korean

Korean (South Korean: 한국어/韓國語, hangugeo; North Korean: 조선말/朝鮮말, chosŏnmal) is an East Asian language spoken by about 77 million people, mainly Korean, as of 2010. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (originally Korea), with different standardized official forms used in each country. It is a recognised minority language in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture and Changbai Korean Autonomous County of Jilin Province, China. It is also spoken in parts of Sakhalin, Russia and Central Asia.Modern linguists generally classify Korean as a language isolate and its connection to languages such as Japanese is unclear; however, it does have a few extinct relatives, which together with Korean itself and the Jeju language (spoken in the Jeju Province) form the Koreanic language family. The linguistic homeland of Korean is suggested to be somewhere in Manchuria.Modern Korean is written in Hangul, a system developed in the 15th century for that purpose. Modern Hangul uses 24 basic letters and 27 complex letters. Originally Korean was written in Hanja, based on the Chinese characters, and Hanja is still used to a very limited extent in South Korea.

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