Korean ( 한 국 어 / 조 선 말 ) is the most widely spoken language in Korea, and is the official

language of South and North Korea. It is also widely spoken in Yanbian in northeastern China.
In all, there are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide including major groups in the
USSR, US, Canada and Japan. The official classification of Korean is still not universally
approved, but it is considered by many to be an isolate language. Some linguists include it in the
Altaic group. Korean is also much similar to Japanese, whose kinship status is also unclear.

The original Korean writing system - called Hangul - is a syllabic and phonetic system. Sino-
Korean (Hanja) characters are also used to write Korean. Although the most commonly used
words are Hangul, more than 70% of the Korean vocabulary consists of words formed from
Hanja or taken from Chinese.

Basically, Korean language has dialects which are related to one another. Every region can
understand other dialects, except for Jeju Island dialect which is considered less understandable
than other provincial dialects.

Dialects
Main articles: Korean dialects and Koreanic languages

Dialects of Korean

Vocabulary
The use of Chinese characters brought a large number of loanwords into the Korean language
with the result that more than half of Korean vocabulary is made up of borrowings from Chinese.
Despite the Japanese occupation, there are surprisingly few Japanese borrowings, mostly limited
to the spoken language. Korean has also borrowed from Western European languages,
particularly from English.

Below are some basic words and phrases in Korean.

Hello annyong haseyo (informal) 안녕하세요

Goodbye annyonghi kasayo (to person leaving); 안녕히 가세요
annyonghi kyesayo (to person staying)
Thank kamsahamnida 감사합니다
you
I’m sorry mianhamnida 미안합니다
Yes ne 네
No aniyo 아니요
Man salam 사람
Woman eojia 여자