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Top 11 Korean Language Secrets You Never Knew

In our Online Korean Language courses in Kolkata, students often ask our trainers about the uniqueness of this language. But, it is a part of history and cannot be told just by using some sentences. We will try our best to tell you some of the 10 secret facts about the Korean Language.

Top 11 Korean Language Secrets

1. Known as KUGO

This language is also known as the ‘KUGO.’

2. More than 77 Million Korean Speakers Worldwide

Do you know that more than 77 million people on Earth speak Korean? This is a statistic of 2011, hence the actual numbers of Korean Speakers worldwide would be more than the said figure.

Korean Language Alphabets

Not only South Korean (42 million) and North Korean (20 million) people speak Korean, but there are others too. There are 2 million people in China (Yanbian Prefecture and Changbai County) who speak Korean. In Japan and Russia, you can find half a million Korean speakers. In the USA, there are more than 600,000 people who speak Korean.

3. Language Isolates – Sole Language in the Family

The Korean Language is classified as Language Isolates. It means it cannot be grouped with any other languages into a larger language family. This language is known as the only member of its own language family.

Basque is the only other language that is classified as Language Isolates.

4. Verbs come last in the Korean Language

In any sentence of the Korean Language, the verbs always come at last. This is an interesting fact and also a feature of this language that every learner should know about. It is called SOV Language where the Subject comes first, Object comes second, and the Verb comes last.

5. Largely influenced by Chinese Vocabulary

Although Korean is known as Language Isolates, its vocabulary is largely influenced by the Chinese Language. There are up to 60% of Korean words have Chinese origin due to their history is connected to the past. But the grammar of both Korean and Chinese is completely distinct.

6. Two Separate Systems for Counting

In the Korean Language, two separate systems exist for counting numbers. Here, small and large numbers use non-identical vocabulary. For counting objects, telling about people’s age, mentioning hours in time, people utilize Korean Native vocabulary. This rule is applicable till the counting is up to 99.

Korean money Counting

After the number goes above 99, people use Chinese originated system in the Korean Language. People use this counting system at the time of counting money, distances, dates, and minutes (when telling the time).

7. Chinese Alphabets used till the 15th Century

Till the 15th Century, the Korean language had no own alphabetical system. People were using the Chinese characters as Korean alphabets. The modern Korean writing system is developed in 1443 by king Sejong the Great. Korean alphabets are known as Hangul.

8. “Capital City” is called Seoul in Korean

Everyone knows that Seoul is the Capital of South Korea. But, the meaning of the Korean word ‘Seoul’ means “Capital City.”

9. Similarities with Other Languages

The Korean language is somewhat similar to the other languages like Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families. Due to the similarities, some experts consider Koreanic and Japonic languages as a part of the proposed and hypothetical Altaic language family.

10. South Korean and North Korean Language is Different from each other

Due to South Korean and North Korean people have parted their ways long ago, their language has been evolved differently. Hence, we can see different grammar systems, pronunciations, and vocabularies between these two languages.

11. Highly Decorated Honorifics System

In the Korean Language, they use decorate Honorifics system to show social status or hierarchy in their society. For this purpose, they have a separate set of titles, words, and phrases. Korean also utilizes seven different speech levels. Among them, the most common are formal, standard, and informal.

Conclusion

These are some of the most interesting and little-known secrets about the Korean Language you can know about. Students who join our Korean Language online classes can tell more about them.

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