고 ilgo to read (continuative form) ilko ilko (일)코 ilkko ilkko (일)꼬
• 압록강 amnokgang Amnok River amrokgang amrokkang 암(록)깡 amnokkang amnokkang 암녹깡
• 독립 dongnip independence dongrip tongrip 동(립) dongnip tongnip 동닙
• 관념 gwannyeom idea / sense / conception gwallyeom kwallyŏm 괄렴 gwannyeom kwannyŏm (관)념
• 혁신적* hyeoksinjeok innovative hyeoksinjjeok hyŏksintchŏk (혁)씬쩍 hyeoksinjeok hyŏksinjŏk (혁)씬(적)

Spelling

Some words are spelled differently by the North and the South, but the pronunciations are the same.

• 해빛 햇빛 sunshine haeppit (haepit) The "sai siot" ('ㅅ' used for indicating sound change) is almost never written out in the North.
• 벗꽃 벚꽃 cherry blossom beotkkot (pŏtkkot)
• 못읽다 못 읽다 cannot read modikda (modikta) Spacing.
• 한나산 한라산 Hallasan hallasan (hallasan) When a ㄴㄴ combination is pronounced as ll, the original Hangul spelling is kept in the North, whereas the Hangul is changed in the South.
• 규률 규율 rules gyuyul (kyuyul) In words where the original hanja is spelt "렬" or "률" and follows a vowel, the initial ㄹ is not pronounced in the North, making the pronunciation identical with that in the South where the ㄹ is dropped in the spelling.

Spelling and Pronunciation

Basically, the standard languages of North and South Korea, including pronunciation and vocabulary, are both linguistically based on the Seoul dialect, but in North Korea, words have been modified to reflect the theories of scholars like Kim Tu-bong, who sought a refined language, as well as political needs.

• 력량 ryeongryang (ryŏngryang) 역량 yeongnyang (yŏngnyang) strength Initial r's are dropped if followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
• 로동 rodong (rodong) 노동 nodong (nodong) work Initial r's are demoted to an n if not followed by i or y in the South Korean version of Korean.
• 원쑤 wonssu (wŏnssu) 원수 wonsu (wŏnsu) mortal enemy "Mortal enemy" and "field marshal" are homophones in the South. Possibly to avoid referring to Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un as the enemy, the second syllable of "enemy" is written and pronounced 쑤 in the North.
• 라지오 rajio (rajio) 라디오 radio (radio) radio
• 우 u (u) 위 wi (wi) on; above
• 안해 anhae (anhae) 아내 anae (anae) wife
• 꾸바 kkuba (kkuba) 쿠바 kuba (k'uba) Cuba When transcribing foreign words from languages that do not have contrasts between aspirated and unaspirated stops, North Koreans generally use tensed stops for the unaspirated ones while South Koreans use aspirated stops in both cases.
• 페 pe (p'e) 폐 pye (p'ye), pe (p'e) lungs In the case where ye comes after a consonant, such as in hye and pye, it is pronounced without the palatal approximate. North Korean orthography reflects this pronunciation nuance.

• Ulaanbaatar 울란바따르 ullanbattareu (ullanbattarŭ) Ulan Bator 울란바토르 ullanbatoreu (ullanbat'orŭ)
• København 쾨뻰하븐 koeppenhabeun (k'oeppenhabŭn) Copenhagen 코펜하겐 kopenhagen (k'op'enhagen)
• al-Qāhirah 까히라 kkahira (kkahira) Cairo 카이로 kairo (k'airo)

Grammar

Some grammatical constructions are also different:

Punctuation

In the North, guillemets (《 and 》) are the symbols used for quotes; in the South, quotation marks equivalent to the English ones (" and ") are standard (although 『 』 and 「 」 are also used).

