Korean is the native language for about 81.7 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both South Korea and North 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. South Korean newspaper Daily NK has claimed North Korea criminalizes the use of the South's standard language with the death penalty, and South Korean education and media often portray the North's language as alien and uncomfortable.
Hanja, alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period under the first Korean kingdom.
The Korean Alphabet Day, known as Hangeul Day (Korean: 한글날) in South Korea, and Chosŏn'gŭl Day (Korean: 조선글날) in North Korea, is a national Korean commemorative day marking the invention and proclamation of Hangul (한글), the Korean alphabet, by the 15th-century Korean king Sejong the Great. It is observed on October 9 in South Korea and January 15th in North Korea. Excluding the years 1990 to 2012, when the government maximized business days to expedite industrial growth, Hangul Day has been a national holiday in South Korea since 1970.
Korean monarchy existed in Korea until the end of the Japanese occupation and the defeat of Japan. After the independence and the installation of the Constitution that adopted republic system, the concept of nobility has been abolished, both formally and in practice.
Sungkyunkwan University is a private research university with campuses in Seoul and Suwon, South Korea.
Idu is an archaic writing system that represents the Korean language using Chinese characters ("hanja"). The script, which was developed by Buddhist monks, made it possible to record Korean words through their equivalent meaning or sound in Chinese.
Kanbun is a form of Classical Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period to the mid-20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for official and intellectual works throughout the period. As a result, Sino-Japanese vocabulary makes up a large portion of the Japanese lexicon and much classical Chinese literature is accessible to Japanese readers in some resemblance of the original. The corresponding system in Korean is gugyeol (口訣/구결).
Korean poetry is poetry performed or written in the Korean language or by Korean people. Traditional Korean poetry is often sung in performance. Until the 20th century, much of Korean poetry was written in Hanja and later Hangul.
Korean literature is the body of literature produced by Koreans, mostly in the Korean language and sometimes in Classical Chinese. For much of Korea's 1,500 years of literary history, it was written in Hanja. It is commonly divided into classical and modern periods, although this distinction is sometimes unclear. Korea is home to the world's first metal and copper type, the world's earliest known printed document and the world's first featural script.
Hyangchal is an archaic writing system of Korea and was used to transcribe the Korean language in Chinese characters. Using the hyangchal system, Chinese characters were given a Korean reading based on the syllable associated with the character. The hyangchal writing system is often classified as a subgroup of the Idu script.
Joseon white porcelain or Joseon baekja refers to the white porcelains produced during the Joseon dynasty (1392-1910).
Korean mixed script is a form of writing the Korean language that uses a mixture of the Korean alphabet or hangul and hanja, the Korean name for Chinese characters. The distribution on how to write words usually follows that all native Korean words, including suffixes, particles, and honorific markers are generally written in hangul and never in hanja. Sino-Korean vocabulary or hanja-eo, either words borrowed from Chinese or created from Sino-Korean roots, were generally always written in hanja, although very rare or complex characters were often substituted with hangul. Although the Korean alphabet was introduced and taught to people beginning in 1446, most literature until the early twentieth century was written in literary Chinese known as hanmun.
Yongbieocheonga, literally Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven, was the first work written in Hangul. The book was published in 1447 and written by Jeong Inji, An Ji and Kwon Jae. The preface was written by Seong Sam-mun and Pak Paengnyeon.
Jongmyo jerye (Korean: 종묘제례) or jongmyo daeje (종묘대제) is a traditional rite held for worshipping the deceased Joseon monarchs in Jongmyo Shrine, Seoul, South Korea. It is held every year on the first Sunday of May. The jongmyo rite is usually accompanied with the court music playing (Jerye-ak) and dance called Ilmu or line dance. Jongmyo jerye and jeryeak were designated as the first of South Korea's Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2001.
The Chinese family of scripts includes writing systems used to write various East Asian languages, that ultimately descend from the oracle bone script invented in the Yellow River valley during the Shang dynasty. These include written Chinese itself, as well as adaptations of it for other languages, such as Japanese kanji, Korean hanja, Vietnamese chữ Hán and chữ Nôm, Zhuang sawgun and sawndip, and Bai bowen. More divergent are Tangut, Khitan large script and its offspring Jurchen, as well as the Yi script, Sui script, and Geba syllabary, which were inspired by written Chinese but not descended directly from it. While written Chinese and many of its descendant scripts are logographic, others are phonetic, including the kana, Nüshu, and Lisu syllabaries, as well as the bopomofo semi-syllabary.
The traditional periodization of Korean distinguishes:
Gwon Geun was a Korean Neo-Confucian scholar at the dawn of the Joseon dynasty, and a student of Yi Saek. He was one of the first Neo-Confucian scholars of the Joseon dynasty, and had a lasting influence on the rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea.
Middle Korean is the period in the history of the Korean language succeeding Old Korean and yielding in 1600 to the Modern period. The boundary between the Old and Middle periods is traditionally identified with the establishment of Goryeo in 918, but some scholars have argued for the time of the Mongol invasions of Korea. Middle Korean is often divided into Early and Late periods corresponding to Goryeo and Joseon respectively. It is difficult to extract linguistic information from texts of the Early period, which are written using adaptations of Chinese characters. The situation was transformed in 1446 by the introduction of the Hangul alphabet, so that Late Middle Korean provides the pivotal data for the history of Korean.
Hanmunhak or Literary Chinese literature in Korea is Korean literature written in Literary Chinese, which represents an early phase of Korean literature and influenced the literature written in the Korean language.
Chinese writing, culture and institutions were imported as a whole by Vietnam, Korea, Japan and other neighbouring states over an extended period. Chinese Buddhism spread over East Asia between the 2nd and 5th centuries AD, followed by Confucianism as these countries developed strong central governments modelled on Chinese institutions. In Vietnam and Korea, and for a shorter time in Japan and the Ryukyus, scholar-officials were selected using examinations on the Confucian classics modelled on the Chinese civil service examinations. Shared familiarity with the Chinese classics and Confucian values provided a common framework for intellectuals and ruling elites across the region. All of this was based on the use of Literary Chinese, which became the medium of scholarship and government across the region. Although each of these countries developed vernacular writing systems and used them for popular literature, they continued to use Chinese for all formal writing until it was swept away by rising nationalism around the end of the 19th century.
