Korean
PrintA language of Korea, South
42,000,000 in Korea, South (1986). Population total all countries: 66,418,320.
Also in American Samoa, Australia, Bahrain, Belize, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Germany, Guam, Japan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Mauritania, Mongolia, Mozambique, New Zealand, Northern Mariana Islands, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Suriname, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, United States, Uzbekistan.
1 (National). De facto national language.
Cheju Island, Chollado (North Chollado, South Chollado), Ch’ungch’ongdo (North Ch’ungch’ong, South Ch’ungch’ong), Kyongsangdo (North Kyongsangdo, South Kyongsangdo), Seoul (Kangwondo, Kyonggido). Scholars differ as to whether or not Korean is related to Japanese [jpn]. Some suggest that both languages are possibly distantly related to the Altaic group. Dialect boundaries generally correspond to provincial boundaries. Some dialects are not easily intelligible with others (Voegelin and Voegelin 1977). The suffix, -do, on dialect names means Province. Comprehension of standard Korean may be lower on Cheju Island.
SOV
Jeju (Cheju) has been identified as a language separate from Cheju Island dialect of Korean, but not yet assigned an ISO code (Moseley 2010). Buddhist, Christian.