Vocabulary

Some vocabulary is different between the North and the South:

• 문화주택 munhwajutaek (munhwajut'aek) 아파트 apateu (ap'at'ŭ) Apartment 아빠트 (appateu/appat'ŭ) is also used in the North.
• 조선말 joseonmal (chosŏnmal) 한국어 han-guk'eo (han-guk'ŏ) Korean language The Japanese pronunciation of 조선말 was used throughout Korea and Manchuria during Japanese imperial rule, but after liberation, the government chose the name 대한민국 (Daehanminguk) which was derived from the name immediately prior to Japanese imperial rule. The syllable 한 (Han) was drawn from the same source as that name (in reference to the Han people).
• 곽밥 gwakbap (kwakpap) 도시락 dosirak (tosirak) lunch box
• 동무 dongmu (tongmu) 친구 chin-gu (ch'in-gu) Friend 동무 was originally a non-ideological word for "friend" used all over the Korean peninsula, but North Koreans later adopted it as the equivalent of the Communist term of address "comrade". As a result, to South Koreans today the word has a heavy political tinge, and so they have shifted to using other words for friend like chingu (친구) or beot (벗). South Koreans use chingu (친구) more often than beot (벗). Such changes were made after the Korean War and the ideological battle between the anti-Communist government in the South and North Korea's communism.

Geographic Distribution

Korean is spoken by the Korean people in both South Korea and North Korea, and by the Korean diaspora in many countries including the People's Republic of China, the United States, Japan, and Russia. Currently, Korean is the fourth most popular foreign language in China, following English, Japanese, and Russian. Korean-speaking minorities exist in these states, but because of cultural assimilation into host countries, not all ethnic Koreans may speak it with native fluency.

Official Status

Korean is the official language of South Korea and North Korea. It, along with Mandarin Chinese, is also one of the two official languages of China's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture. In North Korea, the regulatory body is the Language Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences (사회과학원 어학연구소; 社會科學院語學硏究所, Sahoe Gwahagweon Eohag Yeonguso). In South Korea, the regulatory body for Korean is the Seoul-based National Institute of the Korean Language, which was created by presidential decree on 23 January 1991.

King Sejong Institute

Established pursuant to Article 9, Section 2, of the Framework Act on the National Language, the King Sejong Institute is a public institution set up to coordinate the government's project of propagating Korean language and culture; it also supports the King Sejong Institute, which is the institution's overseas branch. The King Sejong Institute was established in response to:

• An increase in the demand for Korean language education;
• a rapid increase in Korean language education thanks to the spread of the culture (hallyu), an increase in international marriage, the expansion of Korean enterprises into overseas markets, and enforcement of employment licensing system;
• the need for a government-sanctioned Korean language educational institution;
• the need for general support for overseas Korean language education based on a successful domestic language education program.

TOPIK Korea Institute

The TOPIK Korea Institute is a lifelong educational center affiliated with a variety of Korean universities in Seoul, South Korea, whose aim is to promote Korean language and culture, support local Korean teaching internationally, and facilitate cultural exchanges. The institute is sometimes compared to language and culture promotion organizations such as the King Sejong Institute. Unlike that organization, however, the TOPIK Korea Institute operates within established universities and colleges around the world, providing educational materials. In countries around the world, Korean embassies and cultural centers (한국문화원) administer TOPIK examinations.

Foreign Language

For native English-speakers, Korean is generally considered to be one of the most difficult foreign languages to master despite the relative ease of learning Hangul. For instance, the United States' Defense Language Institute places Korean in Category IV with Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), and Arabic, requiring 64 weeks of instruction (as compared to just 26 weeks for Category I languages like Italian, French, and Spanish) to bring an English-speaking student to a limited working level of proficiency in which they have "sufficient capability to meet routine social demands and limited job requirements" and "can deal with concrete topics in past, present, and future tense." Similarly, the Foreign Service Institute's School of Language Studies places Korean in Category IV, the highest level of difficulty. The study of the Korean language in the United States is dominated by Korean American heritage language students, who in 2007 were estimated to form over 80% of all students of the language at non-military universities. However, Sejong Institutes in the United States have noted a sharp rise in the number of people of other ethnic backgrounds studying Korean between 2009 and 2011, which they attribute to rising popularity of South Korean music and television shows. In 2018, it was reported that the rise in K-Pop was responsible for the increase in people learning the language in US universities.

Testing

There are two widely used tests of Korean as a foreign language: the Korean Language Proficiency Test (KLPT) and the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK). The Korean Language Proficiency Test, an examination aimed at assessing non-native speakers' competence in Korean, was instituted in 1997; 17,000 people applied for the 2005 sitting of the examination. The TOPIK was first administered in 1997 and was taken by 2,274 people. Since then the total number of people who have taken the TOPIK has surpassed 1 million, with more than 150,000 candidates taking the test in 2012. TOPIK is administered in 45 regions within South Korea and 72 nations outside of South Korea, with a significant portion being administered in Japan and North America, which would suggest the targeted audience for TOPIK is still primarily foreigners of Korean heritage. This is also evident in TOPIK's website, where the examination is introduced as intended for Korean heritage students.

Korean Proverbs

A Korean proverb (Korean: 속담, Sok-dam) is a concise idiom in the Korean language which describes a fact in a metaphorical way for instruction or satire. The term 속담 (Sok-dam, Korean proverb) was first used in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty, but proverbs were in use much earlier. The example "I am busy with my work, and I am in a hurry for my family" in the article "욱면비염불서승(郁面婢念佛西昇, Uk myeon biyeombulseoseung)" in Volume 5 of 삼국유사 (三國遺事, Samguk yusa) indicates that a number of proverbs were in common use during the Three Kingdoms period.

Use

A Korean proverb, which generally reflects pre-modern lifestyles and ways of thinking, can be mistakenly thought to have been created in the past. The proverbs may fall into one of two categories: descriptions of historical events, or descriptions of common events in everyday life. Although many proverbs derive from descriptions of common events, they may include proper names: historical figures, literary works or regions. The following proverbs contain proper nouns:

• 황정승(黃政丞)댁네 치마 하나 세 모녀가 돌려 입듯 ("As if the mother and daughters in the group of three in official Hwang's household would share a single skirt"): The famous Goryeo and Joseon scholar Hwang Hui was well known for his very frugal lifestyle, in which people joked that his wife and daughters in the household would share one skirt. The proverb thus refers to a very frugal and humble lifestyle.
• 춥기는 사명당(四溟堂)의 사첫방이라 ("When it comes to cold, nothing beats the guestroom of Samyeongdang"): The folktale tells that when Samyeongdang, the Korean Buddhist monk during the Joseon era, went to Japan as an ambassador, he was tricked and imprisoned in the guestroom made of nickel where fire was ignited to kill the monk inside. When Samyeongdang wrote the hanja character 霜 (means frost) in the four wall of the room, the room instead became freezing cold. From the folktale, the following proverb has emerged to describe a very cold room.
• 한상국(韓相國)의 농사짓기 ("Farming in Han Sang-guk")
• 변학도(卞學道) 잔치에 이도령(李道令)의 밥상 ("Lee Do-ryeong's table at the Byeonhak-do feast")
• 운봉(雲峰)이 내 마음을 알지 ("Unbong knows how I feel")
• 조자룡(趙子龍)이 헌 칼 쓰듯 ("Just like Zhao Zilong uses an old sword")
• 장비(張飛)는 만나면 싸움 ("Jangbi fights when they meet")
• 양천현감(楊川縣監) 죽은 말 지키듯 ("Just like Yangcheon-hyeon-gam (楊川縣監) protecting his dead horse")
• 아산(牙山)이 깨어지나 평택(平澤)이 무너지나 ("Asan is broken", or "Pyeongtaek is collapsed")
• 평양감사(平壤監司)도 저 싫으면 그만 ("The position of Pyeongyang inspect is still no good if you do not want it")

• Story
• Description
• Refinement of the description
• Retelling of the story
• Formalization of the story

Structure

A Korean proverb may be classified as having one of two forms: short and long. The short form is usually a phrase describing a complex concept, and the long form is a complex sentence. Prosodic and syntactic harmony may be found in a proverb.

Prosody

Prosodic harmony is achieved in two ways: Abwoon (압운, 押韻) and yul-gyeok (율격, 律格), both meaning rhyme. In a rhyme, syllables with a similar pronunciation are inserted at certain places in a poem. 두운 (Du-woon, 頭韻), 각운 (gak-woon, 脚韻) or word repetition is used. Du-woon is a rhyme at the beginning of a line, and gak-woon is a rhyme at the end of a line. Examples are:

• 바람 부는 대로, 물결 치는 대로 ("As the way wind blows, as the way waves travel"): Refers to going with the flow of the world.
• 소는 소힘, 새는 새힘 ("The bull's power belongs to the bull, and the bird's power belong to the bird"): Used to emphasize that everyone has different talents although their skills may differ.
• 가는 날이 장 날 ("The day you go is the day when town market opens"): Refers to the situation when the one specifically picks the eventful day to travel or attend somewhere by coincidence.
• 꿩 먹고, 알 먹고 ("Eat a pheasant, and also eat an egg"): Refer to the situation where one good event leads to another.
• 지게 지고 제사 지내도 다 제멋 ("Even if I perform a funeral while holding a jige, it is on my own."): Used when asking someone to not interfere with the one's business since he/she will do it on his/her own.
• 염불도 몫몫, 쇠뿔도 각각 ("As the Buddhist prayer is to each own, the bull's horns are also separate."): Just like how all people give different Buddhist prayers of their own and bull's horns are pointing towards separate own directions, the proverb is used to emphasize that everyone has own way of doing it.

• 공든 탑이 무너지랴 ("The tower you put effort to build will not collapse"): Used to emphasize that the work which the one puts effort in will not fail.
• 무른 땅에 말뚝 박기 ("Piling a soft ground"): Used to refer a very easy situation or task.

Syntax

Korean proverbs with syntactic harmony are lengthy. About 10 percent of all proverbs, examples are:

• 가루는 칠수록 고와지고, 말은 할수록 거칠어진다 ("The more you powder, the finer it gets, and the more you talk, the rougher it gets"): Used to emphasize that more argument only leads to harsher words.
• 낮말은 새가 듣고, 밤말은 쥐가 듣는다 ("Birds hear the words of day, and mice hear the words of night"): Used when telling someone to be cautious while sharing a secret.
• 좋은 일에는 남이요, 궂은 일에는 일가라 ("Pretending to be someone else upon the good news, yet calling for the family upon the bad news"): Refers to the people who do not care when good things happen to others while desperately calling others for help when something bad happens to them.
• 꿀 먹은 벙어리요, 침 먹은 지네라 ("As the speechless person who ate honey, as the centipede which ate saliva."): Just like someone who secretly ate a honey and remain speechless upon questioning, or the centipede paralyzed by saliva (related to the myth that saliva can paralyze a centipede), refers to the people who stay speechless or silent to hide their guilts.
• 불 없는 화로, 딸 없는 사위 ("Brazier without fire, son-in-law without daughter"): Refers to the people who no longer hold meaning after having someone cut out from their relationship.
• 내리사랑은 있어도, 치사랑은 없다 ("The downward love may exist, but there is no upward love."): Used to explain that parents often love their children more than their children do.
• 가는 말이 고와야, 오는 말이 곱다 ("When you send out nice words, the nice words return back to you."): Used to emphasize that people will speak nicely to you when you also speak nicely to them.
• 윗물이 맑아야, 아랫물이 맑다 ("When upstream water is clear, downstream water is also clear."): Used to emphasize that the leaders in charge must be free of problematic behaviors in order for the people under to be the same.
• 입은 거지는 먹어도, 벗은 거지는 못 먹는다 ("A clothed beggar can eat, but a naked beggar cannot"): Used to emphasize that you must dress neatly and properly to earn people's respect.

Literary Forms

Proverbs have two forms: poetry and narrative.

Poetry

Many poetic proverbs have a concise word form, consisting of one line or two phrases and one line. Eight syllables are most often used, followed by nine or seven syllables. The eight syllables have a 4-4 rhythm in the letter count and two feet. In addition to the 4-4 letter rhythm, 3-4, 5-5, 6-5, 6-6 and 7-5 letter rhythms are used. Examples of letter-count rhythm are:

• 동무 따라 강남 간다 ("Following a friend to go to Gangnam "; 4-4): Refers to the situation in which the one still follows another against the one's will.
• 자는 범 코침 주기 ("Stabbing a sleeping tiger in its nose"; 3-4): Refers to the situation in which someone
• 금일 충청도 명일 경상도 ("Chungcheong-do today, Gyeongsang-do tomorrow"; 5-5): Refers to travelling aimlessly.
• 구더기 무서워 장 못 담글까 ("Being afraid of maggots does not mean you cannot ferment seasoning"; 6-5): Used to emphasize that you should not give up out of smaller or less important fear.
• 토끼 죽으니 여우 슬퍼한다 ("When the rabbit dies, the fox mourns"; 6-6): Refers to the situation in which the one mourns the tragedy of the one's kind.

• 안성 맞춤/안장 맞춤 ("perfect fit")
• 이마에 부은 물이/발뒤꿈치로 흐른다 ("Water poured on the forehead flows to the heels")

Narrative

Some simple proverbs include a narrative, which may precede or follow the proverb.

Uses

Proverbs may be instructive or satirical. The proverb "It's dark under the base of a lamp" is generally interpreted as instructive; the truth may be hidden in plain sight. Other proverbs may employ gentle mockery. "There is no dinner in the twelve skills" notes that not all abilities can be used to earn a living, and the hearer of a proverb (a child, or a friend who wants to borrow money) affects the proverb's meaning. Half-sentence proverbs (such as "Can one hand clap?") are often used satirically.

Korean Sign Language

Korean Sign Language or KSL (Korean: 한국 수화 언어; Hanja: 韓國手話言語; RR: Hanguk Suhwa Eoneo or 한국 수어; 韓國手語; Hanguk Sueo) is a sign language used for deaf communities of South Korea under the North-South Korean border. It is often referred to simply as 수화; 手話; suhwa, which means signing in general. KSL is currently one of two official languages in South Korea along with Korean.

Beginnings

The beginnings of KSL date from 1889, although standardization efforts have only begun in 2000. The first South Korean school for the Deaf was established on April 1, 1913, in Seoul, and it was renamed as the National School for the Deaf in 1945, to be later renamed the Seoul School for the Deaf in 1951.

Commonality

Although the origins of KSL predate the Japanese colonial period (de jure beginning 1910), the sign language developed some features in common with Japanese Sign Language (JSL) grammar when Korea was under Japanese rule. KSL is considered part of the Japanese Sign Language family.

Users

According to the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, there were 252,779 people with hearing impairment and 18,275 people with language disorders in South Korea as of late 2014. Recent estimated figures for the number of Deaf people in South Korea range from 180,000 to 300,000. This is approximately 0.36%–0.6% of the population of South Korea.

Official Status

On 31 December 2015, the South Korean National Assembly passed Legislation to recognize Korean Sign Language as one of Korea's official languages. There were two bills and two policies passed under this legislation which were "Korean Sign Language Standard Policy", "Sign Language Bill", "Korean Sign Language Bill" and "Sign Language and Deaf Culture Standard Policy", which were then merged as The Fundamental Law of Korean Sign Language. The legislation opens the way for better access and improved communication in education, employment, medical and legal settings, as well as religious and cultural practices. Proposals within the legislation consisted of the national and regional policy and the enactment for education of Korean Sign Language which promotes and distributes the information for creating a better environment to use Korean Sign Language. Furthermore, the Korean Sign Language Improvement Planning needs to be conducted every five years and research and investigation of the use of Korean Sign Language for the Deaf need to be conducted every three years. The Korean Sign Language Act (Korean: 한국수화언어법; Hanja: 韓國手話言語法; RR: Hanguk Suhwa Eoneo Beop), which was adopted on 3 February 2016 and came into force on 4 August 2016, established Korean Sign Language as an official language for the Deaf in South Korea equal in status with Korean. The law also stipulates that the national and local governments are required to provide translation services in Korean Sign Language to Deaf individuals who need them. After Korean Sign Language had been established, it became a requirement for there to be signed interpretations in court. KSL is also used during public events and social services programs. South Korea offers sign language courses for hearing. Special sign language instruction courses are available for parents with deaf children (Frawley 2003). KSL gestures are evaluated using three usability criteria: Intuitiveness, preference, and physical stress. Intuitiveness is the link between the gesture itself and its meaning. Preference is how liked, or disliked, the gesture is when presented. Physical stress refers to how much strain the gesture puts on the body to perform. The ideal gesture is one that has a clear link to its meaning, is well liked as a physical expression, and does not cause unnecessary stress to present. A study was performed in 2013 to test the Korean Sign Language gestures under the three criteria. This study found that user-designed gestures would often perform better than official KSL gestures in the areas of preference and physical stress. The study also showed that there was a strong link between a gesture’s intuitiveness and the preference of the user.

A weaker link was shown between preference and physical stress, making intuitiveness a strong evaluation point in KSL. This study showed the weaknesses in the current KSL format compared to the strengths of user-designed gestures. The study performed by Korea Institute of Science and Technology in 2013 found, “Compared with other modalities of interaction, the use of gestures has many advantages,” (Woojin 2013). These advantages include: gestures are basic form of interaction, next to speech. Gestures are able to convey a number of meanings, this is present through other sign languages such as American Sign Language. KSL has military uses such as a method of communication when voice based and keyboard and mouse-based interaction is not possible. Commanders give hand signals to other members to convey messages to one another without alerting nearby forces. KSL also is used in hospital settings within the operating rooms. Gestures are used to communicate in environments where the need for sanitation prevent other forms of communication. The gestures encourage the breaking up of information. Each gesture has one meaning, easing the burden of human-computer interaction. Gestures are easily used with other methods, such as vocal communication. This is seen in other sign languages through mouthing out the word of each gesture. Using hands in order to communicate through gestures reduces physical stress by using simple gestures that put little strain on the arms and hands. The Korean Sign Language is managed and catalogued by the National Institute of the Korean Language (NIKL), which is a government agency tasked with providing authoritative commentary on Korean language in general. The NIKL, along with the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, has worked to standardize KSL starting in 2000, publishing the first official KSL dictionary in 2005, as well as a common phrasebook by 2012. However, the current resources for KSL produced by the government have been criticized for not representing the language used by native signers due to a lack of inclusion from them and being based on artificial translation from spoken Korean. Reportedly, the quality of KSL interpretation as used in the public sphere is poor, with "far lower than 50 percent" of the intended message being understood by Deaf people in standard media interpretations. The officially sanctioned signs for LGBT concepts have been particularly disparaged for being stigmatizing and overly sexualized, and an advocacy group named Korean Deaf LGBT was formed in 2019 to find and create alternative and new signs, which were first disseminated in 2021 and have gained significant usage among Deaf LGBT communities, allies and human rights groups.

Functional Markers

KSL, like other sign languages, incorporates nonmanual markers with lexical, syntactic, discourse, and affective functions. These include brow raising and furrowing, frowning, head shaking and nodding, and leaning and shifting the torso.